Discord Consensus

France being another example of ‘bigoted atrocity’ (229), while James II
was an ‘obstinately bigoted and unconstitutional successor’ (291) to the
English throne. At the same time, Grattan’s brand of Protestant patriotism
could, like that of his illustrious relative Henry Grattan, combine
hostility to the Church of Rome’s influence on politics with support for
Catholic Emancipation in the British Isles. 30 William the Silent is thus
characterised in the History as ‘a conscientious Christian, in the broad
sense of the term’: ‘deeply imbued with the spirit of universal toleration’,
he ‘considered the various shades of belief as subservient to the
one grand principle of civil and religious liberty’ (173). In other chapters,
Grattan sometimes shows accommodation to Catholic sensibilities:
he approvingly notes how, in 1566, ‘several Catholic priests’ put
their signatures on the ‘muster-​roll of patriotism’ that condemned the
‘illegal establishment of the Inquisition in the Low Countries’ (105), and
while he devotes some pages to the struggle between William of Orange
and James II (291–​4), he omits any explicit reference to the Battle of
the Boyne that, in an Irish context, would have smacked of Protestant
triumphalism.
Grattan’s exaltation of Dutch freedom is based on political rather
than religious arguments: his History has little time for theology (‘we
do not regret on this occasion that our confined limits spare us the task
of recording in detail controversies on points of speculative doctrine far
beyond the reach of human understanding’, 231) 31 and denounces every
form of religious excess, whether from Jesuits or Gomarists. The broadly
liberal sympathies of the Irish Protestant patriot lead Grattan to praise
Oldenbarnevelt as much he did William the Silent: the Land’s Advocate
(named Barneveldt in the text) is ‘one of the truest patriots of any time
or country’ (231), who was unluckily pitted against Maurice, a soldier
by temperament, whose ‘misfortune’ it was ‘to have been so completely
thrown out of the career for which he had been designed by nature and
education’ (230). Praising Orange and Patriots alike, Grattan’s History
also echoes the renewed Dutch emphasis on national consensus that,
following the French occupation, tended to gloss over old disputes. 32
In its closing chapters, the 1830 version gives ample room to the
resurgence of Dutch freedom incarnated by the new king William of
Orange, whose addresses to the Dutch nation are quoted at length –​
including passages that stress British support for the Netherlands and
the happy restoration of ‘those ancient bonds of alliance and friendship
which were a source of prosperity and happiness to both countries’
(335). 33 Regarding the creation of the United Kingdom, Grattan
does not eschew the difficulties inherent in the ‘hard and delicate task
A twice-told tale of a (dis)united kingdom 47