written that the Saxons were, for an Englishman, the barbarians from whom he derives his name, his laws and perhaps his origin. The image chosen for the front cover of A Liberal Descent was the sculpture of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in Saxon Dress executed by William Theed (1804–91) for the Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore In the book Burrow wrote of 'peremptory and legalistic constitutionalism changing into subtler political persuasiveness', and of 'the intersection of personal and public mythologies'. The book's theme was the idea of a Whig interpretation of English history ('Whig history') incorporating the two fundamental notions of progress and continuity, the one making it possible to treat English history as a success story, the other endorsing a pragmatic, gradualist political style as the foundation of English freedom. In studies of Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, William Stubbs, Edward Augustus Freeman and James Anthony Froude, Burrow attempted to place them in a cultural and historiographical context; and sought to establish the nature and limits of the self-confidence which the Victorians were able to derive from the national past, with reference to three great crises of English history: the Norman conquest of England, the English Reformation and the 'Glorious Revolution' of the 17th century. The theme of the inscription on the plinth of the statue, alluding to the poet's lament for the passing of 'Sweet Auburn' Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village may also be seen in connection with what Burrow mentions in the later book The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848–1914 (2000): "'...the growth of great cities with mass population.... The great city and its teeming population was the dominant social image of the period: its excitement, its horrors, its threat to social order and decency... its dwarfing impersonality. It was in the great city that the new democracy lurked, perhaps beyond the reach of civilising influence.' There could be added the influence of Prince Albert connected with the Great Exhibition and the South Kensington Museums, Imperial College, and Albert Hall of 'Albertopolis', although Albert's name is not among those in the index of Burrow's book. In 1986 Burrow was elected a fellow of the British Academy. In 1995–2000 he was a professor of European thought at the University of Oxford and a fellow Balliol College, Oxford, becoming emeritus professor in 2000–2009; he officially retired in 2000. The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848–1914 (2000) covered