How Is Napoleon A Loyalist?

British opinions on Napoleon were largely divisive and formulated by the radicals and the loyalists: the radicals believed in the same principles as revolutionary France and demanded change, whereas loyalists were devoted to king and country and entirely opposed to every aspect of ‘Napoleon’. In ‘British uses for Napoleon’ Stuart Semmel discusses the various criticisms and defences of Napoleon by British loyalists and radicals. He states that many radicals became disillusioned with Napoleon upon his self-coronation as emperor in 1804 and in doing so felt he abandoned the revolutionary principles that originally endeared him to them, resulting in many diverting to loyalist ideologies. However, many still sympathized with Napoleon and in some circumstances, people shifted from loyalist to radical influences because of
Consequently, the British radicals accused the loyalists of inventing the term ‘legitimacy’ merely as a way of denouncing Napoleon. However, the radicals used the loyalist’s argument against them by pointing out that the existing British dynasty does not originate in Britain and that the nation in fact had a recent history of similar ‘legitimacy’ problems such as William of Orange’s 1688 acquisition of the throne and the Hanoverian Succession in 1714. Semmel perfectly describes the loyalists’ hypocrisy stating ‘‘by defending an unpopular hereditary crusade against a popular ruler – the Regent would chip away at the very principle that had installed his own family on Britain’s throne’’. The radicals used the Glorious Revolution to argue that Napoleon’s claim to power was in no way distinctive from William III’s in England by reminding their opponents that ‘‘the existing political establishment rested on a successful