Sandwiched between the Saint-Cyr law of 1818 and Niel's dazzling if futile effort to reform the army in 1867, the Soult law of 1832 has been sadly neglected by historians. Not only is the law a crucial piece of military legislation, but by studying its history one can trace the conservatism of the July Monarchy under the Périer Ministry.

This article explores the domestic political aspects of the last great disaster of French foreign policy before the revolution: the unsuccessful intervention in Holland between 1784 and 1787. These have been largely ignored by historians, although much attention has been given both to the internal politics of the Dutch republic as well as to British involvement in her affairs during this period. The article argues that the increasing incoherence of French policy towards the United Provinces was caused by profound splits within the king's council. These culminated in a series of attacks on the diplomacy of the powerful foreign minister, the comte de Vergennes, by his ministerial opponents. The Dutch affair reveals the fragmentation of foreign policy during the last years of the ancien régime, and also paints a wider picture of a deeply divided royal government on the eve of the revolution.

The Eastern Question is a hardy perennial in historical research and writing. Years, indeed generations, of study seem to leave basic issues unresolved. One of the most persistent of those issues is the role of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the British ambassador at Constantinople, in the outbreak of the Crimean War. Temperley may have been exaggerating when he said it had long been a popular belief that Stratford ‘was the human agency which caused the Crimean War’ – a belief he spent some time in efforts to dispel – but that Stratford was less than helpful in the pursuit of a peaceful solution to the 1853 crisis was certainly a widely held belief at the time and has proved an enduring one. As late as 1966, M. S. Anderson, dealing with the question of Stratford's ‘guilt’, once more could only conclude: ‘Whether Stratford de Redcliffe, as has often been alleged, privately urged the Turkish ministers to reject the [Vienna] Note while publicly advising them to accept it, is uncertain.’ The Vienna Note was the settlement of the Russo-Turkish conflict proposed jointly by the Governments of England, France, Austria and Prussia and accepted in toto by the Tsar. There was, however, no lack of certainty in the minds of the British foreign secretary at the time, Lord Clarendon, and the first lord of the admiralty, Sir James Graham, that Stratford had been an agent provocateur. On 3 September Greville wrote: ‘Clarendon thinks that Stratford has encouraged the resistance of the Divan to the proposals [at Vienna] and that he might have persuaded the Turks to accept the terms if he had chosen to do so…’

The letters of Lord North have made us familiar with the portrait and the general posture of a Minister who was in the habit of behaving like a prisoner seeking release—a man “tied to the stake”as he once said—a Minister who repeatedly urged that his continuance in office would bring certain disaster upon the nation; who cursed the futility of what he privately called that damned American war; who complained of illness, depression of mind, loss of memory and general unfitness for his post.

The efforts of Charles V (1500–58) to consolidate and defend his hereditary possessions gave a powerful boost to the development of public credit in western Europe. To meet a scale of expenditure which surpassed anything seen before, Imperial agents had recourse to an entirely new series of financial devices, necessity providing, as it normally did, the spur to invention. Charles V's servants exploited the facilities of the Antwerp Bourse to encourage the investing public to sink its money into government debt rather than commercial enterprises or speculations in commodities. Additional funds were raised on the credit-worthiness of provincial taxgatherers in the Low Countries. Thanks to the ingenuity of his financial advisers, the emperor survived the dramatic collapse of his position in Germany during the spring of 1552; and he was able shortly after to attempt the recovery of the Imperial bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun, which the Lutheran princes had bartered away in their bid for French support.

The history of modern or transoceanic American imperialism began midway through the nineteenth century with the achievement of definitive continental boundaries for the United States. At that juncture, the focus of the country's expansionist impulses shifted to Latin America and the Pacific Ocean area, and the quest for territorial possessions and spheres of influence in both regions began. By the turn of the century, thanks to a liberal use of armed force, it had been successfully terminated, completing the first and most robust phase of American empire building abroad.

This essay maintains that John Foxe has been under-utilized as a source of early modern English social history. Accordingly, the mid-Tudor portions of the Acts and monuments of Foxe are examined with reference to such topics as the size of early modern families, the roles of spouses within marriage, the status of romantic love and marriage, and the treatment of children. In addition to these familiar categories, however, the essay also asks whether the protestant community of the Marian era was forming a coherent vision of the family as part of its strategy of survival, and whether the catholic authorities were aware of this and attempted to thwart its development. The possibility of a connection between the protestant emphasis on rediscovering the heart of the Christian gospel and a renewed emphasis on the biblical vision of family is raised, together with a discussion of the English reformers' concern that families not serve as hindrances in the advancement of the kingdom of God at that critical juncture in the life of the nation.

There can be few nineteenth-century figures whose papers and writings are so frequently consulted and quoted by historians as those of Francis Place, yet who have been so sadly neglected as historical figures. The only full-length study of Place's life and work, by Graham Wallas, is seventy-odd years old.2 It suffers from numerous defects, the two major of which are a tendency to show Place in an unduly favourable light and to make enormously lengthy quotations from Place's manuscripts, with very little criticism or analysis of their content or of the part which Place played in any given situation. The failure to look at Place's career and influence in the light of the views of his contemporaries inevitably means that Wallas's study is one-sided and incomplete as a biography and is only really useful as a selection from Place's writing, illustrating a number of the campaigns in which he played a part.

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.