Discord Consensus

ut that he also subtly modified some of the earlier chapters, particularly
with regard to the eighteenth century. Taking up his pen while the dust
of the 1830 revolution was still settling, the historian declares himself
‘unable to sift the complicated mass of motives and impulses’: the events
‘have not yet found their just appreciation, nor their proper place’, ‘the
voice of history’ is ‘choked by emotions, and cannot yet speak the truth’
(1833: 405). For all these disavowals, Grattan’s reworked version and
his analysis of the Belgian revolution proceed from a relatively coherent
vision –​one that squares an apparently remarkable change of heart with
the equally sudden shift in British foreign policy towards support for the
Belgian state, and with Grattan’s Irish Whig patriotic principles.
In 1830, Grattan’s concluding paragraph argued that Holland
and Belgium had been ‘grafted together, with all the force of legislative
wisdom’ (351). The last clause was wisely dropped in the revised edition
(1833: 378), yet Grattan still opined that the ‘original conception
of the project’ was sound, devoting more than seven pages to explanations
‘which remove [. . .] all reproach of evil intention or imprudent
calculations from the creators of the Kingdom of the Netherlands’.
However, ‘manifest mistakes in its plan and execution’ ensured its failure
(1833: 359). Circumstances had yet been favourable: the passage of
time had ‘softened down many of the asperities of national character’
which had led to internal conflicts in the Renaissance:
A more tolerant spirit of Christianity, an increased extension of
philosophic views, better defined principles of international law, a
fairer estimate of commercial interests, a true appreciation of the
values of individual sacrifices for general ends, all tended to give
encouragement to the newly revived plan. (1833: 361)
Grattan traces the failure of the project to King William’s own personal
limitations. Echoing the Belgian commentators who defended the revolution
as a logical reaction to the King’s policies, Grattan confirms that
‘it was king William alone who was to blame’ (1833: 406). 38 Grattan’s
account of the reign may not amount to a wholesale character assassination,
as he recognises how difficult William’s position as monarch of
the united Netherlands was. But the King signally failed to rise to the
momentous occasion:
Had he succeeded to the quiet inheritance of his stadtholderate
[. . .] he would most probably have run a course of respectable
mediocrity [. . .] The hereditary dignity to which he was born, or
A twice-told tale of a (dis)united kingdom 49