The Old World with Will Tanner

In the late 19th century, the British landed elite still seemed secure. A small group of aristocratic and gentry families owned the supermajority of the land, much of the best urban property, and many mineral rights, while also holding political office and shaping society through cultural dominance, business investments, and social prestige. Their wealth supported a life of leisure used to fulfill the duty to govern, not for private indulgence in indolence.

That system began to break down with the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 and the agricultural depression of the 1870s as cheap g...

This episode examines the rise, dominance, and disappearance of the WASPs, the old American families from the Northeast who dominated business, society, and politics for much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It distinguishes them from the Southern gentry, and defines them as an upper class formed by intermarriage, inherited wealth, and shared institutions rather than just a group of rich individuals.

It then describes how the WASPs were economically and culturally powerful at their height. They funded railroads, industry, banking, museums, libraries, and opera houses, while shaping high society through prep schools, Ivy League...

This is the retold story of the life of Captain John Smith, the military hero who saved Virginia, with a focus on how he represents the model American in many ways. I tell the tales of his upbringing, his Crusade against the Ottomans, his escape from slavery, his feuds with the Virginia Company, his mapping of the Chesapeake, and his grand adventures in the New World, altogether showing how he's a man who created a model for the New World based on the best of the old.

Read my article on this here: https://www.theamericantribune.news...

This is the story of how Robert E. Lee came to command the Army of Northern Virginia, and then used it to save Richmond while almost crushing McClellan in the Seven Days Battles. It is a story of early war debacles and embarrassments, prudent decision-making behind the scenes that led to Confederate successes, and then immense risk-taking and courage in the face of seemingly certain defeat. It is a tale of Stuart's dashing ride around McClellan, the near-total victory in the Seven Days Battles.

The Seven Days Battles began on June 26 with Mechanicsville, where A.P. Hill...

This is the in-depth story of how the Virginia gentry built itself into a true ruling class. Focusing in particular on "American Revolutionaries in the Making," this explores how the planter class of Old Virginia used a system of obligation, duty, and cultivated excellence to go from being Virginia gentlemen to Founding Fathers. Particularly, it explores the role of the tobacco plantation, parish vestry, county court, and House of Burgesses in this process, describing their progression as a cursus honorum that created a political aristocracy unlike any other.

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This episode explains what Henry Adams called the "habit of command" in the Virginia gentry, showing how Virginia planter families developed a quiet assumption of leadership, public duty, and authority that helped define them from the colonial period through the 19th century.

In it, I show how this attitude developed out of plantation life: on large estates, young Virginians learned to manage people, make decisions, and handle practical affairs, all of which was also shaped by a sense of noblesse oblige, service, and a sense of obligation rather than mere arrogance. Critical to this was...

After his Mexican-American War triumph and success at Fort Carroll, Robert E Lee faced a decade of frustration that culminated in his being the man who stopped John Brown at Harper's Ferry, and soon faced the impossible choice between leading the armies of his nation or his native state when tensions spiralled to war in the wake of the Brown raid. In this episode, we discuss Robert E Lee's time as superintendent of the US Military Academy at West Point, his commandership of the Comanche-hunting cavalry in the sun-baked plains of Texas, his management of the debacle at Arlington...

After watching him perform so valiantly as an officer in the Mexican-American War, General Winfield Scott would publicly declare Robert E. Lee to be "the very best soldier that I ever saw in the field." This is the story of what Lee accomplished as a middle-aged scout and engineer in the Mexican campaign. From his role in securing victory during Winfield Scott's Veracruz campaign by perfectly siting and building batteries to helping scout and lead assaults at Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, and Chapultepec, Lee's Mexican War record is one of heroics, immense skill, and indefatigable energy. We discuss all...

In this episode, Will and Evan Amato discuss the idea of Christian nobility and what it means to be truly noble within the European and Christian tradition. The conversation begins with Pope Pius XII's speeches to the Roman aristocracy, especially his question of what nobility means at a time when noble titles were losing their public force.

From there, the discussion turns to the duties attached to privilege. Evan Amato emphasizes Pius XII's call for irreproachable moral conduct, especially in family life, along with austerity, loyalty, compassion, prudence, and the ability to influence others without...

This is the story of how Robert E Lee was forged into the Marble Man of legend while still a young man, showing how his early life in Alexandria after his mother and father lost Stratford trained him in excellence and taught him to use his good qualities to great effect. From there, he then got an appointment to West Point through exercising personal connections, and became the sterling model of the perfect cadet while remaining beloved by his fellows. Ultimately, his graduation triumph was marred by the death of his mother, the woman whose diligence and patient cultivation...

This episode is about Anne Hill Carter Lee, the mother of Robert E. Lee, and how her life shaped his character. While only a few letters of hers and one portrait of her survive, her son repeatedly said he owed everything to her. Robert E. Lee's life of duty, self-command, thrift, piety, and quiet resignation all came from Anne rather than from Light Horse Harry, and so we can thank her for forging the Marble Man, as explained in this show.

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This is the tragic story of Henry Lee IV, known to history as Black Horse Harry Lee. Most influential as a friend and ally of Andrew Jackson's, but most infamous for a scandal that shocked the Virginia gentry to its core, Henry went from being a promising young man to the disgrace of Virginia in the wake of a great tragedy that shook his family and Stratford Hall to its core.

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The son of Light Horse Harry Lee and heir to Stratford Hall, Henry began...

This is the story of Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox" of Southern Campaign fame, whose partisans worked with Light Horse Harry Lee and Lee's Legion to cut off Lord Cornwallis from his bases of Loyalist support and supply, which provided a substantial contribution to Patriot victory in the broader Southern campaign of the American Revolution. This is a discussion between Will and Kaiser; they discuss the life of Francis Marion, his tactics for defeating the British, his leadership style, and the general progression of the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution.

Before he was the Swamp Fox...

This is the tale of how debt, speculation, and imprudence turned Light Horse Harry Lee from a celebrated Revolutionary War hero praised for his cavalry raids, his tactical brilliance, and his closeness to George Washington into a disgraced scoundrel known throughout Virginia as a dishonorable debt dodger.

In 1782, Harry Lee returned to Stratford Hall to marry his wealthy cousin Matilda Lee, known as "the Dividine Matilda", and step into plantation life, but the quiet work of farming and managing property did not suit him. His military energy and ambition, which had served him well in war, became...

This is the story of Light Horse Harry Lee, the dashing Cavalier of the American Revolution, and how he helped win the War for American Independence through his talented command of Lee's Legion. It is the tale of how he developed his skills as a horseman and leader in his Leesylvania estate, studied the Classics at Princeton and won renown as a scholar, built himself into a brilliant cavalier of a military leader, and won great morale-boosting victories at Spread Eagle Tavern and Paulus Hook before masterminding a strategy that defeated Lord Cornwallis in the South. He led with...

This is the story of the family that produced Light Horse Harry and Robert E Lee: the Lees of Leesylvania, the Virginia branch of the Lee family that produced a long line of planters, soldiers, politicians, and lawyers. In it, I contrast the Leesylvania Lees with the Stratford Hall Lees and show how the Leesylvania line developed its own place in Virginia history as some of the greatest and most memorable members of the gentry through landholding, public service, and military command.

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The story begins with...

Why were the Founders so excellent and our modern leaders so awful? Because they cultivated and developed themselves into great men rather than relying on credentialism and technocracy. This episode discusses the Virginia gentry as a ruling class that developed itself in virtue, duty, and the skill of governance through a structured sequence of responsibilities--the "cursus honorum" of the Virginia gentry. This development began with the plantation, where competence was judged publicly through the quality of the tobacco crop and the condition of the estate. From there, the Virginia gentleman went on to serve in local church vestries, county...

For centuries, the Virginia gentry has been drenched in myth, romance, and Cavalier legend. Here, we cut through the romanticism of Old Virginia to discuss the reality of America's only real landed aristocracy. We describe the origins and formation of the Virginia gentry, how tobacco culture and great estates turned it into a coherent landed gentry class, how it used religion in Colonial Virginia and the county court system to build and hold onto political power. Then we discuss the reality of the hospitality and leisure activities for which it was famous, from horse racing to dancing. We also...

Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Savior of the Continental Army at Valley Forge. Drafter of the Articles of Confederation. Respected by Northerner and Southerner alike. Known as the "sweetest" of the Lee family, and probably the most politically effective. Francis Lightfoot Lee is one of the most important, but least remembered, Founding Fathers and Lee brothers of Stratford Hall.

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Born at Stratford Hall, educated in Classical virtue at home, and later settled on frontier land in Loudoun County, he entered politics through the House of...

A younger son of Thomas Lee, William Lee was the best businessman in the Lee Family of Virginia and used his skills as a merchant, trader, and radical London politician to help win the American Revolution through a clever bit of "militia diplomacy".

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This episode follows William Lee of Stratford Hall, a younger son of the Lee family who was trained in the tobacco economy rather than given the advantages of his older brothers. After his father's death, he worked under Philip Ludwell Lee as a...

Without Arthur Lee, America would not have won the revolution: one of the earliest revolutionaries and most important pamphleteers, he became a spy and diplomat whose efforts secured the arms that won the battle of Saratoga. Yet now he is all but forgotten. Why? He was described by John Adams as a man too honest and intrepid to be popular, and the episode traces how that temperament shaped his career, a career that was integral to the Founding of America and victory in the American Revolution.

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In this episode, Will discusses the history, formation, and immense accomplishments of the Virginia Gentry with J Burden. The two cover why the Virginian planter class was different from the planters of the Deep South and the WASPs of the North, making it the only real American aristocracy. They then cover how the famed "Virginia Cavalier" migration wave was true in a sense, and how it brought the concept of state, church, and property being unified to the Old Dominion.

Building on that, they discuss how the leading men of Old Virginia built their local power and...

This episode investigates the vital, lifelong partnership between George Washington and Richard Henry Lee, examining the persistent historical rumors that Lee sought to undermine the Commander in Chief in favor of General Nathanael Greene during the desperate winter at Valley Forge. Long before the whispers of the Conway Cabal or the publication of forged letters designed to divide them, their alliance was forged in the Northern Neck of Virginia and tested within the House of Burgesses, where they stood together against the corrupt circle of Treasury SecretaryJohn Robinson. From their joint resistance to the Stamp Act and the signing...

First of the Founding Fathers to openly call for independence, the first to call for union of the states, and the first to call for a bill of rights, Richard Henry Lee was one of the greatest Founding Fathers and is the Founder most remarkable for the number of "firsts" to his name.

It was also Richard Henry Lee who authored the Westmoreland Resolves that led the field in organized and armed resistance to Britain, introduced the idea of Intercolonial Committees of Correspondence, was first chosen by Virginia to attend the First Continental Congress, and who masterminded...

In the winter of 1750, the death of Thomas Lee left his six sons to inherit a massive empire of Tidewater land and transatlantic commerce—an inheritance that would ultimately forge them into the most formidable family alliance of the American Revolution. Steeped in the stern classical traditions of Greece and Rome, the five younger brothers—Thomas Ludwell, Richard Henry, Francis Lightfoot, William, and Arthur Lee—found themselves bound together by a shared Classical tradition, patriotic American outlook, and bitter domestic feud over their patrimony against their overbearing eldest brother, Philip Ludwell Lee. From the splendorous river wharves of Stratford Hall t...

How does a younger son, marginalized by primogeniture, forge America's most formidable revolutionary dynasty, siring four of the greatest Founding Fathers and two signers of the Declaration of Independence? This is the epic saga of Thomas Lee, the father of the Founding Fathers, builder of Stratford Hall, and great frontier fortune builder.

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Before his sons shook the foundations of the British Empire, a single man conquered the isolating stillness of the early Virginia wilderness. Born in 1690 at Machodoc plantation to Richard Lee II, Thomas taught himself...

This is the tale of how the Lee Family of Virginia became a fledgling American aristocracy after Richard Lee I died in 1664, leaving behind the foundations of a great family fortune: a large commercial and landholding empire divided between Virginia and London. In this episode, we dive into how Richard Lee II, known as Richard the Scholar, became the patriarch and guided his family into becoming a dynasty, while navigating crises like Bacon's Rebellion and the Glorious Revolution, always working to preserve the family estates and secure their future for later generations, including great men like Thomas Lee, Richard...

This episode examines the Lee family of Virginia and their claim to descend from a Norman named Reynard de Lega through the landed gentry of Shropshire, namely the Lees of Coton Hall and Nordley Regis, the arms of whom they long claimed, and to whom they insisted they were related. It traces the evidence that supported the pedigree, including a silver cup, a Latin inscription, a tombstone, heraldic writing, and a family Bible, all of which helped persuade the College of Heralds to confirm the Lee arms in 1930.

The episode then turns to doubts raised by historians...

This is the story of the dynast who founded the Lee Family of Virginia: Richard Lee I, also known as Richard Lee the Emigrant. In it we tell the story of his rise in Virginia, from his start as a Clerk of the Quarter Court and Indian trader to his time as great landed proprietor and Secretary of State of Virginia. We discuss his marriage to Anne Constable, how he accumulated landed wealth on a massive scale, and how he survived the Commonwealth and the Restoration. It's an exciting tale of frontier adventure, family triumph, and a great man...

This episode introduces the First Families of Virginia, explaining how a small group of younger sons of the gentry and merchant families became a class of elite colonial families came to dominate first the Tidewater, and then Virginia. It begins by describing how younger sons hoped to rebuild themselves as landed gentlemen in the New World, and then discusses the debate over whether these First Families of Virginia were truly "Cavaliers" or whether that label stems from a later legend meant to shroud their humble origins.

The episode then explains how these families used capital, trade, and...

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If you are interested in what life was like in Rhodesia in the 1970s, during the height of the Bush War, from the perspective of a woman who grew up on a frontline farm often attacked, this is the interview for you! In this show, Alice Henningway tells Will what life was like in Rhodesia, where she grew up during the Bush War in the 1970s. Alice and Will discuss the dangerous reality of life on a farm during the Bush War, life after Rhodesia in Zimbabwe, and...

These are the works I read to study and learn about the history of Virginia, from the earliest days of colonization into the modern, postbellum era. Collectively, these are a good way of learning about practically every aspect of the Old Dominion over that time period, from managing a plantation and Cavalier culture, to the mechanics of politics in the state and Westward expansion.

In this video, I discuss which ones are best for getting a general history of the state, learning about the development of the Virginia Gentry, understanding plantation life and the economics of the...

This is the tale of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a pro-slavery, semi-secret, and paramilitary society in the 1850s and early 1860s that aimed to conquer a vast territorial sphere comprising much of the Caribbean world, centered on Havana, and used filibustering in an attempt to realize that immense dream of a tropical empire built on slavery. 

In it, Will and Clossington explore the history, foundation, and structure of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe. We discuss its roots in earlier filibustering expeditions in Florida, Texas, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Cuba, including the famous campaigns of Narciso L...

In this episode, Will and J. Chase Davis discuss his new book, Offensive Christianity, through the lens of where the modern church went wrong, and how to reclaim the Christian spirit of days past. They discuss the egalitarian drift of the church and where it began, how the Enlightenment and rise of democracy played into that drift, and what we can do about it. They comment on steady state Christian society versus a fervent Christian society that burns itself out, the Puritans, monarchy, and the evangelical movement before discussing finding a church that fits with your heritage and culture...

This is the true story of Pocahontas, not the Disney one. This is the tale of a beloved little princess in the Powhatan Confederacy named Matoaka known for her curiosity, hence the nickname "Pocahontas" that became invariably associated with the tale of Virginia's earliest days. She was used in a game of high-stakes frontier diplomacy with John Smith that turned into a legend of lovestruck sacrifice, she was sold to Samuel Argall by her own people for a copper kettle during the Anglo-Powhatan War, and then she was Westernized and christened Lady Rebecca by the English. Abandoned and betrayed...

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In this show, Will argues that Virginia, rather than Massachusetts, was the cradle of the American Revolution. To do so, he begins with the French and Indian War, describing the cost of it to both Virginia and Britain, and how it led to the Stamp Act, one of the key causes of the American Revolution. He then explains why the Stamp Act's silver currency requirement was particularly harmful to the agrarian, tobacco-dependent Virginia economy.

Continuing, he argues that when Richard Henry Lee led Virginia into its 1766 p...

In this episode, Will tells the tale of the life of John Smith, the mercenary-turned-explorer who was the first great Virginia hero. This is the tale of how Smith won his knighthood by defeating three Ottoman Turks in single combat, how he ended up as a leader in the original settlement of Virginia, and how his lasting legacy was the map he made out of his own explorations. Will also discusses why Pocahontas saved John Smith, how Smith saved Jamestown, and his legacy in mapping New England, along with why he died in relative obscurity.

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This is the tale of the heroic John Rolfe, the English farmer and gentleman who saved the fledgling colony of Virginia not once, but twice. In this episode, we describe how Rolfe smuggled Orinoco tobacco into Virginia, and used his unique skills to learn how to cultivate it and save the broke colony from financial collapse. We then tell the true story of Rolfe's fairy tale-like marriage to Pocahontas, focusing on how the marriage created the colony-saving "Peace of Pocahontas" and how Lond...

This is the story of Colonial Virginia in its fullest flowering. From its unique culture to its excellent people, from the glorious Georgian mansions for which it is still remembered to the political leaders its tobacco plantations produced, this is how the special society that grew out of the Virginia Tidewater turned into the cradle of the American Revolution. Particularly, we discuss why the Virginia gentry produced such excellent leaders as it did, and how the culture of leadership and command, when paired with the sense of dignity and refinement for which the classic Virginia Gentlemen were known, created...

The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe: 12 Virginia Gentlemen who embarked upon the Transmontane Expedition with Governor Alexander Spotswood as he sought to open new lands to settlement, defeat the attempt of the French to box Virginia in, and bend the Topping People to his will. A romantic adventure story populated by frontier guides, swaggering Cavaliers, and a frolicking tavern of an expedition through primeval forests!

It is a riotous tale of high living on the frontier, from the travelling tavern that the expedition became known as with its many toasts and bottles of everything from c...