  Rehberg formed his political convictions early, long before the Revolution.  Like all the Hannoverians, the inspiration for his politics came from the British  constitution.[31]  Hannoverian admiration for the British constitution is not surprising, given that Britian had long standing dynastic relations with the House of Hannover.  But there were other sources for this admiration, all of them, ironically, perfectly French.  Rehberg and the Hannoverians had read their Voltaire, Montesquieu and Jean Louis De Lolme, who had all praised the English constitution, making it their model for modern government and their antidote to absolutism.  Like their French forbears, the Hannoverians admired the British constitution for its mixture of modern freedom and ancient institutions.  The British had preserved their monarchy, their aristocracy and the ancient role of Parliament as a representative institution; but they had also liberalized these institutions by granting toleration, freedom of speech, and the right of commoners to hold office and participate in government.  The great strength of the British constitution, in the Hannoverian view, is that it served as a bulwark against the two chief dangers of the modern political world: radical democracy and monarchic absolutism.  The British constitution wisely limited the franchise to the aristocracy and wealthy bourgeoisie, which saved their system from ochlocracy; but it also ensured that the king had to govern with the co-operation of parliament.  Contrary to Montesquieu and De Lolme, however, the Hannoverians did not see the balance of power, the system of checks and balances, as the reason for the success of the British system; they found it instead in the British party system, which they admired for two grounds: it organized politicans into effective groups in behalf of the public good, and it avoided corruption and complacency through  opposition.[32] 