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to eighteenth-century studies to date. Quite simply, the period's stability and prosperity were built on 'a massive consensus, based on aristocratic values and aristocratic leadership'. The political and social elite was not sustained by a grisly use of repressive law to defend property rights, because it had neither the wish nor the capacity to use the law in this way. Albion's fatal tree was at best a sapling. Everyone so loved a lord that aristocratic values survived the sling shots of the French Revolution, and the opening of the twentieth century still saw a marquess as prime minister. As Professor Cannon points out, the reasons for the success of England's aristocracy are difficult to fathom, and even more so when certain well- established myths are laid to rest. Cannon clearly enjoys dabbling in exorcism. Hard on the heels of Lawrence Stone, he too takes bell, book and candle to the idea that the aristocracy survived because its 'open' character allowed talent and wealth to be absorbed rather than frustrated. Only one thousand and three individuals held titles in the eighteenth century, remarkably comparable, as Cannon points out, to Don Giovanni's conquests in Spain. There was not much scope for new men to enter the ranks, and even the massive Pittite creations at the end of the century represented a 'recycling' of titles rather than real ennoblement. The titles conferred on Eldon and Carrington were talked about because they were odd rather than typical. England's aristocracy may have been much less 'open' than that which came to grief in France in 1789. Warming to his theme, Professor Cannon then sets about a number of other cherished assumptions. To talk, for instance, of the declining importance of the House of Lords is no longer reasonable. By 1786, peers controlled or decisively influenced the return of 210 members of the House of Commons. Their domination of Cabinets was equally impressive. In the course of the century, they insinuated themselves into the cosiest positions available in the Church, the armed forces and the diplomatic service. As Lords-Lieutenant, they naturally had a strong voice in local government. If the House of Lords was good-tempered in the eighteenth century, therefore, it was because it had nothing to do. Its members were contentedly living in the best of all possible worlds. While their European contemporaries battled with kings and democrats to defend their privileges, English aristocrats raised the notion of the balanced constitution into a national totem and used its authority to cover their own assumption of power. In splendid chapters, Cannon goes on to point out that, although the concept of aristocracy in England lacked apologists of the weight of St. Simon and Montesquieu, it nevertheless operated vigorously and even viciously. The English peer would have been educated at one of six schools and two universities, and, like as not, this meant Eton and Westminster, Christ Church and Trinity. Having been educated together, they then overwhelmingly married each other's daughters, nieces and cousins. This elite was no more 'open' in its marriages than in its politics. Closing ranks, the aristocracy preserved, or slightly increased, its share of national wealth through the century, and, so far from allowing