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Showing papers in "The Historical Journal in 1981"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors re-examined the Leveller use of history, and suggested an alternative conclusion both about the levellers and the doctrine of continuity itself.
Abstract: Twenty-five years ago J. G. A. Pocock first argued that the Norman conquest was the rock upon which all arguments for the continuity of the common law finally came to wreck. Believe in the conquest qua conquest, and you could not believe that English law represented a continuous stream of unviolated custom or fail to see it as very much the offspring of Norman parentage. In the English revolution, the Levellers exemplified the logical necessity of Pocock's argu ment. Having seen the conquest for what it was, the group criticized the common law as none other than a Norman yoke and surrendered all appeals to history. By re-examining the Leveller use of history, this essay tests that proposition, turning it not upside down but on its side, and suggests an alternative conclusion both about the Levellers and the doctrine of continuity itself.

115 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The most stimulating challenge presented to Hexter's thesis by Dermot Fenlon in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society in 1975-serves in its way to vindicate Skinner's prediction as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: J. H. Hexter's brilliant analysis of More's Utopia in the Introduction to the Yale edition of the text in 1965 was favoured by a resounding endorsement from Quentin Skinner in a no-less-brilliant analysis of the Yale edition in Past and Present in 1967. Given the status of both scholars as interpreters of the political thought of the early modern period, Skinner's prediction that Hexter's analysis would ‘cause a reorientation of [the] entire historiography’ of the subject was bound to be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Skinner, in any case, clearly considers the claim to have been justified in the event. In his recent masterly study of the history of political thought in the early modern period his treatment of Utopia is especially-and avowedly-indebted to Hexter's work. Meanwhile, the most stimulating challenge presented to Hexter's thesis-by Dermot Fenlon in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society in 1975-serves in its way to vindicate Skinner's prediction. Fenlon is concerned not to contradict Hexter's basic hypothesis but to stand it on its head. Fenlon's thesis in turn was assimilated into the survey literature when it was adapted by G. R. Elton to hammer Christian humanism in his Reform and Reformation in 1977.

107 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
James Sharpe1
TL;DR: The most striking features of recent writing on early modern social history have been the emergence of the family as a subject of central concern as discussed by the authors, and much of this concern has expressed itself in the form of specialized, and often narrowly-focused articles or essays.
Abstract: One of the most striking features of recent writing on early modern social history has been the emergence of the family as a subject of central concern. As befits an historical area being subjected to new scrutiny, much of this concern has expressed itself in the form of specialized, and often narrowly-focused articles or essays.1 To these have been added a number of more general works intended to examine the broader developments in and implications of family life in the past.2 Several themes within family history have already received considerable attention: the structure of the family, for example, a topic already rendered familiar by earlier work on historical demography; the concomitant topic of sexual practices and attitudes; and the economic role of the family, especially in its capacity as a unit of production. These are, of course, important matters, and the research carried out on them has revealed much of interest and consequence to the social historian; this should not, however, obscure the existence of a number of other significant dimensions of family life in the past which await thorough investigation.

98 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The early years of Thomas Hobbes are almost entirely sunk in obscurity as discussed by the authors, with only a handful of details which have been gleaned by modern scholarship, and one that can be briefly summarized.
Abstract: The early years of Thomas Hobbes are almost entirely sunk in obscurity. Biographers from George Croom Robertson (1886) to Miriam Reik (1977) have added little, for the period before 1628, to the scant information provided by Aubrey and the Latin Vitae. If to this we add the handful of details which have been gleaned by modern scholarship, the picture remains a bare one, and one that can be briefly summarized.

87 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Machiavellian Moment is a major work of historical synthesis and it may come to represent a serious contribution to the history and historiography of western civilisation's confrontations with its own dilemmas as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: As the last twenty years or so have witnessed the rise to pre-eminence in his field of J. G. A. Pocock, so they have also seen a transformation in the status of James Harrington as a political thinker. The two developments are not, of course, unconnected. Once viewed as an eccentric figure (by English rather than American historians, let it be admitted), associated rather obscurely with the rise of capitalism or market society, whose political ideas stood awkwardly aside from contemporary thought and who founded no school, Harrington now emerges as a seminal thinker, transforming a great European tradition of thought and enabling it to contribute to the ideologies of the emergent western world of the eighteenth century. In the transmission of those paradigms analysed and pursued in The Machiavellian Moment it is no small burden which this new Harrington is called upon to bear. In this account, his thought ruralised and anglicised the classical republicanism of late renaissance Florence and made it available for transmutation into an Atlantic republican tradition in the eighteenth century. It dealt a blow to the pervasive English myth of ancient constitutionalism and the immemorialism associated with it and provided a basis for the development in the Anglophone world of a sense of history and an incipient sociology of corruption. John Pocock has rescued us from much and offered us much in the name of James Harrington. In this article I would like to test one aspect I believe a critical aspect of Pocock's perception of Harrington's thought and of the paradigms which he made available to his followers. But before I go any further I want to state my belief that The Machiavellian Moment is a major work of historical synthesis and that it may come to represent a serious contribution to the history and historiography of western civilisation's confrontations with its own dilemmas. These are high claims, won rather reluctantly and ungraciously from a stubborn soul. So that it may be, in the way of such victories, that the terms of surrender are overstated. Let us see.1 Part of the problem arises from the fact that we see Pocock simultaneously as a powerful and as a confusing thinker and analyst. But, accepting for the moment the validity of his paradigmatic approach, what we see is a complex attempt to deal with the paradigms which he perceives in a rigorous and sophisticated way: (a) in

69 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A revisionist explanation of the political events of the Glorious revolution has crept into recent literature virtually unscathed as discussed by the authors, arguing that it is difficult to discover evidence of resistance to the Crown in the debates of either the House of Lords or the Convention parliament during 1689.
Abstract: A revisionist explanation of the political events of the Glorious Revolution has crept into recent literature virtually unscathed. Briefly summarized, the argument contends that it is difficult to discover evidence of resistance to the Crown in the debates of either the House of Lords or the Convention parliament during 1689. According to J. P. Kenyon, a major advocate of this new interpretation, John Locke's Second treatise of government misled historians and even some contemporaries into believing that parliament deposed James II for breaking the original contract between sovereign and people. Actually, during the long debates in and between both houses ‘it was clear that the word “abdicated”, or the Lords’ preferred choice, “deserted” both implied a voluntary act, if not a rational choice, on James's part’. The Lords especially, Kenyon argues, were careful to dissociate themselves from contract theory. Whig ‘revolution principles’, then, built upon the ‘haste and confusion of the occasion’ were rooted in a misunderstanding of actual events, a mis-understanding fostered by the writings of Locke and Algernon Sydney and enshrined as doctrine by whig politicians and historians.

64 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: On 22 June 1897, the Queen-Empress Victoria drove in splendid, imperial state to St Paul's Cathedral, the "parish church of the Empire" there to give thanks for reaching the sixtieth year of her reign as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: On 22 June 1897 the Queen-Empress Victoria drove in splendid, imperial state to St Paul's Cathedral, the ‘parish church of the Empire’ there to give thanks for reaching the sixtieth year of her reign. It was, in life, her supreme moment of apotheosis as the matriarch of Europe and mother-figure of an empire of unprecedented size, power and prosperity. Not only in London, but in towns and villages throughout England and around the world, the celebrations extended. ‘From one end of the land to the other’, recalled one provincial newspaper, ‘and indeed wherever the British flag flies, the day was marked in a special manner.’ ‘Everywhere in the Empire that day’, notes James Morris, ‘statues were being unveiled, garrisons were being inspected, thanksgiving services were being held in thatch-roofed outposts of the Anglican communion.’

49 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The petite bourgeoisie as discussed by the authors was a distinctive group within British politics and society during the nineteenth century and its politically active members provided a fluctuating and positive challenge to the authority of both the landed aristocracy and the developing urban elites.
Abstract: Recent historical writing has shown the petite bourgeoisie to have been a distinctive group within British politics and society during the nineteenth century. Its politically active members provided a fluctuating and positive challenge to the authority of both the landed aristocracy and the developing urban elites. In the 1790s, an active fringe of small masters, shopkeepers and less prosperous professional men joined with the wage earners and artisans of the Corresponding Societies. They were cautious Painites, giving depth and breadth to the eighteenth-century radical tradition which sought to extend the franchise and reduce the power of government.

45 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In colonial trade, Cadiz acted as a mere entrepot for the exchange of American bullion for European merchandise as mentioned in this paper, and it proved remarkably successful both in safeguarding its frontiers and in the exploitation of colonial resources.
Abstract: In colonial trade, Cadiz acted as a mere entrepot for the exchange of American bullion for European merchandise. The accession of Philip V under challenge of civil war and foreign invasion enabled his French advisors to lay the foundations of an absolutist state with remarkable rapidity. In the New World the Bourbon state proved remarkably successful both in safeguarding its frontiers and in the exploitation of colonial resources. The revival of Spanish power during the reign of Charles III in large measure derived from the efflorescence in trade with the Indies, and from the increased revenue which it yielded. The centre-piece of the administrative revolution in government was the introduction of intendants, officials who embodied all the executive, interventionist ambitions of the Bourbon state. For the American empire the enforcement of the British blockade offered proof of the inability of Spain to protect the interests of its colonial subjects.

35 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The C.I.A. was taxed with five major intelligence failures by the influential New York Herald Tribune on 2 August 1950 as discussed by the authors, which was only part of a widespread campaign to reorganize the Central Intelligence Agency.
Abstract: The C.I.A. was taxed with five major intelligence failures by the influential New York Herald Tribune on 2 August 1950. This newpaper article was only part of a widespread campaign to reorganize the C.I.A. The concern of the C.I.A. director, Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, over the allegations was so acute that on the following day he prepared an apologia sent to President Truman. Three of the alleged failures of prediction concerned the defeat of the Chinese Nationalists, events in Palestine and the 1948 Bogota conference – the last now largely forgotten but the cause of great contemporary scandal when Secretary of State Marshall was attacked by a mob. The other two were in Europe. They were the inability to predict the fall of Czechoslovakia and the defection of Tito. Blaming the C.I.A. for not predicting the communist coup in Czechoslovakia was unfair, but there was more substance to the accusation concerning Yugoslavia.

34 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: On 28 July 1540 Thomas Cromwell went to execution, and two days later Robert Barnes, Thomas Garret and William Jerome, leading protestant preachers and the minister's proteges, were burned at the stake as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: On 28 July 1540 Thomas Cromwell went to execution, and two days later Robert Barnes, Thomas Garret and William Jerome, leading protestant preachers and the minister's proteges, were burned at the stake.1 These reformers were sacrificed to implicate Cromwell in apostasy, but their deaths were more than judicial murder; they died for making a reality of the conservatives’ old fears that religious radicalism would engender social disorder. With the coming of the Reformation issues of faith for the first time deeply divided the people, and the rift went beyond the schism between orthodox and reformed alone. Many who witnessed the confusion thought that ‘the devyll reyneth over us nowe’ and believed that ‘alle thys devysyon comyth through that ffalse knave that heretyke Doctor Barnys and such other heretiks as he ys’.2 The faction struggles in court and council which dominated the last years of Henry VIII's reign produced the shifting policies of reaction or toleration towards reform, but while political intrigue determined the incidence of persecution and decided the victims the events of 1540 were to reveal that Protestantism was spreading independently, thwarting the restoration of Catholic orthodoxy, whatever the policy of government. The religious history of London was inextricably linked with the feuds of contending factions at court in the confused months of the spring and summer of 1540, not least because many of the protagonists and persecuted were Londoners themselves. The tensions witnessed in the capital between orthodox and reformed, and popular disturbance there, underlay all the machinations in high politics and influenced the outcome.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argued that the Exclusion controversy and not the Revolution of 1688 was the occasion of the composition of the Two Treatises of John Locke and Shaftesbury, and pointed out that "the perennial or transcendent purposes with which the classics are haloed often get diminished in too specific an historical location of the motives and situation of the author".
Abstract: It is now more than twenty years since Peter Laslett argued that the Exclusion controversy and not the Revolution of 1688 was the occasion of the composition of Locke's Two treatises. Nevertheless, scholarly interpretations still resist treating Two treatises as mainly an activist tract and persist in characterizing it always as something loftier, viz. ‘political philosophy’, ‘systematic moral apologia’, and the like. Resistance to the implications of a rigorous historical mode of interpretation is surely part of the problem. The perennial or transcendent purposes with which the classics are haloed often get diminished in too specific an historical location of the motives and situation of the author. Oddly, however, even critics friendly to a strictly historical approach have hesitated before the implications of Laslett's dicta that Locke wrote as a whig pamphleteer and for Shaftesbury's purposes. This, in turn, parallels the widespread contempt felt by many contemporary English historians (Locke's interpreters among them) for the early whigs. Righteous indignation against the whigs is even detectable in those modern writings from which we take our view of the whig Exclusion pamphleteers.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, this paper found that relatively few persons were executed by Henry, despite the savagery of his reign, and that in general his bark was worse than his bite.
Abstract: It has been traditional to regard the reaction of Henry VIII in the face of treason and rebellion as savage and extreme. Perhaps for this reason, historians for long considered it superfluous to examine in any detail what fate actually befell those who took up arms against their king. More recently, however, findings that relatively few persons were executed by Henry, despite the savagery of his reign, and that in general his bark was worse than his bite,1 have suggested that this question could profitably be pursued further. There seems, for instance, to be a significant difference between the 178 executions in the aftermath of the Lincolnshire rebellion and the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536–7 and the rather larger number for which Elizabeth was responsible following the much less dangerous Northern Rising of 1569.2 Yet how these figures were achieved and what considerations shaped and determined the extent of the government's retaliation is much less clear. Perhaps the surviving evidence will not normally admit of answers to such questions, for it was not in the government's interests to disclose that external considerations might influence the enforcement or otherwise of the law. The manifestation of this fact was therefore inconvenient, but exceptionally such disclosures might be unavoidable.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For the pure Celt he entertained a kind of natural antipathy, mingled with something like contempt, which often manifested itself in odd and amusing ways, suggestive of Dr Johnson's attitude towards the Scotch.
Abstract: He might be regarded indeed as a representative specimen of the Teutonic type.1 He was essentially Teutonic in his whole personality, physical, as well as moral and mental; in his square, sturdy frame, his ruddy hair, his fair complexion, his plain and simple habits of life, no less than in his love of truth, and straightforwardness in deed and word. For the pure Celt he entertained a kind of natural antipathy, mingled with something like contempt, which often manifested itself in odd and amusing ways, suggestive of Dr Johnson's attitude towards the Scotch.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Second International's socialism saw itself as a moral force as discussed by the authors, which served to maintain a precarious balance between politics conducted perforce within a national framework, and an internationalist rhetoric; between politics which in practice worked within an established system, and a theoretical rejection of that old society.
Abstract: The Second International's socialism saw itself as a moral force. That moral force served to maintain a precarious balance between politics conducted perforce within a national framework, and an internationalist rhetoric; between politics which in practice worked within an established system, and a theoretical rejection of that old society. The First World War broke one part of this precarious balance by demonstrating the impotence of the organized working class in stopping an imperialist conflict; but another pillar of marxist orthodoxy, economic dogma, remained for the marxist parties of the post-war world. That pillar was unshaken by the collapse of societies and politics in Central Europe; it held up an intellectual elite in the world of post-war socialist politics. The Viennese physician Rudolf Hilferding was recognized as the Second International's leading economist, but is remembered only as a footnote on the first page of Lenin's Imperialism' and as a victim of Trotsky's polemic.2 His reputation has sunk unceasingly even in an age persuaded of the merits of historical revisionism. Contemporaries and subsequent commentators have agreed as much about his personally sympathetic qualities as about his political incapacity. Kurt Tucholsky's verdict is characteristically mordant: 'Herr Rudolf Hilferding is reckoned in financial circles to be an excellent medic'.3 Papen's and Hitler's finance minister, Count Schwerin von Krosigk, who had served under Hilferding in the Weimar ministerial bureaucracy, provides an account of a mixture of self-satisfaction and occasional Hamlet-like vacillation:

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The work of one member of the British intelligence mission in Russia was once described as "consist[ing] chiefly in passing little notes to other noodles of his calling all over the world to warn them of this or that innocent and bar their exit from or entry to all and sundry countries" as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The work of one member of the British intelligence mission in Russia was once described as ‘consist[ing] chiefly in passing little notes to other noodles of his calling all over the world to warn them of this or that innocent and bar their exit from or entry to all and sundry countries’. Others, even less charitable, characterized the intelligence mission and the war propaganda bureau as ‘joy rides’ and dismissed them entirely, discounting as worthless their efforts to promote closer understanding and coordination between Britain and her eastern ally.

Journal ArticleDOI
Alan Heesom1
TL;DR: In the mid-nineteenth century, the increased scale of industrial processes, coupled with the widespread and evergrowing influence of humanitarian sentiment and stricter views of sexual morality and "decency" combined to put pressure on legislators to assume new social responsibilities as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Oliver Macdonagh’s ‘model’ for social legislation in the mid-nineteenth century is, after more than twenty years, a familiar one. It requires the exposure of a social evil, preferably in sensational terms, which sets in motion ‘an irresistible engine of change’. The increased scale of industrial processes, coupled with the ‘ widespread and ever-growing influence of humanitarian sentiment’, and stricter views of sexual morality and ‘decency’ combined to put pressure on legislators to assume new social responsibilities. This pressure, it has been said, frequently owed its origin to a pervasive Christianity, or at least to the work of churchmen, while legislation rested less on philosophic foundations than on forces which, if not inevitable, were at least inherently probable in the context of Victorian social and political life - in short, were part of a ‘self-generating’ process.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, the general staff displayed an extreme reluctance to commit the army to internal security duties throughout the entire inter-war period as mentioned in this paper, and almost without exception, it seems, military men shared Lord Ironside's opinion that "for a soldier there is no more distasteful duty than that of aiding the Civil Power".
Abstract: Systematic military policy-making towards internal security in Great Britain dates from the period immediately following the First World War. It was stimulated above all by widespread fears of possible revolution, sharpened by a belief in the collective incapacity of police forces to deal with civil disorder. Many, although by no means all, politicians and senior officials felt that the labour militancy of the 1920s was simply the harbinger of ‘red’ revolt, and preparations were made accordingly. Following the trade unions’ defeat in the general strike of 1926 fears of revolution subsided, although the War Office continued to revise the plans it had made in the early 1920s. Throughout the entire inter-war period, nevertheless, the general staff displayed an extreme reluctance to commit the army to internal security duties. Almost without exception, it seems, military men shared Lord Ironside’s opinion that ‘for a soldier there is no more distasteful duty than that of aiding the Civil Power’.

Journal ArticleDOI
J. M. McEwen1
TL;DR: A decade ago there appeared a volume of twelve essays on Lloyd George, written by a dozen young historians and edited by A. P. Taylor as discussed by the authors, which ranged widely from pre-1914 social reform to the Greek question and even to the Second World War.
Abstract: A decade ago there appeared a volume of twelve essays on Lloyd George, written by a dozen young historians and edited by A. J. P. Taylor. These pieces, of varying merit and degree of interest, ranged widely from pre-1914 social reform to the Greek question and even to the Second World War.1 Yet strangely enough one of the most colourful patches of the huge canvas that was Lloyd George's life did not receive so much as a passing glance - namely his relations with the press. Taylor had hinted at the possibilities in that sphere when preparing a volume of his own essays a few years earlier. There he placed in sequence two entertaining chapters of quite unequal length and importance, one entitled ‘Lloyd George: rise and fall’ and the other ‘The Chief’.2 The latter requires a little explanation, for ‘ Chief was the style of address beloved of Alfred Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe, the man who owned The Times, Daily Mail, Evening News, and a host of other newspapers and journals. Quite simply he was the greatest press lord of them all, and Fleet Street has known many. While it is manifestly impossible in a few pages to explore in detail the full story of Lloyd George and the press, we can profitably follow his relations with Lord Northcliffe during the years 1914 to 1918 when these two giants were at the peak of their power and their fortunes were intertwined in many and strange ways. During the war Northcliffe was frequently called (and with utmost seriousness) ‘The Most Powerful Man in the Country’, while at the end Lloyd George was ‘The Man Who Won the War’. Often it seemed that the stage was not big enough for both and the British people must choose between them. Not until 1918 did two events - the ‘Maurice debate’ and the ‘Coupon election’ - prove conclusively that in the final analysis Lloyd George's power was real while Northcliffe's was largely illusory. Perhaps none was more surprised at this outcome, certainly none was more relieved, than Lloyd George himself. The reasons will become apparent as the history of their wartime relationship unfolds.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Most historians of modern France would agree that the quarrel between clericals and anticlericals was one of the most significant political issues in French politics between 1870 and 1914, especially in the period before the passing of the law which separated Church and State in 1905.
Abstract: Most historians of modern France would agree that the quarrel between clericals and anticlericals was one of the most significant political issues in French politics between 1870 and 1914, especially in the period before the passing of the law which separated Church and State in 1905. The charges brought against the Catholic Church by the anticlericals were many, but until recently few students of nineteenth-century France have commented on the fact that one of their most serious allegations was that the Church oppressed women. Perhaps the most celebrated formulation of this theory came from the pen of the historian Michelet who, in a virulent polemic entitled Priests, women and the family, bitterly attacked the powers which priests were reputed to exercise over the female mind through the institution of the confessional, to the great detriment of marital life and family unity.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: On the fourth of July 1754 a garrison of Virginians, under the command of the young George Washington, marched its British colours out of a small log fort in an isolated valley of the Appalachian mountains, where it had capitulated to a French detachment the previous evening.
Abstract: On the fourth of July 1754 a garrison of Virginians, under the command of the young George Washington, marched its British colours out of a small log fort in an isolated valley of the Appalachian mountains, where it had capitulated to a French detachment the previous evening. Washington's defeat had an impact upon world history no less significant than did his more famous victories subsequent to a more dramatic removal of British colours, on another fourth of July twenty-two years later. The French expulsion of British colonials from the Ohio valley led to nine years of war in America and quickly escalated into seven years of general war, so wide in its geographical extent that Churchill called it the first world war. At the end of hostilities in 1763 the acquisition from France of Canada and a number of West Indian islands laid the foundations of the nineteenth-century British empire.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Bylney underwent four trials for heresy as mentioned in this paper and was found to be an insignificant-looking man, temperate in his habits, ascetic in his tastes, and unflagging in his concern for others, but his subsequent attack on the saints puts him beyond the pale of the milder, conservative Erasmianism.
Abstract: If English reform lacked a Luther or a Zwingli at least it had Thomas Bylney. In his capacity as an inflammatory preacher and a leader of men, he took the lead in starting the English Reformation. He often evoked the epithet of ' Little' a reference to his slight stature but a more fitting description would have been 'aggressive' or 'tough-minded' Bylney. Although he expressed doubts about the papacy he never openly repudiated the see of Rome: nor did he doubt the traditional doctrine of the real presence in the eucharist. Clearly, he cannot be called a Protestant although he is often portrayed as one. His conversion to evangelical reform came through reading the Novum testamentum of Erasmus, but his subsequent attack on the saints puts him beyond the pale of the milder, conservative Erasmianism. His personal influence at Cambridge was immense since he was responsible for converting key men in the coming Reformation of England: Thomas Arthur, Hugh Latimer, Robert Barnes and John Lambert. The portrait that Foxe paints of him is of saintly hue. Like the apostle Paul he was an insignificant-looking man, temperate in his habits, ascetic in his tastes, and unflagging in his concern for others. He visited ' lazar cots' where he comforted the sick, and went to the prisons to reclaim the hopeless. He was something of a Puritan since when his college neighbour, the future Bishop Thirlby, practised his recorder, Bylney would resort to prayer. Bylney underwent four trials for heresy. On 23 July 1525 he was granted a licence to preach in the diocese of Ely, but a marginal note in Bishop West's register records that the licence was revoked because the holder had been accused and convicted of heresy. It is likely that this episcopal prohibition on Bylney's preaching caused something of a stir. Resistance to episcopal control of the pulpit was a consistent feature of early reform. One of the articles that Thomas Arthur was to abjure in 1527, after his joint trial with Bylney before Wolsey's episcopal commissioners, was 'that there ys nether bishop nor ordynary nor yet the pope that may make a law to let any to preche the gospell'} In a sermon in St Mary Woolchurch in the diocese of London, Arthur was reported to have claimed the right to preach by four authorities: Cardinal Wolsey, whose licence he had; the university of Cambridge; the pope; and the dominical command of Christ himself. A similar claim had been made in the same year by George Marshall while preaching in the London cure of Danbury. At a hearing before the vicar general on 2 April 1527 he admitted

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the last forty years the accepted portrait of the parliamentarian party during the Great Civil War has changed almost beyond recognition as mentioned in this paper, and a score of books and articles have been devoted, with much debate, to reinterpreting the nature of the factions comprising that party.
Abstract: In the last forty years the accepted portrait of the parliamentarian party during the Great Civil War has changed almost beyond recognition. A score of books and articles have been devoted, with much debate, to reinterpreting the nature of the factions comprising that party. By contrast, the accepted view of its opponent, the royalist party, is still that established by Gardiner over a hundred years ago. This situation is not unduly surprising. Some of the principal sources for a study of the royalist party, such as the journals of the royalist parliament, were destroyed at the end of the war. Furthermore, the royalists may seem ultimately less significant objects of study than their rivals, in that they lost the war and therefore contributed nothing, save as a menace, to the subsequent formation of English polity and the making of the modern world. Though not surprising, such an attitude is none the less indefensible. Considerable material for such a study does survive. Clarendon's comments, whether in his History1 or his Life2, are well known. By contrast other retrospective sources, notably Prince Rupert's ‘Diary’, a summary of his career by an unknown admirer,3 are almost unused. These may be compared with the contemporary evidence of hundreds of letters preserved in the British Library, Bodleian Library and local record offices. In favour of such a study, it may be argued that until the royalist party is understood the nature of the Great Civil War cannot be properly appreciated. Moreover, the significance of the parliamentarian victory for a future England is only clear if some suggestion can be made of the possible consequences of a royalist triumph.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present some findings from an analysis of criminal activity in an early modern society, as measured primarily through various records of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize, and General Jail Delivery (the Assizes) from its creation in 1692 to the eve of the American Revolution.
Abstract: The first object of this article is to present some findings from an analysis of criminal activity in an early modern society, as measured primarily through various records of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize, and General Jail Delivery (the Assizes) from its creation in 1692 to the eve of the American Revolution. Since the amount of serious criminal behaviour revealed by this evidence seems small, the article will then seek to identify the most important components of the system of social control over criminality evidently at work in provincial Massachusetts. These include a conscious effort to maintain a homogeneous population, a pattern of collective settlement in townships, an effective system of prosecuting serious breaches of the criminal law, the commitment of elite groups in town, church, county, and province to law and order, and the role of the family in teaching and assuring appropriate behaviour.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The state has been traditionally viewed as a political organization whose main components are government (legitimate authority), people and territory as mentioned in this paper, and while these elements are essential to any consideration of the state, they cannot in themselves suffice.
Abstract: The state has been traditionally viewed as a political organization whose main components are government (legitimate authority), people and territory. While these elements are essential to any consideration of the state, they cannot in themselves suffice. The traditional view fails both to analyse the division of the population into distinct if sometimes vague socioeconomic entities with conflicting interests and to examine the nature of the legitimate authority. Moreover, it lacks an understanding of the legitimation process, i.e. the manner by which the different sections of class-divided socioeconomic structures attempt to gain control and impose their authority on the decision-making process. Any adequate concept of the state must include a realisation that there is an indissoluble link between its formative process and the realm of private relations (civil society), and that the state structure thus formed is relatively autonomous.' In addition, the state being forced to co-exist (peacefully or not) in an international community, is constantly shaped through the process of integration in the international system. Foreign policy therefore constitutes the organic interaction of a state with the international community.2

Journal ArticleDOI
John T. Grantham1
TL;DR: The British Labour party's reaction to the demand for political integration, a demand which was crystallized in the I 948 'Congress of Europe', was examined in this paper, which was symbolic of the aspirations of those who saw European political integration as the most viable alternative to continued unrest and hostility among the states of Europe.
Abstract: As post-war hopes for three-power co-operation faded and the threat of Russian expansion westward into Europe grew more ominous the demand for a politically united Europe increased. As a result of their war experiences continental Europeans increasingly began to question whether the sovereignty of the nation-state was capable of providing the basis for a peaceful society. Many survivors of Hitler's concentration camps, together with many members of the war-time resistance movements, had reached the conclusion that some form of European union' capable of restraining the actions of its component parts was the only sure way to prevent a repetition of the horrors which they had survived.2 This article will examine the British Labour party's reaction to the demand for political integration, a demand which was crystallized in the I 948 'Congress of Europe'. That assemblage was the forerunner of the Council of Europe and symbolic of the aspirations of those who saw European political integration as the most viable alternative to continued unrest and hostility among the states of Europe. Equally, the party's reaction was indicative of its subsequent response for almost two decades to all efforts aimed at European political integration. In I 945 the British general election resulted in a Labour government which, based upon outward appearances, might have been expected to look with favour upon efforts aimed at reducing the absolute independence of national governments. The party's I 9 I 8 constitution pledged it to aid in forming a federation of nations in order to preserve peace and freedom3 and for years the party had demanded the transfer of a degree of national sovereignty to some supranational organization. However, Ross McKibbin has written that the constitution 'embodied not an ideology but a system by which power in the Labour Party was distributed '. His view is that the trades unions were interested only in securing a political arm which they controlled; once this aim had been incorporated into the organization socialist

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argued that the technological advantage between colonialist powers and anti-western resistance movements was as great or greater in the post-World War II era than in the late nineteenth century.
Abstract: Decolonization has had a significant impact upon the way that historians explain the process of Europe’s late nineteenth-century imperial expansion. Assumptions about superior technology now appear insufficient in themselves to account for the ability of relatively small armies to gain control over sizeable territory and populations in Africa and Asia. Although, as has recently been argued, advances in weaponry and medicine enabled Europeans to operate in tropical climates against less sophisticated opposition with devastating effect, differences in technology cannot explain the ability of less well-endowed national resistance movements to defeat colonial armies in the mid-twentieth century.1 Since 1945 various wars of national liberation have demonstrated that advanced technology, an impressive commitment of manpower, and an enormous expenditure of money cannot guarantee military success against a nationalist resistance in a colonial setting. If anything, this discrepancy in technological advantage between colonialist powers and anti-western resistance movements was as great or greater in the post-World War II era than in the late nineteenth century. Historians thus must seek additional explanations for the rapid advance of European conquest during the heyday of imperialism.



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: O'Grady and Maxim Litvinov signed an agreement at Copenhagen for an exchange of prisoners between Great Britain and Soviet Russia as mentioned in this paper, which opened the way to the more comprehensive negotiations which followed.
Abstract: On I 2 February I920, James O'Grady and Maxim Litvinov signed an agreement at Copenhagen for an exchange of prisoners between Great Britain and Soviet Russia. It was the first formal agreement to be concluded by the two and, since its signing, has been viewed within the larger context of the restoration of Anglo-Soviet relations.' No one, however, has explained how this accord opened the way to the more comprehensive negotiations which followed. Nor has anyone explained the role of David Lloyd George in the negotiations. This study will examine that role and attempt to establish more exactly the way in which the Copenhagen negotiations contributed to the slow process of restoring Anglo-Soviet relations. Sources for this study are not as rich as might be imagined. Richard Ullman attributes this to the strength of the 'impulses to achieve the exchange of prisoners'; they were so strong that they stifled 'the complaint that the negotiations might imply de-facto recognition of the Soviet government '.2 As will be shown this is incorrect, for objections were raised for exactly this reason. They received little expression, however, because Lloyd George repeatedly denied that they had any foundation. These denials served his purpose but not that of the historian. His policy, as Harold Nicholson has observed, 'was impenetrably closed '. What was this policy? It was one of nearly consistent opposition to British intervention in the Russian civil war. That intervention ran counter to virtually all of his basic assumptions regarding the conduct of British foreign policy.4 Moreover, he believed intervention would fail. Even if the revolution could be crushed he