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The publication of Geoffrey Holmes's British Politics in the Age of Anne, arguably, did more than any other volume of the period to reinvigorate interest in the house of lords in the Augustan period. The upper chamber, which had been largely overlooked by historians such as Sir Lewis Namier and Robert Walcott, had come to be regarded as a very inferior partner to the house of commons, populated by great landowners whose principal interest was to see the furtherance of their kinship networks. Holmes's work demonstrated clearly the central role of the Lords in British political life and revised radically the accepted orthodoxy that family predominated over ideology in the early 18th century. This article seeks to reassess Holmes's contribution to the study of the Lords in the light of research undertaken since the publication of British Politics and to suggest some ways in which Holmes's model, which remains broadly unassailable, might be reshaped.
