Discord Consensus

established’ and where knowledge ‘did not belong to the historian who
had collected it, but to the subject’ 20 –​ a tradition that persisted into early
nineteenth-​century popularising work. The review of Grattan’s History
in the Monthly Magazine recognised as much with its reference to ‘the
abridgements which have lately become so common, and which, in nine
instances out of ten, are but contrivances for preserving the husks of
literature’. It went on to exonerate Grattan’s own compilation from the
charge, however: due to the proliferation of works devoted to specific
aspects and periods, the ‘histories of Holland and Belgium are among
the fittest for the operation’. 21
Grattan’s synthesis drew on a wide range of sources in many languages
(including Dutch, which he obviously mastered to some extent),
combining acknowledgements to luminaries of European historiography
such as Tacitus, Gibbon, Hume and Voltaire with references
to work on the Netherlands by writers as diverse as Schiller, Barante,
Wagenaar and the latter’s French abridger/​translator Cerisier, as well
as local sources such as Oude Vriesche Wetten. His familiarity with
local historiography is also evident from his reliance on such authors
as L. L. J. Vandervynckt and Emanuel Van Meteren. 22 Grattan’s selection
of sources is quite ecumenical: they include Catholics (e.g. Strada,
Bentivoglio) and Protestants (e.g. Hooft, Grotius), royalists (e.g. Strada),
Patriots (e.g. Wagenaar) and Orangists (e.g. Frederick Henry’s Memoirs)
alike, British Whig historians (Rapin, Robertson) and the more wary
and sceptical Hume. He also used Belgian sources that were critical of
King William, such as the Catholic priest Joseph-​Jean De Smet’s Histoire
de la Belgique. 23 The allegiances of such sources are occasionally flagged
in footnotes, as when an unflattering description of Cardinal Granvelle
is accompanied by the footnote: ‘Strada, a royalist, Jesuit, and therefore
a fair witness on this point, used the following words in portraying the
character of this odious minister: Animum avidum invidumque, ac simultates
inter principem et populos occulti foventum’ (90). 24
Grattan had the advantage of being at work on an area of European
history that was experiencing a boom in precisely those years. King
William’s encouragement to historiographers was also reflected in a
governmental ‘impetus for the organization and publication of records’ 25
that led to the disclosure of archival material and the reissue of older
chronicles. This followed an already intense period of historiographic
activity in the late eighteenth century, stimulated by the Académie
Impériale et Royale des Sciences et Belles Lettres in the Southern
Netherlands and the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde in the
United Provinces. 26 Grattan’s luck lay in being able to combine direct
A twice-told tale of a (dis)united kingdom 45