Historical Context

In October 1796, at the age of 21, Jane Austen started writing what would become Pride and Prejudice. It was published in 1813. It is hard to pinpoint exactly which year Pride and Prejudice is set, the early 19^th century is perhaps most likely. It is certainly during a period when Britain and France gain a temporary peace, as the last chapter mentions “the restoration of peace” (P&P: 253). In Pride and Prejudice we witness the presence of the militia, which signifies what Austen’s contemporary readers knew: Britain was at war with revolutionary France.

The year 1789 brought about the French Revolution: bringing down the aristocratic rule of France. The “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen” was created, and feudal privileges were abolished. Anxiety soon followed amongst the aristocracy elsewhere in Europe, as they worried these revolutionary ideas would spread and overthrow the ruling

classes in other countries. Tensions in Europe were running high: culminating with the beheading of the French king in 1793, and the French declaration of war against Britain the same year. The French Revolutionary Wars soon drew in most of the nations of Western-Europe into a lengthy conflict.

Actions of war came in intervals, at times the countries of Europe were at peace for shorter periods. From 1800-1815 the conflicts are known as the Napoleonic Wars, where France fought against opposing coalitions, including Britain. The Napoleonic Wars were

characteristic for its constantly shifting allies; the one continuous enmity was between Britain and France. It is difficult to say where the French Revolutionary Wars ended and where the Napoleonic Wars began, but after Napoleon’s seizure of power in 1799 France became an even more potent enemy to Britain. Napoleon represented the new confidence in social mobility and individual talent, which the French Revolution had wrought. Nearly all of Europe fell to Napoleon, he almost accomplished uniting Western-Europe under one rule;

something which had not been seen since the days of Charlemagne in the 800s CE. The unification of Europe was certainly a possible outcome in 1807 and 1810.

As the war spread, so did the new ideas and institutions that the French Revolution had brought about. France, and its’ radical ideas, was thus a potent enemy against Britain’s independence, and against its’ aristocratic landowners. Unlike many of the coalition partners, Britain was at war throughout the Napoleonic Wars, being at peace with France only at intervals. However, being protected by its naval supremacy and natural defences of being an island-nation, the people of Britain experienced little warfare. The people were taxed, as to keep the war machine running, but otherwise life continued as it had before. Badmouthing the French had, after all, been a British trait for as long as anyone could remember.

In the year 1805, Admiral Nelson defeated an armada of French and Spanish ships at Trafalgar, which caused the British to admire the navy as superstars and national heroes.

Although the British mainland did not see any fighting, the underlying tension caused by the French Revolution and the following wars is present in Austen’s fiction. For instance, Pride and Prejudice’s Lady Catherine has a rigid view on stepping over ones’ class boundaries; a sign of the nervousness which the aristocracy felt. On the other hand, we also see that some of the aristocratic landowners were able to adapt new ideas, e.g. Darcy is described as being a liberal man (P&P: 172). Hence, the British populace was not immune to the ideas seeping from France.

The class anxiety was accompanied by the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution. Up till 1800, the work of the world was done by people with tools. After 1800 manual labour was slowly being replaced by machines. The first country to be profoundly affected by

industrialization was Great Britain, starting in the 1780s with inventions in the textile

industry. Armed with new inventions to speed up productivity, factories and factory owners in the North became major parts of Britain’s economic system. Britain was moving from an agricultural economy to a more urban industry, which signifies that the base of power was shifting from landowners to factory owners and tradesmen. Britain thus became a money power, or as Napoleon put it, “a nation of shopkeepers”. The facts that the economy is changing, and that the base of power is shifting are evident with the gentry in decline, which we will witness in both Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. In the novels there are signs of nervousness regarding class boundaries, signalling social changes in their infancy.

Austen began working on Persuasion in 1815, the year when the Napoleonic Wars

definitively ended. It was published posthumously in 1817. Persuasion is set in two periods of time: 1806, when Anne and Wentworth met and fell in love, and in 1814/1815 when they meet again. In 1814 Napoleon was defeated and exiled to Elba, and Britain and France were finally at peace. However, the following year Napoleon escaped, and war was renewed: the men of the navy were needed once more. That same year Napoleon was definitively defeated, but despite his defeat the world had utterly changed. “Wentworth and Anne are thus

embedded in history, their own and the nation’s” (Todd, 2006: 116).

The results of the Napoleonic Wars were the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, and the first inklings of nationalism which would be the basis for Germany and Italy’s respective consolidation at the end of the century. Furthermore, the once glorious Spanish Empire, ruled by the Habsburgs, unravelled during France’s occupation of Spain. This effectually made it possible for the Spanish colonies in America to revolt. If anyone was the winner of the

Napoleonic Wars it was Britain. In the following century, it was the only empire left standing:

with its supreme naval power and steaming industry, the age of Pax Britannica began.

(Palmer, 2007: 370-431, 435-442).

The world Austen describes is not a fantasy world. Although the events above are rarely explicitly mentioned in her fiction, they underline the setting: which her contemporary readers would be aware of.