This article addresses the historiographical neglect of tory women in the early Victorian period. The existence of a vibrant culture of female conservative letters, combined with the widespread participation of women in ultra-Protestant pressure-group politics, is suggestive of the neglected contribution women made to the revival of grass-roots toryism during these years. In particular, it is suggested that a consideration of the distinctive features of premillenarian Evangelicalism enables a more discriminating approach to the impact of Evangelicalism upon contemporary women. By focusing upon the career of the prominent premillenarian Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, and her editorship of the Christian Lady's Magazine, it is argued that contemporary attitudes towards ‘female politicians’ were far more flexible, variable, and contingent than is frequently assumed. The associational activities with which many premillenarians were involved, combined with their attention to Old Testament models of publicly active women and the sense of urgency that distinguished their theology, frequently led its adherents to problematize and critique existing formulations of women's roles.

The Benthamites or Utilitarians are often held to have been at least partly responsible for the Reform Act of 1832. To historians who make this attribution, Bentham's own writings have not been a help. They are generally too abstract and difficult to have been popular; and where (as in the Parliamentary Reform Catechism) they have an avowed practical purpose, they are at once too detailed and too extreme to be easily related to practical legislation. James Mill, on the other hand, claimed to be disciple of Bentham, held administrative office, and wrote short tracts which are known to have circulated among a whole generation of young liberals in the 1820s.2

The period 1929–33 was perhaps the most traumatic in the inter-war history of the British Labour movement; the ignominious collapse of the second Labour government led the Labour party to question not only the role of its former leaders but also its ideology. This article will reassess the role of the Oxford academic and socialist intellectual, G. D. H. Cole, in this period and will argue that his contribution to the reshaping of the party in the wake of the 1931 financial crisis and the formation of the national government was of much greater significance than has previously been acknowledged. In addition, it will analyse the effects that the political events of the 1920s and the failures of the Macdonald government had upon Cole's socialist ideology and will illustrate that his move away from his earlier guild socialism to a collectivist philosophy was more profound than he himself, and many commentators since, have been prepared to concede.

Writers on Leibniz have frequently stressed the marked contrast in character between his metaphysics and his political theory. As a metaphysician Leibniz appears as a thinker of daring originality whose views have sometimes seemed to set up certain tensions with orthodox Christian teaching. In the field of political theory, however, we encounter a much more traditional and conservative figure. Writing in a post-Hobbesian period Leibniz is a determined opponent of any trend towards a secular analysis of political questions; yet, within a framework of conventional theological assumptions, he is quite as insistent as Hobbes that obligation is co-extensive with the ruler's ability to provide protection. In a large measure the conservatism of Leibniz's political views can be explained by reference to die external facts of his position. Occupying a semi-official post at the court of Hanover, Leibniz was dependent on the favour of his electoral patrons; his political writings tended to be occasional pieces composed with a view to promoting specific Hanoverian interests. Leibniz's experience of politics was thus confined to the world of a minor German court, and die narrowness of diis background placed him at a severe disadvantage for understanding the political debates of a country like England with quite different traditions.

Financing the crown was, perhaps, the seminal question in the English reign of James VI and I. Attempts to tap commercial wealth were a central feature of fiscal policy. The derivations of crown finance from commerce are straightforward; for instance, customs duties or concessions the crown held in monopolies and patents. The grandest project of James's reign, Alderman Cockayne's project to export dyed and dressed cloth, embodied these commercial-fiscal connections in addition to the goal of economic growth. The same points are exemplified by proposals to construct a fleet of fishing vessels (busses) with which to confront Dutch mastery of the trade. This project also enticed policy-makers and provides a vehicle through which to examine the relationship between crown finance and commerce, the revisionist approach to the structural failures of early Stuart government, and the politics of crown finance. The first section will trace the development of ‘projects’ and the conceptualization of crown finance as a project par excellence. The second section analyses specifically the busses projects. The final section examines the interaction of busses and fiscal policy in the 1610s. The argument is that the ultimate failure of finance was political rather than structural and the basis for this failure lay in the operation of Jacobean kingship upon policy-making.

Successive governments in Britain took great steps towards a more democratic form of government between 1911 and 1928. Universal suffrage, first proposed tentatively by a government in the former year, was completed in the latter. In the same period, the house of lords - the rejuvenation of which was treated at least nominally as vital by both the Liberal government and the Conservative opposition in 1911 - was effectively relegated even by Conservatives to an unimportant role. The attitudes and policies of Conservative politicians towards these changes deserve study for diverse reasons. They were part of a national debate about the wisdom of progress towards democracy; and so they form an important chapter in the development of political attitudes. They also do much to explain both how the process of democratization occurred, and how post-war governments viewed the electorate, as Conservatives participated in or dominated governments for most of the years from 1915 to 1945. Finally, the importance of Conservative views has been overlooked by historians, because they have persistently pre-dated the trend to democracy in Britain and so underestimated the scale of controversy about it. These historiographical tendencies are illustrated by the still lingering myth that the franchise before 1914 was close to manhood suffrage, or by the hitherto general assumption that the reform bill of 1917–18 was uncontroversial.

An expeditionary force of the Indian Army landed in Turkish territory at the head of the Persian Gulf almost immediately upon the declaration of war by Britain against Turkey on 5 November 1914. After winning some minor engagements against Turkish forces, it marched into Basra, the chief town of southern Mesopotamia, on the 23rd. The subsequent course of the campaign in Mesopotamia included a number of setbacks for the British. The principal city, Baghdad, was not captured until after nearly two and a half years of fighting, and the chief northern city, Mosul, not indeed until after an armistice had been signed with Turkey. Even so, by the time hostilities ceased, large areas in the south had been under continuous British occupation for four years and the possibility of further advance was throughout the war present in the minds of British leaders, whether in London, Simla or Mesopotamia itself. Against this background of military conquest and a pre-war diplomacy among the European powers, excluding Russia, in which Mesopotamia had been marked out as the British sphere if Turkey was partitioned, it is unsurprising that the political future of the country should have been much discussed within British official circles. War aims went through several phases whose study contributes to understanding of British aims in the war as a whole.

Even in the uncertain and tempestuous times of Henry VIII, Cromwell's fall from power was unusually sudden and precipitate. On 18 April 1540 he was created earl of Essex and great chamberlain of England, thus confounding his enemies and those onlookers who had seen him tottering for some time; for the next two months he appeared to be enjoying his master's confidence as much as ever; but on 10 June he was suddenly arrested at the council table, hustled to the Tower, condemned without a hearing, and kept alive until a belated execution on. 28 July only because Henry still wanted his testimony against Anne of Cleves. It is alleged that he foresaw his fall some two years earlier, and indeed it is probable that he was always aware of the dangerous insecurity of a position which so entirely depended on the royal favour; nevertheless, when the knife actually fell it seems to have taken him by surprise. How and why it all happened are questions that have often been considered, but may never find a completely satisfactory answer because the principal actors in the drama did not commit themselves on paper. Burnet pointed out long ago that Henry's dissatisfaction with Anne of Cleves cannot have been the sole or even the chief reason, because Cromwell obtained his last and greatest honours after that storm broke; he saw the decisive factors in the accusations of heresy which were brought against Cromwell.

Although often differing dramatically in their methodologies and conclusions, most studies of the slave societies of the American South either draw to a close by the middle years of the eighteenth century or begin their story only in the 1820s and 1830s. Moreover, whilst some scholars have differentiated between particular patterns of black behaviour, as for example between African- and country-born slaves, field hands and domestic slaves, until quite recently comparatively little interest has been shown in delineating the ways in which black women perceived and responded to their status and condition.

The occasional conformity controversy during the reign of Queen Anne has traditionally been understood as a straightforward symptom of the early eighteenth-century ‘rage of party’. For all the pious rhetoric concerning toleration and the church in danger, the controversy is considered a partisan squabble for short-term political gain. This traditional interpretation has, however, never been able to account for two features of the controversy: first, the focus on ‘moderation’ as a unique characteristic of post-Revolutionary English society; and second, the prominence of the Anglican nonjurors in the debate. This article revisits the occasional conformity controversy with an eye toward explaining these two related features. In doing so, it will argue that the occasional conformity controversy comprised a referendum on the Revolution settlement in church and state. Nonjurors lit upon the practice of occasional conformity as emblematic of the broader malady of moderation afflicting post-Revolutionary England. From their opposition to occasional conformity, the nonjurors, and soon the broader Anglican high-church movement, developed a comprehensive critique of religious modernity that would inform the entire framework of debate in the early English Enlightenment.

Although one of the most influential figures of his time, Bishop Gilbert Burnet has become one of the most neglected. This article outlines Burnet's worldview, arguing that it can only be partly understood by labelling him a ‘latitudinarian’ as scholars have hitherto tended to. Alongside Burnet's conventionally latitudinarian descriptions of Christianity as a set of rational and simple beliefs that could command very wide assent, the bishop also had a strong sense of history as a providential and apocalyptic unfolding of a battle between ‘true’ and ‘false’ churches, which was characterized by a powerful European dimension and by an identification of Antichrist with religious persecution. The article concludes with suggestions about how such lines of thought might have cohered with the more traditionally ‘latitudinarian’ elements of Burnet's philosophy, and about how they might allow historians to re-think the latitudinarian movement more generally.

This article argues that theatre in colonial India – both in the form of touring companies and amateur dramatics – offered much more than mere entertainment: first, it was an important social space where the British diaspora constituted itself as a community. Secondly, it served as a lifeline to the home country. By watching theatrical performances either brought to them straight from London or which they performed themselves, colonial Britons felt in touch with their homeland. Finally, theatre not only allowed colonial audiences to participate in the metropolitan culture; it inadvertently helped to unify the British empire. Whether living in London, the provinces, or a colonial city, all British subjects consumed the same popular culture, forming in effect one big taste community. Theatre, therefore, lends itself to a discussion of central issues of imperial history, as, for example, the relationship between the metropolitan centre and the imperial periphery, the colonial public sphere, social and racial hierarchies, the perception of the ‘Other’, and processes of cross-cultural exchange and appropriation.

The repeal of the corn laws in 1846 has generally been regarded as the result of a clash between the old agricultural order and the rising industrial and commercial classes of the era. Whether or not this view is altogether correct, it is certain that there was another side to the story that deserves a closer scrutiny than it has hitherto received—namely that of the difficulties which took place within the ranks of the agriculturists of the Conservative party. The outcome involved an event that was just as interesting and perhaps more important than the fate of the corn laws. In bringing about the downfall of Sir Robert Peel, it radically altered the fortunes of Benjamin Disraeli, who could never have found any considerable place in Peel's Conservative party. On the disruption of that party, he was able to make himself indispensable in the building of a new one and thus ensure for himself a destiny that it had seemed might well elude him. How closely he concerned himself with the early stages of the agricultural intrigue that ended in the downfall of Peel it is not intended here to inquire. Suffice it to remember that he had been involved in agricultural conspiracies long before 1846 and had doubtless been for some time aware of the possibilities of the kind of rupture which eventually occurred. At all events he always seems to have kept a very calculating eye on the differences that sprang up between Peel and his agricultural following.

Before I start I would like to express my gratitude to the Faculty Board of History who have entrusted me with the very interesting task of delivering this lecture and to Mrs Lindsay for handing me a copy of her article on the ‘Origin and Early Development of the Cambridge Historical Tripos’, which appeared in volume IX of the Cambridge Historical Journal. This article surely must remain the authoritative account of the early development of the Tripos. I owe much to it, as also to an anonymous set of notes on the changes in the Tripos up to 1932, which was discovered in the offices of the History Faculty. This I suspect to have been compiled by Ronald Balfour, a Fellow of King's and close friend of mine, who was killed in the last war. I need not say that neither Mrs Lindsay, nor the author of these notes is responsible for what follows.

Even though the argument runs counter to much of the detailed scholarship on the subject, Britain's decision in 1921 to terminate its alliance with Japan is sometimes held in general historical surveys to be a major blunder that helped to pave the way to the Pacific War. The lingering sympathy for the combination with Japan is largely due to an historical myth which has presented the alliance as a particularly close partnership. The roots of the myth lie in the inter-war period when, in order to attack the trend towards internationalism, the political right in Britain manipulated memory of the alliance so that it became an exemplar of ‘old diplomacy’. It was then reinforced after 1945 by post-war memoirs and the ‘declinist’ literature of the 1960s and 1970s. By analysing the origins of this benevolent interpretation of the alliance, this article reveals how quickly and pervasively political discourse can turn history into myth and how the development of myths tells us much about the time in which they were created.

This review considers, first, current work on the Napoleonic Empire dealing with Switzerland, the three parts of ‘Germany’ (the Rhineland, the ‘Third Germany’, Prussia), Spain, and the so-called ‘national’ question(s) in these countries and regions. It next focuses on recent work on the three parts of ‘Italy’ (the Kingdom of Italy, the départements réunis, and the Kingdom of Naples). But the main body of the review concentrates on the work of Michael Broers: not only his new and remarkable conceptualization of the Empire as containing ‘inner’, ‘outer’, and ‘intermediate’ zones, but also his creative if controversial application of post-modern colonial theory to an analysis of the French in Italy. The review suggests that Broers, for all his brilliance and mastery, has perhaps pressed his arguments and conclusion beyond his evidence base. The latter, while extensive, is too limited to just French perceptions of Italians before 1815, and does not extensively consider Italian reactions to the French presence; nor does it provide significant evidence to buttress Broers's far-reaching conclusions about nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italy.

This article analyses more than thirty demonstrations by suffragettes of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) connected with the Budget crisis of 1909, and challenges many of the established orthodoxies about suffragette militancy. Demonstrations did not represent spontaneous activity by the rank and file, but were carried out or at least led by WSPU employees or ‘professional’ militants, with several visible changes in tactics which indicate an organized campaign directed by the leadership. Damage to property, and the political violence which culminated in the terrorist tactics of 1912–14, did not begin as a response to wrongs done to the suffragettes, but because the leaders decided it was necessary. But these tactics were a counter-productive mistake which caused an adverse public reaction and justified the government in the introduction of forcible feeding. The WSPU was obliged to retreat in a humiliating reversal.

In contrast to the prevailing historiographical consensus, this essay will seek to demonstrate that there was a widespread and persistent concern with foreign policy in the early years of the French Revolution, the product of the interplay between inherited diplomatic assumptions on the one hand and revolutionary politics and values on the other. In particular, it will show how and why public opinion in France after 1789 abandoned its pre-revolutionary concern with Britain, Russia, and the global balance of commercial power in favour of Austria, the émigrés, and the security of the frontiers. In this light, considerable attention will be given to the development of Austrophobia in the period. Rooted in traditional French distrust of the Habsburg dynasty and reinforced by widespread opposition to the Austrian alliance of 1756, this would find its most virulent expression in the popular myth of a sinister counter-revolutionary ‘Austrian committee’ headed by Marie-Antoinette. The argument of the essay will turn upon the links between the emergence of that myth and the popularization of the ideas of Louis XV's unofficial diplomacy – the secret du roi – and its outspoken apologist Jean-Louis Favier. Adopted by various disciples after his death in 1784, Favier's ideas gained in popularity as the menace of counter-revolutionary invasion – aroused in particular by the emperor's reoccupation of the Austrian Netherlands in July 1790 – began to dominate the popular forums of revolutionary politics. They would ultimately help to generate a political climate in which the Brissotins could engineer an almost universally popular declaration of war against Austria less than two years after the revolutionaries had declared peace and friendship to the entire world. From this perspective, the growth of Austrophobia between 1789 and 1792 and its profound influence on the development of revolutionary foreign policy might usefully be described as the triumph of ‘Favier's heirs’.

The 1930s, a decade Labour in Scotland could have done without, ended appropriately. On Sunday, 3 September 1939, hours before war was declared, police closed down a Labour party meeting on Glasgow Green. The Glasgow left-wing weekly Forward, reporting this, concluded gloomily: ‘It is doubtful whether any other meeting will be allowed during the war period.’ Labour’s fortunes in 1939 were mixed, and it did not regard the imminent prospect of an election with enthusiasm. In Scotland it had recovered from the nadir of 1932, when after the secession of the Independent Labour party (I.L.P.) it was left with only three M.P.s out of the seven who had survived the 1931 election. But its gains in 1935 still gave it only 20 out of 74 seats, well short of its 1929 level of 37. It later won two by-elections, and acquired George Buchanan M.P. from the I.L.P. in 1938, but by then its municipal successes of 1932—5, when it took over most of the larger Scottish towns, had been checked. In November 1936 it lost Dundee. There was some recovery in 1937, but a net gain of only one seat in 1938. It had yet to take control in a single Scottish county.