Sample Annotated Bibliography
(Please note that not every entry here has annotation. On your bibliography, every entry must be
annotated.)
Arnstein, Walter L. “Queen Victoria Opens Parliament: The Disinvention of Tradition,” Historical
Research 63, no. 151 (1990): 178-194.
______________. “Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee,” American Scholar 66, no. 4(1997): 591-597.
____________. “The Warrior Queen: Reflections on Victoria and Her World,” Albion (Spring 1998)30 (1): 1-28.
Bogdanor, Vernon. The Monarchy and the Constitution. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995.
Bogdanor’s work is the first really since Maitland to truly analyze the political role of the monarch in
Britain and what powers still remain with the monarch. Bogdanor highlights the current Queen’s role in asking a
particular MP to form a government prior to the reforms in the party system. Bogdanor also argues that much of
the current apolitical climate was not so much evolution but was rather born out of the abdication crisis of Edward
VIII. George V, unschooled to be kind, was handed Maitland’s work as primer and took Maitland’s assertions to
heart, though they were an argument more for what Maitland wanted of the monarchy rather than what actually
was.
Bradley, Ian. God Save the Queen: The Spiritual Dimension of Monarchy. London: Darton, Longman and Todd,
Ltd., 2002.
Consideration of monarchy in OT & NT, as well as the idea of sacred kingship in Middle Ages.
Discussion of the reality of Prince Charles’ comments on the coronation oath.
Butterfield, P. H. “From Monarch to Monarch ... Cetewayo’s Letters to Queen Victoria,” Africana Notes and News
28, no. 5(1989): 197-204.
Cannadine, David. “The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the
‘Invention of Tradition,’ c. 1820-1977.” In The Invention of Tradition, 43-164. 1983. Reprint
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.
Cannadine’s argument is that traditions or cultural symbolism became important as a way to neutralize the
political role of the monarchy in the face of the rising importance of the people.
p.116: He comments only national funerals connected with the public were not royal B but he misses the reactions
to Wellington’s funeral. His argument that ceremony was not part of the monarchy’s role prior to the 19 th century
and that these were invented occasions (like the Queen dowagers funerals) shows a limited understanding of
Tudor ceremony at the very least.
This invention business only works if you take a very broad view. In the details, the argument breaks
down. With cultural history, one must begin with the details – not the theory. We must remember our Geertz.
Instead of the invention of tradition, it is more about changing the meanings of ceremony. Ceremony has always
had a constructed element to it – religious symbolism, pageantry of the Tudors, etc. Now the meaning changes as
the political climate changes. The question rather is what new role of cultural symbol does in fact emerge. Does
political power eliminate symbolism? No.
Fair, John D. “Walter Bagehot, Royal Mediation, and the Modern British Constitution, 1869-1931,”
Historian 43, no. 1(1980): 36-54.
Gullickson, Gay L. “Women, Power and Myth” Journal of Women's History, 12, no. 2 (2000): 199-204.
Hackett, Helen. “Dreams or Designs, Cults or Constructions? The Study of the Images of Monarchs,”
Historical Journal 44, no. 3 (2001): 811-823.
Historiographical review of Roy Strong’s Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry
(1977,99); Andrienne Munch’s Queen Victoria’s Secrets (1996); Thomas N.Corns, ed. The Royal Image:
Representations of Charles I (1999); Jayne Elizabeth Lewis, Mary Queen of Scots: Romans and Nation (1998); R.
Malcolm Smuts, Culture and Power in England, 1585-1685 (1999)
Reminds of the necessity to include both a consideration of the media and psychoanalytical considerations &
deliberate political constructions.
Harris, R. G. “Queen Victoria’s Indian Escort, June 1897,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical
Research, 74, no. 298 (1996): 73-75.
Homans, Margaret. “‘To the Queen’s Private Apartments’: Royal Family Portraiture and the Construction
of Victoria’s Sovereign Obedience,” Victorian Studies 37, no. 1 (1993): 1-41.
Kuhn, William M. “The Future of the British Monarchy,” Journal of British Studies 38, no.2 (1999): 267-272.
Review of Bogdanor (The Monarchy & the Constitution); Prochaska (Royal Bounty); Munich’s Queen
Victoria’s Secrets & Pimlott’s The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II
Kuhn, William M.; Paz, D. G. “Democratic Royalism: William Ewart Gladstone and the Founding of the Modern
British Monarchy,” Consortium on Revolutionary Europe 1750-1850: Proceedings 1994 23: 538-545.
Kuhn, William M. “Ceremony and Politics: The British Monarchy, 1871-1872,” Journal of British Studies 26, no.
2 (1987) : 133-162.
__________. “Queen Victoria’s Civil List: What Did She Do with It?” Historical Journal 36, no.3 (1993): 645665.
Lant, Jeffrey L. Insubstantial Pageant: Ceremony and Confusion at Queen Victoria’s Court. New York:
Taplinger Publishing Co., 1980.
Lant examines the various ceremonies of Victoria’s early reign but does not include her funeral. Her
coronation ceremony was fraught with miscommunications and errors – particularly concerning what to do with
the orb. He also discusses the problems of a lack of continuity in the protocol office.
Pimlott, Ben. “Jubilee and the Idea of Royalty,” Historian 76 (2002): 6-15.
Speech given the Mendicott Lecture at the Historical Association April 2002. Pimlott, author of a
biography of the Queen, argues effectively that “royalty” as an idea has been neglected by the historical
community because it makes them uncomfortable. Comparison of furor over Diana’s death to that over the
Princess Charlotte’s in childbirth. References to royal touch and the significance of the anointing at the
coronation, but not in depth study. Only barely mentions the body politic connection.
Plunkett, John. “A Media Monarchy? Queen Victoria and the Radical Press, 1837-1901,” Media History
9, no. 1 (2003): 3-18.
Prochaska, Frank. Royal Bounty: The Making of A Welfare Monarchy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.
This book is a consideration of the charitable works of the monarchs and the royal family since the era of
George III. The Prince of Wales’ trust is examined thoroughly, as is the wartime work of George V & Queen
Mary. He combats the idea that Diana was the first to reach out to the lower classes. He does criticize some
younger (at the time of the writing—Charles is now over 60) members of the royal family, but particularly praises
the Princess Royal.
Reiton, E. A. “Civil List in 18 th Century British Politics: Parliamentary Supremacy versus the Independence of the
Crown,” Historical Journal 9, no. 3 (1966) : 318-337.