EARL REITAN is Professor of History Emeritus at Ilinois State University, USA. He is co-author of English Heritage (1988) and author of Politics, War and Empire: the Rise of Britain to a World Power, 1688-1792 (1994), The Thatcher Revolution: Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and the Transformation of Modern Britain, 1979-2001 (2003), and a series of articles on the Civil List in Eighteenth-century British politics.