weak periods respectively in about 70 per cent. of the cases. Strong monarchs are associated with weak periods, and weak monarchs (including non-royal regents) with strong periods in about 10 per cent. of the cases. In about 20 per cent. of the cases mediocre monarchs are associated with strong or with weak periods, or mediocre periods are associated with strong or with weak monarchs.”[1]
These correlation coefficients and percentages are extremely high and cannot with plausibility be interpreted as merely coincidental. As they stand, they may be interpreted as evidence of three different hypothesis: (1) that historical conditions have produced strong, weak, or mediocre monarchs; (2) that the latter have exercised the decisive influence on historical condition; and (3) that both monarchs and conditions are the result of some third set of factors. Wood rejects the first and third hypotheses for the second—his own. He asserts, in a statement as moderate as any that can be found in his writings, that “monarchs have influenced history; moreover that monarchs have influenced European history from the eleventh to the nineteenth century very much, and that the characteristics of monarchs are correlated with the conditions of their countries to at least probably r＝.60.”[2]
This thesis is. certainly in line with the heroic interpretation of history, but it is tied up in Wood’s writings with two other positions from which it should be differentiated, preliminary to any criticism. The first is that the historical hero is primarily the monarch. The second is that the monarch is essentially a biological rather than a social creation. Indeed, Wood rides his biological fancy to the point of referring to royalty as a “sub-variety of the human race.”[3]
Wood systematically disregards the influence of eminent non-royal personages in history even when they serve as regents or powerful ministers of state. He does not deny the superiority of a Richelieu to a Louis XIII. or, were he to carry his study into the nineteenth century, of a Bismarck to a Wilhelm I. He counts that monarch weak who permits the reins of power to be taken from his hands by statesman, mistress, or priest. Were we to add these influential non-royal figures to Wood’s list of heroic monarchs, assuming that we take his list on its face value, the claim of the heroic interpretation would be strengthened. And
