Bankruptcy law in early nineteenth-century England called less loudly for reform than did the machinery of its courts. The “Commissioners in Bankruptcy,” spoken of in evidence before parliamentary committees as “London's main commercial court,” sat in a room in the Guildhall, always inadequate for their needs, but at times overrun by cooks when it was claimed as an extra kitchen for municipal feasts. There were seventy commissioners, grouped in fourteen lists of five. The post was in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, and as it was agreed that £300 a year was the most commissioners could expect to earn, it is not surprising that they were respectable rather than distinguished men, though in ambitious youth men as distinguished as Lord Macaulay might be glad of the Chancellor's patronage. The income, consisting of a guinea fee for each meeting, was brought to its maximum by expedients which destroyed the dignity and impaired the efficiency of the court. Of the five men, the necessary majority of three sat, while the other two went about other work, which might at times be that of practising as counsel before other “lists.” Guineas were easily added to by adjournments which increased the number of meetings. It was less obvious that they might be multiplied by three, by hearing before each set of three commissioners three bankruptcies, but this seems generally to have been done. Thus in a crowded room, at many tables, many bankruptcies marched on, at varying speeds, broken by frequent adjournment, which brought extra fee but at times better progress by resort to a private room in a coffee-house near by.

This article analyses how, in the last half-century, scholars have differed over the nature of Italian foreign policy under the fascist regime. It examines the debate between orthodox and revisionist historians over Mussolini's foreign policy in general, and also over three specific areas of Italian policy in the interwar years: Franco-Italian relations, Italian participation in the Spanish Civil War, and the alliance with nazi Germany. The author concludes that much of the debate has arisen because of conceptual befuddlement; writers have been primarily concerned with questions of coherence and continuity, and not with understanding Italian foreign relations. Historians have also disagreed over whether Mussolini had a ‘programme’, but a closer look shows that many of them were engaging in a semantic debate, and did not differ over the nature of fascist policy.

Recent interest in the early-modern British composite state has neglected Hanover, despite evidence of frequent and informal co-operation between the countries in foreign affairs. This article explores one aspect of diplomacy with particular import for the British–Hanoverian union, British policy in North Africa, and finds a greater degree of integration in trade policy than has been hitherto recognized. Britain's government came to recognize and treat Hanoverians in Morocco as British subjects during the eighteenth century, a policy which was expanded to the rest of North Africa and elsewhere after the acquisition of the maritime state of East Friesland at the Congress of Vienna increased the Hanoverian government's commercial responsibilities beyond its ability to cope. British policy did not reflect a consensus, and it was criticized by some who regarded Hanover as an entirely foreign state beyond the purview of the British government. But British sponsorship of Hanoverian trade prevailed over such dissent until the union's end, so that Britain's experience of composite statehood lasted until 1837.

It will soon be half a century since the Cambridge Modern History was planned: the first entry relating to it in the minutes of the Syndics of the University Press is dated 13 March 1896. It is forty-three years since the first volume was published, and throughout that time the history has held its own as one of the indispensable books. It was the parent of all the other Cambridge Histories, of which there are eight series down to the present time. No other modern general history on anything like the same scale has been written or even projected in the English language, and this is a testimony not only to its usefulness but also to the efficiency of those who produced it. The time from the publication of the first volume to that of the last, the Atlas, was only ten years; and perhaps only those who have been concerned in similar enterprises can tell what energy and competence that implies. There were 160 contributors. Some of them, though it seems not so many as twenty, are happily still living and working; but they would probably agree that the Cambridge Modern History, taken as a whole, is a monument of a stage in English historical studies which may now be regarded not unfairly as a past stage.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, local government was intrinsic to the nature of liberalism in theory and practice, beyond the specific national contexts of England or Germany. At an ideological and practical level, local government was integral to the liberals' concern for efficient and representative government. As long as liberals were unwilling to contemplate more redistributive state measures, local government became their central arena for social policy. Local involvement in primary education provided them with the ability to enable individual progress and self-fulfilment, while control of local income and taxation provided a further tangible yardstick against which liberal politics could be measured. The liberals' popularity in the urban sphere was enhanced through a distinctive rhetoric of civic pride. However, the appeal to community and belonging which this entailed remained illusory as long as liberals remained wedded to granting special political rights to property. Ultimately, the liberals' success and innovativeness in local government led to a ‘nationalization’ of their policies and concerns. In this way, local government contributed to the liberals' popularity from the 1870s, and underlined their ultimate failure.

In 1841, a select committee proposed that the houses of parliament at Westminster, which were being rebuilt in the aftermath of the fire of 1834, be decorated with fresco paintings and that Ludwig I of Bavaria's patronage of the arts be used for guidance. Both recommendations were surprising, for Britain had neither any tradition of public painting, nor any obvious ties with the south German state. This article explains why the committee was so sensible to Ludwig's example, and what it hoped to achieve by introducing fresco painting into Britain. The scheme was to serve not only as the means of establishing a national school of painting that could compete with the modern German school, but also as an integral part of a broader endeavour to construct a national culture in Britain that was both patriotic and socially inclusive. The national potential of this state-sponsored scheme of art promotion came to be undermined, however, by the emergence of both political and religious hostility to such German-style patronage in Britain. The article highlights not only the crucial role played by German art in the endeavour to construct a national culture in Britain, but also the continuing potency of religion as an element of British national identity during the first decade of Victoria's reign. It also draws attention to the fundamental role played by Prince Albert in his capacity as president of the fine arts commission, and the extent to which the debate surrounding the commission's proceedings provided the essential context for both the emergence and reception of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood in 1848–50.

The history of reading is a comparatively recent field. Work to date has been diverse both in period and methodology, ranging from case studies of individuals to statistical analyses of populations. This diversity means that it can be hard to discern either a broadly agreed narrative of reading practices or a clear set of debates. However, a range of scholars have emphasized contrasts between intensive and extensive reading, oral and silent reading, utilitarian and recreational reading, and public and private reading. These contrasts have been aligned with historical periods, with oral reading, for example, being associated with early modern reading in contrast to later periods. This article analyses the reading practices of Samuel Pepys and concludes that his example supports a contrast between a more intensive, oral, utilitarian, and public reading in the seventeenth century and that of later periods. Pepys's reading practices are also shown to have profound effects on his interpretation of texts. He sees texts of all genres as scripts to be performed by particular individuals, and judges them according to their suitability for this performance in a specific context.

Christian ideals of manliness were articulated by writers across the religious spectrum throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. At their heart was the shared ideal of the imitation of Christ, an all-encompassing Christian ideal of personhood. Whilst non-partisanship was itself an important ideal, theological differences and disagreements over the strictness of ideals led to accusations that some Christians, attacked as ‘moralists’ or ‘enthusiasts’, undermined or neglected ideals of manliness. At the same time, there were attempts to associate Christian ideals of manliness exclusively with the emerging ‘Evangelical’ party. In the historiography of masculinity in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, Christian ideals have often been marginalized, and, when considered, they have tended to be misconstrued by the adoption of church-party approaches. This review offers a detailed critique of Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall's account of Evangelical ideals of manliness in Family fortunes: men and women of the English middle class, 1780–1850 (1987; rev. edn, 2002). Their notion of distinctive ‘Evangelical’ ideals of manliness does not withstand scrutiny, and the key concepts associated with them, including ‘domesticity’, ‘the calling’, ‘the world’, ‘public’, and ‘private’, demand revision. At the same time, they gave insufficient consideration to ‘solitude’ and ‘charity’.

This article revisits the controversy surrounding the protection that Britain accorded the high commission territories on the advent of South African unification in 1910. Instead of incorporating these regions into the new Union from the start, the imperial government retained responsibility for them and further issued a schedule stipulating the terms on which transfer could take place later. The historiographical controversy centres around the respective roles of the high commissioner, the Liberal government, and the African inhabitants of these regions in formulating Britain's policy on this question. The present author agrees with Ronald Hyam that London made the decision to withhold the areas from the Union and that this decision has proved of critical importance to the welfare of the people concerned. This article, however, emphasizes that in the context of 1909 the question of transfer did not appear to possess the importance that it later took on, for all statesmen assumed that, sooner or later, the Territories would be transferred. What seemed more important at the time was the schedule governing transfer. This was primarily the work of the high commissioner – Lord Selborne. Though not without a trace of old-fashioned paternalism, his proposals display a modern enthusiasm for bureaucratic state building.

Politicians in the 1880s believed they were introducing ‘democracy’ into Britain and many feared the – possibly revolutionary – challenge it posed to the existing social and political orders. Historians have for some time recognized that the aristocracy continued to play a significant role in each until at least the First World War. The peers' social hegemony, strong institutional position and relative economic security were a formidable combination. Few would now accept Ensor's view that the 1880s witnessed the beginning of ‘the economic dethronement of the landowners’, and that ‘political headship [could not] long survive economic defeat’. The durability of the late-Victorian aristocracy remains, however, a phenomenon more frequently asserted than examined. The peerage was the sum of its individual members; yet the few ‘micro’ studies hitherto published have concentrated on the ‘aristocracy of the aristocracy’ – the elite of wealth and power, mainly dukes, within the peerage. We know little of the mass of peers who were far less favourably placed, suffered real financial difficulties, but whose tenacity and continued sense of purpose were crucial to the peers' ability to survive.

Much recent historiography has adopted a revisionist approach to Habsburg policy in restoration Italy, jettisoning the ‘black legend’ which long surrounded Austrian rule of Lombardy-Venetia. Nevertheless the Habsburg police still tend to be portrayed as essentially repressive, constantly preoccupied with the threat of revolution. This case study of the police in the Venetian provinces during the reign of Francis I challenges such a view. It looks first at the problem of establishing forces of law and order in the aftermath of Napoleonic rule, demonstrating how under-funding conservatism and a desire for uniformity with the rest of the empire meant that the Venetian constabulary was often ill-suitedfor the prevention of crime. Then follows an examination of the part played by the police in the administrative machine. This emphasises a number of roles performed by higher-ranking police officials and the secret police, and suggests their major concerns were not merely with the threat of revolution, but with gathering information essential for efficient government, and with maintaining a watchful eye over other branches of the bureaucracy. These in turn contributed considerably to the efficiency of Habsburg rule and the remarkable political passivity of the Venetian provinces in this era.

The election to the Convention Parliament of 1689 was one of the most important ever held, but singularly little attention has been paid to it. A detailed examination has revealed a number of factors which cast fresh light on the state of the country during the Interregnum and on the composition of the Convention Parliament. In this article I intend to restrict my attention to three aspects of the election: firstly, the effect of James II's preparations upon the composition of the House of Commons; secondly, the effect of the preparations of William III and his supporters; thirdly, the manner in which this election was fought in the various constituencies.

This is an article highlighting the limitations of Lord Salisbury as foreign secretary in an age when foreign policy was for the first time taking on a truly global character, and yet its practitioners still possessed a rather parochial, almost exclusively European experience, and distrusted ‘experts’. It was of course the late nineteenth-century spread of European imperialism that first called for such global policy making, and thus most of this Europe-dominated world was still for the time being quite susceptible to a Eurocentric approach.

But if any area was the exception it was eastern Asia, in due course to be mainly responsible for decline of Western imperial world hegemony. And in the vanguard of this counter-challenge was to be Japan, a country with which Salisbury personally was to find himself all at sea. By contrast, Ernest Satow, more than any other figure of his time, found the key to Japan, and it is a sign of how poorly general Western understanding of that country has progressed since then that his voluminous diaries and papers sit in the Public Record Office, still largely untouched by researchers.

The anti-socialist legislation enacted in great haste in 1878, following attempts on the life of Kaiser Wilhelm I, lapsed in the autumn of 1890. To an innocent observer, the Wiihelmine State thus appeared to be divesting itself of one of the most hated and socially divisive acts of political legislation. One of Kaiser Wilhelm II's first grand ideas, his suddenly-awakened passion for becoming an ‘Arbeiterkaiser’, which produced in its wake a spate of minor social reforms - factory inspection, regulation of child and female labour and guaranteed Sunday rest – suggested moreover that the much-heralded new course might envisage a share in a joint future for the luckless and despised Social-Democrats.

It is well known that the Tudor monarchs exerted highly effective control over the financial resources of the English Church, particularly in the years after the Henrician Reformation. So marked a feature of the sixteenth century were the demands which the Crown, followed by the rest of the leading laity, made upon the Church in order to gain easy profit, that the period has on occasions been characterized as the ‘ age of plunder ’ The dissolution of the monasteries, and its economic and social consequences, have long been the subject of scholarly attention and debate. The fortunes of the secular church, in contrast, have roused relatively little interest, except as a background to the Laudian revival. This is, of course, in part because the crisis which the parochial clergy, cathedral chapters and bishops, experienced, was less dramatic than that of the monks and chantry priests, and, perhaps partly because demands upon the secular church were often for taxation rather than for outright gifts of lands. None of the Tudors showed the slightest inclination to disturb the fundamental tithe relationship within the parishes, and there were very few, even among the most ardent advocates of reform, who spoke openly for the old Lollard concept of making tithe dependent upon the quality of the incumbent.

The bitter hostility with which Joseph Chamberlain was pursued by the sections of the Unionist party opposed to his policy of tariff reform, even after he resigned from Balfour's cabinet in September 1903 to conduct his campaign untrammelled by office, is a curious aspect of Unionist history. The party had seen its defeat clearly foreshadowed in a series of catastrophic by-elections, and yet it persisted in fighting its own internal fiscal battles instead of closing its ranks to meet the most formidable combination of Radical and Socialist forces that it had ever had to face. It knew that no viable proposals for fiscal reform would be put forward for several years, since its opponents were all committed to free trade. Why then did it perversely continue to dispute a remote contingency, thus encouraging its opponents to drive wedges into the divided Unionist leadership by well-chosen parliamentary motions in the sessions of 1904–5, and ensuring that in 1906 it was a demoralized as well as a defeated party that emerged from the polls? After every allowance is made for the purely human impulses that might account for these fiscal quarrels—the hopelessness of defeat, weariness of office, uncertainty in new and alarming political circumstances, and the suspicion that Chamberlain's ‘new departure’ was a bid to salvage his own political fortunes from the wreck of the party—it is still necessary to adduce some more convincing explanation for this seeming folly. For such an explanation, one must appreciate the full significance to contemporaries of Chamberlain's tariff movement, and his determination to make tariff reform and its attendant social and economic policies ‘the great question of the future, and the one on which party divisions will ultimately settle themselves’. His Unionist opponents believed they were fighting to protect not simply free trade, vital as this appeared, but also the whole fabric of Conservatism, both as a historic creed, and as a practical movement.

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.

Debates over billeting and martial law arose in the parliament of 1628 in conjunction with such other grievances as the forced loan and discretionary imprisonment employed by royal servants from 1626 onward to keep alive the war effort against the monarchs of Spain and France. Both houses dealt with billeting rather quickly, the Lords by resolving a dispute among magistrates and military officers in Banbury, Oxfordshire, and the Commons by hearing general and particular complaints from civilians, expelling a member who signed an order for billeting, and petitioning the king. Attacks upon the employment of military law internally when a state of war did not exist in England originated in the Commons, reawakened fears over the perceived threat of Roman or civil law superiority to the common law, and set off fierce debates in which royal servants and civil lawyers supported and leading common lawyers denounced as illegal the commissions of martial law issued by the privy council. Underlying these debates, as with those over discretionary imprisonment, were conflicting interpretations of England's ancient constitution with practical consequences for the governance of the realm.