In the summer of 1536 several officials and other residents of the Devonshire town of Axminster brought suit in the Court of Star Chamber against a shoemaker named Philip Gammon. They alleged in their Bill of Complaint that Gammon was infected with diverse points and articles of heresy. Chief among these was that Gammon, on a number of occasions, had rejected the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar, saying that “It is not the very body of Christ, but it is a sign and in itself a very piece of bread.”

The case is unique in its time. It is the only action for heresy taken up by the Henrician Court of Star Chamber, a tribunal which normally heard matters touching the enforcement of statute law or breaches of the peace. Familiar with the legal terrain, the plaintiffs also accused Gammon of resisting arrest, threatening a crown officer with a knife, and disobeying royal warrants and commands. Lastly, they asserted that the defendant had been maintained in his illegal activities by the politically potent Carew family, thereby raising before members of the court the specter of the overmighty subject, a haunting prospect to loyal Henrician councillors.

The policy of “Thorough,” the effort at greater efficiency in church and state during the reign of Charles I, is usually regarded as a leading cause of the dissatisfaction that led to civil war. Lawrence Stone has described its objective as “a deferential, strictly hierarchical, socially stable, paternalist absolutism based on a close union of Church and Crown.” To G. E. Aylmer, the king's principal ministers, archbishop Laud and the earl of Strafford, were trying to achieve “more efficient government, and more effective central authority.” Both scholars agree that the methods used to accomplish these goals were of questionable legality. Aylmer credits the two leading protagonists of “Thorough” with good intentions, “cleaner as well as more efficient and absolute government”; but Stone points to the exasperating effect of the policy by noting that “Every aspect of economic life suffered from the feverish interference of bureaucracy whose sole objective seemed to be the extortion of money by the imposition of petty and irritating regulations.” Though these scholars discuss “Thorough” only in terms of its secular aspect, Christopher Hill has devoted considerable space to its ecclesiastical adherents, or to the possible impact that “Thorough” might have had at particular levels of the church bureaucracy.

In assessing the events which brought Great Britain and France from the edge of war at Fashoda in 1898 to the alliance of 1914, scholars have paid little attention to the settlement of Anglo-French differences in the independent African empire of Ethiopia. The resolution of Ethiopian problems in 1906 was nonetheless important in forging close Anglo-French relations, especially when viewed within the context of the better-known Entente Cordiale of 1904. By excluding Anglo-French conflicting Ethiopian interests from the already difficult entente negotiations, British and French statesmen removed a potential stumbling block to that important and seminal agreement. In a more positive vein, the subsequent signing of a separate Tripartite Treaty on Ethiopia—the Italians were the third signatory—actively reinforced the Entente Cordiale itself. To the French the Ethiopian agreement was a confirmation of British good faith in implementing the spirit of the entente beyond areas specified in the more important accord of 1904. To the British it was an object lesson that certain imperial interests in Ethiopia should not jeopardize generally improving relations with France. To both countries the Tripartite Treaty of 1906 tidied unfinished business of the entente and eliminated to each nation's general satisfaction a nagging local conflict.

French Foreign Minister Theophile Delcassé had wanted to include Ethiopia in the entente agreement. During the course of the negotiations he suggested to his English counterpart Lord Lansdowne a “comprehensive settlement” of colonial-imperial differences. While individuals in the British Foreign Office considered adding Ethiopia to the larger rapprochement over Egypt and Morocco, the British cabinet decided to postpone Ethiopian matters until after conclusion of the Entente Cordiale. In good part this decision reflected respect for the complexity of strategic, financial, and personal rivalries of the two great imperial powers in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.

In 1934-35 more than 11 ½ million adults in Great Britain completed the famous “Peace Ballot” (the official title was A National Declaration on the League of Nations and Armaments) designed to test, and indeed to demonstrate, popular support for the League and “the collective peace system.” The massive response exceeded all expectations and greatly impressed observers. It was, said the New Statesman, “the most remarkable popular referendum ever initiated and carried through by private enterprise.”

But what did the Ballot demonstrate? Did it return a “plain and decisive” answer as Lord Cecil of Chelwood, President of the League of Nations Union and Chairman of the National Referendum Committee, claimed?

Supporters of the Ballot had no doubt about the national verdict. Britons, said Cecil, had shown “overwhelming approval” of the collective system. They were, according to Winston Churchill, “willing, and indeed resolved, to go to war in a righteous cause,” provided that all action was taken under the auspices of the League. The British people were ready to fulfill their obligations under the Covenant, Philip Noel-Baker later wrote. The country was prepared to stop Mussolini by armed force if that should be required.