The History of England

Hume's 1754-1761 six-volume 'History of England' — the bestselling history of its century

Tradition: Scottish Enlightenment / philosophical history / British political-historical writing

Hume's 1754-61 'History of England' — the bestselling history of the eighteenth century

Published in six volumes 1754-1761 in reverse chronological order (the Stuart volume first, the early-medieval last) and continuously revised through Hume's 1776 death, 'The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688' was the bestselling history of the eighteenth century in Britain. Hume had embarked on the History after the disappointing reception of the Treatise (1739-40) and the moderate success of the Essays (1741-42, 1752); he hoped to make himself a name as historian rather than as philosopher. The strategy worked: the History brought Hume substantial income (it was the principal source of his eventual financial independence) and considerable fame. The six volumes treat: (I) Stuart from 1603 to the Glorious Revolution of 1688; (II) early Stuart and the Civil War; (III-IV) Tudor; (V) Plantagenet and earlier; (VI) early medieval and Saxon. Hume's distinctive contributions are (a) the philosophical-historical method — Tacitean concision, sceptical psychology of motivation, attention to manners and political economy alongside high politics; (b) the moderate-Tory rehabilitation of the Stuarts against the Whig-historiographical consensus that had dominated post-1688 British historiography (Hume defends Charles I as a sincere but politically inept monarch, treats Cromwell more sceptically than the Whig tradition had); (c) the integration of British history into a broader European philosophical-political vision. It made Hume wealthy and famous; he himself preferred it to all his philosophical works. The History was the standard work on its subject from the 1750s through Macaulay's countervailing History of England (1848-61).