Career
Petrie was known for his interest in
royalism and
Jacobitism, particularly for his 1926 essay in
counterfactual history,
If: A Jacobite Fantasy. It has
Bonnie Prince Charlie go on from Derby to Oxford (albeit to a cool reception), but just as all seems lost, the Duke of Newcastle appears in haste to tell him that George II, the head of the
House of Hanover dynasty, has fled back to Hanover, and belatedly declares his loyalty. (It has been speculated by some historians that Newcastle, known to have flirted with Jacobitism, was actually contemplating a judicious "conversion" to the Stuart cause when the Prince's army reached Derby.) As a result, large elements of the people and army came over to the Stuart side, and there was never the disastrous retreat and thus, there was never a
Battle of Culloden in 1746, all leading to a Jacobite restoration and to the successive reigns of James III (
The Old Pretender), Charles III, Henry IX and the continued tenure of the
House of Stuart until the 20th century. It also depicts the
American Revolution as not taking place because of the judicious intervention of Charles Edward,
George Washington going on to become a great British general, and other flights of fantasy. He was a member of the Jacobite
Royal Stuart Society. Several of Petrie's books deal with
Charles I's government towards which he was broadly sympathetic. He published biographies of
Lord Bolingbroke, of the early-20th-century British cabinet minister
Walter Long, and of three Spanish kings:
Philip II,
Charles III, and
Alfonso XIII. Another biography of his dealt with a fourth notable Spaniard, Philip II's half-brother
Don John of Austria. During the 1930s Petrie flirted with the far right. Impressed at first by
Benito Mussolini on whom he produced a short and respectful book in 1931, he attended the 1932
Volta Conference of fascists and sympathisers. Disposed initially to favour Sir
Oswald Mosley, he joined in 1934 the broadly pro-Mosley
January Club. At the same time, he remained publicly hostile towards
Nazism, and his later view of Mosley, as expressed in his 1972 memoir
A Historian Looks at his World, was thoroughly unflattering. Among Petrie's journalistic posts was that of literary editor for the generally-conservative
New English Review. He supported, with reservations, Spanish dictator General
Francisco Franco and was a friend of a leading pro-Franco diplomat, the
17th Duke of Alba. Along with
NER editor
Douglas Francis Jerrold, Petrie formed in 1937 a group concerned to put the Nationalist case on the fighting in the
Spanish Civil War. After 1945 he edited the
Household Brigade Magazine, as well as writing regularly for the
Illustrated London News and
Catholic Herald, in addition to being co-editor (with Jerrold) of the
New English Review's short-lived successor,
English Review Magazine. During the late 1930s, Petrie championed
Neville Chamberlain but subsequently was an adherent, again with reservations, of
Winston Churchill. In 1941, he attempted unsuccessfully to be adopted as Conservative Party candidate for Dorset South. He was rejected, according to
Andrew Roberts in
Eminent Churchillians, because he was too closely identified with
appeasement. He was appointed CBE in 1957. == Works ==
Works
• Two Essays in Spanish History, Hugh Egerton & Co., 1922. • The White Rose: A Historical Drama in Three Acts, Hugh Egerton & Co., 1923. • The History of Government, Little, Brown, and Company, 1929. • Mussolini, Holme Press, 1931. • The Jacobite Movement, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1932. • Monarchy, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1933. • The Stuart Pretenders – A History of The Jacobite Movement, 1688–1807, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1933. • The History of Spain, Eyre And Spottiswoode, 1934 [with Louis Bertrand]. • Spain, Arrowsmith, 1934. • The Letters Speeches and Proclamations of King Charles I, Cassell, 1935. • The Four Georges A Revaluation of the Period From 1714 to 1830, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1935. • William Pitt, Duckworth, 1935. • Walter Long and his Times, Hutchinson & Co., ltd. 1936. • Lords of the Inland Sea: A Study of the Mediterranean Powers, L. Dickson Limited, 1937. • Bolingbroke, Collins, 1937. • The Stuarts, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1937. • The Chamberlain Tradition, L. Dickson, Limited, 1938. • The Chamberlain Tradition, Frederick A. Stokes, 1938. Revised from the earlier English edition to incorporate current events. • Louis XIV, T. Butterworth, ltd., 1938. • The Life and Letters of The Right Hon. Sir Austen Chamberlain K.G., P.C., M.P, Cassel, 1939/1940 [2 volumes]. • Joseph Chamberlain, Duckworth, 1940. • ''Twenty Years' Armistice – and After: British Foreign Policy Since 1918,'' Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1940. • When Britain Saved Europe, the Tale and the Moral, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1941. • George Canning,, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 2nd ed., 1946. • Diplomatic History, 1713–1933, Hollis and Carter, 1946. online • The Private Diaries (March 1940 to January 1941) of Paul Baudouin, 1948 [translator]. • Earlier Diplomatic History, 1492–1713, Hollis and Carter, 1949. * The Jacobite Movement. The First Phase 1688–1716, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1948. • The Jacobite Movement. The Last Phase, 1716–1807, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1950. • Chapters of Life, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1950. • The Duke of Berwick and His Son; Some Unpublished Letters and Papers, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1951. • Monarchy in the Twentieth Century, A. Dakers, 1952. • Spain in the Modern World, University of Nottingham: Montague Burton International Relations Lectures, 1952. • The Marshal Duke of Berwick; The Picture of an Age, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1953. • Lord Liverpool and his Times, J. Barrie, 1954. • The Carlton Club, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955. • Wellington: A Reassessment, J. Barrie, 1956. • The Powers Behind the Prime Ministers, MacGibbon & Kee, 1958. • The Jacobite Movement, 1958 [revision. • ''Daniel O'Conor Sligo: His Family and His Times,'' National University of Ireland, 1958. • The Spanish Royal House, G. Bles, 1958. • The Victorians, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1960. • The Modern British Monarchy, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1961. • King Alfonso XIII and His Age, Chapman & Hall, 1963. • Philip II of Spain, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1963. • Scenes of Edwardian Life, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1965. • Don John of Austria, Eyre & Spottiswoode 1967. • Great Beginnings In The Age Of Queen Victoria, Macmillan & Company, 1967. • The Letters of King Charles I, Funk & Wagnalls, 1968. • The Drift to World War, 1900–1914, Benn, 1968. • King Charles III of Spain: An Enlightened Despot, Constable 1971. • A Historian Looks at His World, Sidgwick and Jackson, 1972. • The Great Tyrconnel: A Chapter in Anglo-Irish Relations, Mercier Press, 1972. • King Charles, Prince Rupert, and the Civil War: from Original Letters Routledge & Kegan Paul 1974 Articles • "Madrid and Its Life To-day," The Living Age, 3 July 1926. • "The Jacobite Activities in South and West England in the Summer of 1715," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. XVIII, 1935. • "The Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II", The Contemporary Review, vol. 230, 1336 (1 May 1977): 242–247. ==Arms==