The unity of the Unionist party had been destroyed by Joseph Chamberlain's momentous speech at Birmingham on 15 May 1903, a speech described by one of his disciples as ‘a challenge to free thought as direct and provocative as the theses which Luther nailed to the church door at Wittenberg’. It was a particularly apt simile. Chamberlain's speech demanded a new Reformation and men soon found themselves ‘hating Free Trade with all the intensity with which any Calvinist ever hated the Church of Rome’.

The negotiations between England and Germany over the future of the Portuguese Empire which were in progress between 1911 and 1914 have been given little attention by historians. Such as there is has usually taken the form of en passant remarks to the effect that the successful conclusion of an agreement was part of the evidence for something like an Anglo-German détente just before war broke out. Although the view that the episode does not rate full treatment is certainly correct, considerable importance was attached to the negotiations at the time, and their course does reveal some interesting features. There is useful evidence for discussing such problems as the views and influence of the permanent officials at the Foreign Office, the importance of imperial considerations in international politics at the time, and the attitudes of Sir Edward Grey and Mr ‘Lulu’ Harcourt (Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1910–15). The resolution of the divisions on the British side and the way in which the negotiations were handled has not before been put together from the available papers, and to do so gives an opportunity to reconsider what was the true significance of the episode in Anglo-German relations.

Although it is not free from errors in detail, one of the considerable merits of Macaulay's History of England is the attention it gives to the newspaper Press and to the effects of the Licensing Act and of its expiry in 1695. More recently Dr de Beer has provided an admirable but brief account of the period from 1695 to 1702, but these explorations have served to open up rather than to exhaust the subject. In the present article also some interesting and important topics will have to be neglected, such as the advertisements in newspapers, the publication of literary and trade journals, and the politics behind die discontinuance of the Licensing Act in 1695.

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.

This article examines the circumstances surrounding the condemnation and burning for heresy of the Observant Franciscan John Forest in 1538. Forest's principal ‘heresy’ was his adherence to the papacy, making him the only Englishman to be burnt for this offence by any Tudor regime. His fate, however, can be placed in the context of an increasing willingness of Henrician apologists in the 1530s to identify papal claims as heretical, particularly over the issue of the authority of a general council, to which Henry VIII had appealed over the divorce. The papal convocation of the council of Mantua in 1536–7, and Henry's need to impugn its authority, provides the immediate context for Forest's condemnation. The article also demonstrates how the harshness of Forest's treatment was related to his avowed equivocation over the oath of supremacy, and how Forest and a number of other conservative priests and laypeople were able to employ strategies to subvert the government's attempts to bind their consciences. It concludes by suggesting a number of reasons, political and theological, why the policy pursued with Forest was not repeated.

This article argues that the restaurant offers a useful site for mapping patterns of transnational and global exchange within late Victorian and Edwardian London. The dramatic expansion of public eating in this period was met in part by foreign-born entrepreneurs, and wait and kitchen staff drawn from a genuinely international labour market. Londoners and visitors to the metropolis were exposed to a variety of new, often hybrid, culinary cultures, which call into question simplistic binaries between Britain and the world beyond. The simultaneous presence in London's restaurant scene of French menus, Indian dishes, Italian cooks, German waiters, and Chinese and American diners reveals the complexity of the relationship between populations and places. London's ‘gastro-cosmopolitan’ culture reveals not merely the extent to which Britain's imperial metropolis was exposed to transnational forces, but that these influences were genuinely global and not confined to Britain's formal empire. London's cosmopolitan dining culture suggests that historians might be advised to move beyond the tropes of danger and anxiety when discussing late nineteenth-century London, and do more to acknowledge a range of responses – attraction and pleasure included – which more accurately reflected the metropolitan experience.

Modern technical and scientific development has altered war from a contest between men into a combat between machines. Even the development of firearms did not bring about a change of this magnitude, since firearms went into combat propelled by animal energy (of man and beast). This change-over occurred first at sea when steam engines started to propel ships of war. In days of sail at sea a great deal depended on the purely human factor of seamanship. With the introduction of ships moved by machinery all came depend on the quality and power of this machinery. Drake, De Ruyter Nelson, with all their skill or experience, could have done nothing against steam man-of-war. On land this development took longer. Throughout nineteenth century railways carried men and beasts to the scene of combat and brought them their supplies, but on the battlefield men and horses carried the weapons of war into battle. The invention of the petroleum-driven internal combustion engine changed all that. For the first time man commanded the power necessary to propel engines freely over land and in the air, an invention which had already occupied the imagination of Leonardo da Vinci and appeared in the prophetic writings of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.

The death of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo galvanized the Habsburg monarchy into its most fateful decision: the initiation of local war against Serbia. His demise, among other things, ensured Berlin's fidelity to its alliance commitment, convinced (mistakenly) the decision-makers in Vienna that monarchical solidarity would keep Russia in check, and allowed the Hungarians to breathe more easily. But the heir apparent's death may also have had an importance generally overlooked in analyzing the crisis of July 1914.1 Put simply, his disappearance suddenly altered the decision-making processes of the Habsburg monarchy. The elaborate consultative procedures involving the archduke, his military chancellery, and advisers were abruptly terminated. No longer did the joint ministers, the national ministers, the military hierarchy or the emperor's court officials have to consider the archduke and his strong, often peaceful, views on foreign policy. Even Franz Joseph was now spared the irritation of having to explain a decision to his insistent nephew. Sarajevo thus not only supplied the occasion for Vienna's decision for war, it helped, by drastically revising the political process, to accelerate that decision.

In the debate between the charity organisation society and the new forms of personal service societies that grew up during the Edwardian period, disagreement centred on the nature of the boundary to be drawn between state and voluntary action. The paper reviews the theory and practice of the COS and suggests that while the new societies had much in common with the COS regarding their methods, the nature of their ‘partnership’ with the state was significantly different. While the COS operated a division of labour based on client groups, the new societies preferred a task-based division. The paper argues that while the new societies were determinedly more civic-minded and pragmatic regarding their attitudes towards state welfare provision, they offered no coherent rationale for voluntary effort to replace the theory developed by the COS.

This article calls for attention to be paid to the infrastructures that underpinned nineteenth-century globalization, and the use of better-known technological developments and global patterns of professional migration. It does so by outlining the work of the Marine Department of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service after 1868, focusing on its development of a network of lighthouses along the coast of China in its political and comparative contexts. These lights were at once local sites and nodes within a developing national and global system, and evolving practices around circulation of data and best practice, accepted international standards, technology transfer, and maritime safety. The Customs Service was a Chinese government agency, albeit within the British orbit of influence, but acted as a buffer between China and foreign interests and pressures.

In the 1530s, Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell carried out fundamental changes in the Tudor state. These changes amounted to a revolution in which three elements may be distinguished: the erection of the commonwealth into a sovereign empire, the king's divorce of Catherine of Aragon, and important alterations to the nature and structure of the English church. Because of the fundamental nature of the issues involved and the threat to the established order, the revolution very soon provoked widespread discontent among all sections of society. Nevertheless, opposition was spasmodic and uncoordinated, with each group of conspirators relying on another to rise, and all looking to the emperor, Charles V, to rectify the evils which, it was thought, the king's policies had brought about. Lack of effective leadership and failure to agree about what constituted the major grievances enabled the government to deal with the dissidents one by one. Cromwell was allowed to use parliament to ratify the government's programme and to manipulate public opinion. By constant vigilance and an intelligent use of the constraints placed on the populace by the penal clauses in the statutes, he secured the observance of the more unpopular measures. In spite of the overall success of this policy, the difficulties were many, and the final outcome always in doubt. Its enforcement was thus ‘a political task of some magnitude’ for the government. Probably the most determined challenge to the revolution was presented in Ireland, where rebellion broke out in June 1534.

Recent scholarship discussing the ‘federal moment’ in world history after 1945 has re-examined alternatives to the nation-state in the years of decolonization, arguing against any inevitable transition from empire to nation. This article focuses on the case of East Africa, where federation seemed an attractive and likely prospect by 1963, yet never came to pass. Here, the politics of federation should be understood as a constitutive part of the contested nation-state-making process, rather than a viable alternative to it. For the leaders who initiated the politics of federation in the 1960s, regional unity promised the further centralization of power and a means of defeating ‘tribalist’ opposition. For their opponents, federation was seized on as a means of promoting the autonomy of provinces or kingdoms within a larger federal unit. Ultimately, regionalist aspiration was inseparable from national politics, and negotiations among the leaders of East African states demanded the definition of national interests which divided states rather than united them. Such conclusions suggest that historians of the federal moment might more productively focus on the functions of federalist discourse in the making of nation-states rather than debating the viability of federalist projects.

Although returning shellshocked soldiers constitute a specific subgroup, their situation also illustrates the wider difficulties of Great War returnees. Whether disabled or fully fit, each veteran faced a cluster of problems related to the psychological and social readjustment to civilian society. Rightly or not, many felt that the promises for the postwar world were unfulfilled. War neurotic ex-servicemen faced two areas of difficulty. First, like all returnees, they had to deal with a large and unwieldy bureaucracy that paid little attention to the needs of individuals. Second, Ministry of Pensions policy for war neurotic ex-servicemen, guided by Sir John Collie, tended to exacerbate the faults in the system. Substantial political objectives were implicit in the establishment of the Ministry of Pensions, not least because of the appointment of Collie – an influential expert on malingering – as one of its leading authorities. His approach conveniently fitted into the government's agenda. Its objectives were to uphold and support a restrictive military view of shellshock and thereby limit financial liability; and above all to preserve the existing distribution of wealth while maintaining a visible response to public concern.

An act for registering births, deaths, and marriages was passed for England and Wales in 1836. Scotland, despite evident support for the principle of civil registration there, did not obtain equivalent legislation until 1854 – a paradox that has yet to be fully explained. Eight unsuccessful bills preceded the Scottish act, and this article explores the reasons for their failure. Although the Scottish churches and municipal authorities broadly favoured vital registration, their objections to particular clauses concerning the nomination and payment of registrars, the imposition of fees for registration and penalties for non-registration, and the provision of new administrative facilities repeatedly impeded the bills' progress through parliament. More importantly, four of the bills were linked to measures for reforming the marriage law, which were so offensive to Scottish sensibilities that the registration bills were damned by association. Only by altering these contentious clauses and eschewing any interference with the law of marriage did Lord Elcho's bill of 1854 succeed. The lengthy gestational period preceding the Scottish legislation did, however, result in the compulsory registration of births and deaths, unlike in England, and secured a greater breadth of detail in the Scottish registers.

Although for most country girls in Victorian England the choice of work outside the home was limited to domestic service, there were certain areas to which this did not apply. In some cases the reason lay in the existence of competing employment in local factories or workshops - so that in Lancashire (taking rural and urban districts together) about one in four girls aged between ten and fifteen were employed in cotton manufacture at the time of the 1871 Census of Population. But in other places, the cause was the continued survival of a cottage industry in which child labour played a significant role and where ‘a wellordered family [could] obtain as much or more than the husband who [was] at work on [a] neighbouring farm’ This latter circumstance applied to the counties of Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, where particularly during the first half of Queen Victoria's reign the pillow lace and straw plait trades were of considerable importance - the latter being organized primarily to meet the needs of the hat industry of Luton and Dunstable. Table 1 shows the size of the work force as recorded in the Census Reports of 1851,1861 and 1871. Nevertheless, these figures are probably an under-estimate of the true position, since many of the women and children working only on a part-time basis did not bother to declare their occupation to the Census enumerator.

This investigation and my ability to describe alien office structure is due more to chance than prior intention as it arose out of a difficult examination of the life of Thomas Pitt, second Lord Camelford (1775–1804). Lacking direct sources about him, I turned to an examination of his friends and associates and gradually a pattern emerged: an international network of secret agents. But who directed them, and from where? For a time the answer eluded me, and I was not helped by the statement in the guide to the public record office, that no alien office correspondence remains. In fact there is a considerable quantity, but with the exception of H.O. 5, which is entirely alien office, it is scattered in other H.O. classes as well as various F.O., W.O., and A.D.M. classes. But the late Alfred Cobban provided a lead and he had clearly recognized 1792 as a turning point in secret service. Others who have written before on this subject limited themselves to an examination of one of William Wickham's principal agents, Dandré, no doubt chiefly because at the time they wrote, much material that I have been able to consult was not then available to the public; i.e. a large part of the Wickham collection; the Talbot papers and the residue of Lord Grenville's papers.

When his colleagues at the beginning of the 1621 session were puzzling over whether supply should precede redress of grievances or vice versa, Sir George More rose to give them the benefit of his considerable experience. The question could best be resolved, he suggested, if redress and supply were thought of ‘as twins, asJacob and Esau’ which ‘should go hand in hand, for though grievances go first, yet the blessing may be upon subsidies’. The biblical analogy was quite clear. Although grievances like Esau had precedence as the elder of the twins, the two should in fact ‘go hand in hand’ through the House; at the closing, the order would be reversed and the subsidy would first receive the blessing just as the younger of Isaac's twins eventually did.

In myEngland under the Tudors I took the liberty of advancing the view that Henry VII’s reputation for rapacity and extortion is probably not borne out by the facts and that his policy did not turn from just to unjust exactions. Though I knew, of course, that this opinion contradicted one held by many since Henry VII’s own time I did not imagine it to be provocative; I thought that the work of such scholars as Professors Thorne and Richardson, Miss Brodie and Mr Somerville, had shown the old notions to be quite as mistaken as I maintained. However, I have since discovered that I was too simple in that assumption; in particular, I have been challenged to say how I would dispose of the well-attested facts that Henry VII deteriorated in the second half of his reign into a grasping miser and that he showed deep remorse in his last weeks. The short answer is that I do not regard the first fact as attested at all and cannot believe that remorse in the face of death should be interpreted so trustingly. But, since the issue still appears to be in doubt, I should like to rehearse it here rather more thoroughly. I believe that this historical revision results from an important change in historical method which involves both a more critical attitude to the sources and a better understanding of that age in its own terms.

English ‘feminist’ writings of the late seventeenth century frequently united pro-woman arguments with party-political polemics. But although such texts have been discussed in terms of rationalist and contractarian philosophy, or as forerunners of modern feminist concerns, the contemporary issues which underscore them have been ignored. However, an understanding of these debates is vital to comprehending fully the motives of pro-woman writers, many of whom were more concerned with the survival of the Church of England than ameliorating the lot of seventeenth-century women. The underlying importance of party politics is exemplified in one of the greatest works of early modern ‘feminism’, Judith Drake's An essay in defence of the female sex (1696). Although Drake shared political similarities with other tory ‘feminists’, including the more celebrated Mary Astell, Drake's work differed radically from theirs over how an Anglican tory society could be maintained. Instead of stressing the necessity of teaching the tenets of Anglicanism to young women, as had her predecessors, Drake combined tory ideas with Lockean philosophy and concepts of ‘politeness’ to formulate an early Enlightenment vision of sociable, secularized, learning and the role female conversation could play in settling a society fractured by party politics.

This review traces historians' use of the concept of popular culture, since its entry into the discipline in the 1970s. ‘Popular culture’ was initially loosely understood as the values, pleasures, and pastimes of the poor, and research in the field was heavily influenced by both Marxism and cultural anthropology. By the 1990s, earlier conceptions of popular culture appeared crudely reductionist, and heterogeneity, diversity, and ‘appropriation’ were firmly established as key terms and concerns for the historian of popular culture. But in the search for social and cultural complexity, the role of politics and the simple force of power and social inequality have been neglected. I argue here that wealth and power have long been key determinants shaping the character of popular cultural practice, and that their operation needs to be incorporated into our analyses. In this way, the study of popular culture offers the promise of research that is both of intrinsic interest and of broader historical significance.