The most famous exponent of 'Whiggery' was Thomas Babington Macaulay. His writings are famous for their ringing prose and for their confident, sometimes dogmatic, emphasis on a progressive model of British history, according to which the country threw off superstition, autocracy and confusion to create a balanced constitution and a forward-looking culture combined with freedom of belief and expression. This model of human progress has been called the Whig interpretation of history. He published the first volumes of his most famous work of history, "The History of England from the Accession of James II", in 1848. It proved an immediate success and replaced Hume's history to become the new orthodoxy. His 'Whiggish convictions' are spelled out in his first chapter: