The Tudor Parliament, I suggested to you a year ago, quite properly fulfilled a function of giving legitimate political ambition a chance to achieve its ends, more particularly because from the 1530s onwards, at any rate, experience in the Commons could put a man in the way of entering the royal Council. Of course, this would never be true of more than a few such knights and burgesses, nor was it either a sufficient or a necessary cause of their becoming councillors. Still, the link was there. I now want to turn to the Council itself and ask whether its history and membership similarly reflected a useful function in enabling ambition to be satisfied. Here we enter upon territory far less well known than the Houses of Parliament. The Tudor Council is not now quite so free from the attention of historians as it was even ten years ago; but while we may be really well informed about it here and there, and while indeed we all think that we have a fair idea of its place in constitution and society, it remains true that every time one asks oneself a question touching it one comes up against so far unillumined obscurities. The work of any governing body is always difficult to understand because only those there present actually know what goes on and because so much of what does go on never reaches the record; and the Tudor Privy Council made emphatically certain of preserving itself from scholarly prying by keeping no minutes of discussion at all.

The first impulse to make a special study of the Treaty of Seville came from my interest in the career of that eminent diplomatist, Benjamin Keene, on whom I discoursed at some length last February. But at that time my attention was concentrated upon Keene's second mission to Spain from 1749 to 1757, and I only gave a very superficial glance at his earlier mission from 1727 to 1739. In reference to this I stated that he played an active part in bringing about the Treaty of Seville, that he was deposed at the last minute from being the sole English signatory of the treaty by the return of William Stanhope, and that he felt some chagrin because all the credit and reward for making that treaty went to his senior colleague, whereas he himself received no recognition of his services. There was no doubt about his discontent, because I found frank expression of it in his letters, but I was curious to ascertain how far this discontent was justified. The study of this minor problem led me on to consider the importance of the treaty in the history of Europe. I came to the conclusion that it was a notable landmark in the rather tangled diplomacy of the second and third decades of the eighteenth century. The tangle arose from the temporary dislocation of interstate relations in Europe from normal into abnormal grooves, and a prominent cause of that dislocation was that national interests were largely superseded or overshadowed by dynastic claims and uncertainties.

The type of economic organization known as the manor existed in the north of Gaul, including the regions which were later to be known as the Low Countries,1 in the Merovingian period and even in Roman times, but it is not till the eighth century that evidence regarding it becomes relatively abundant. The little that can be said of its structure and diffusion before the Carolingian period can only be of an introductory character. We have no evidence as to the relative proportions of large, middle-sized, and small estates, but there can be no doubt from texts of the seventh and early eighth centuries that large, indeed very large, estates existed at this period.

IN his ‘English Contributions to Renaissance Colonisation’ Professor Quinn treats one only of the interactions between humanism and overseas expansion. He does not here discuss, as he has done elsewhere, the stimulus to speculation about human history and society which was given by the discovery of new worlds of custom. He concentrates rather upon the ways in which those who advocated, planted and managed colonies were inspired by or appealed to humanist learning, and in particular the example of Rome. In much the same way I am not centrally concerned in this paper to discuss the stimulus given to academic enquiry by the intensified encounter of Europe with the rest of the world during the last hundred years. My main concern is with the ways in which those who advocated, pacified and administered colonies were inspired by or appealed to the new sciences of man.

This essay examines the issue of armed resistance in France 1941–4 through the lens of collective reprisals inflicted on local communities as a result of armed resistance. It uses three examples from different parts of France: the north, the west and the Massif Central. It examines not only the incidents themselves and the reprisals but the way in which the local communities reacted to and commemorated the events in the years after the war. The essay concludes that local communities were at best ambivalent towards and at worst hostile to acts of armed resistance committed in their midst

The literature relating to Winston Churchill is by now so extensive, and our evidence about him so abundant, that the approaching completion of the official life by Martin Gilbert may seem to herald the end of historical inquiry into Churchill for at least a generation. This may be so; but it is more likely that he will continue to be the focus of animated discussion. Churchill, like Roosevelt or Trotsky, has inspired a perennial curiosity which springs as much from complexity of character as from fame. A. J. P. Taylor has justly applied to him Dryden's couplet: ‘A man so various that he seemed to be, not one, but all mankind's epitome.’ Admittedly, there are individuals so prejudiced for or against Churchill as to lack interest in assessing him. But for anyone who overcomes this barrier, Churchill holds the fascination of a rare species of animal which no one can easily place in the scheme of creation. A part of this curiosity stems from the fact that Churchill as a policy-maker was both peculiarly inspired and peculiarly disaster-prone. Military historians, evaluating his strategic conduct of the Second World War, are pursuing a controversy which began at Gallipoli in 1915. Political historians, too, are intrigued by the fact that Churchill's judgment was so prescient on some issues, and so mistaken on others. Like Churchill's contemporaries, they tend to detect in him strands of genius interwoven with strands of folly.

The office of the justice of the peace developed during the fourteenth century from that of the keeper of the peace who held inquests and received presentments, and the process has been traced in great detail by Professor Putnam. In 1925, Professor Cam assigned some records of a keeper's inquests to 1277 and so carried the beginnings of the earlier office well back into the thirteenth century. Custodes pacis of a still earlier period Professor Cam dismissed as ‘extraordinary’ keepers, ‘whose existence is explained by the special conditions arising out of the struggle between the king and the baronial party’. But these earlier keepers are not confined to the period of civil war; a survey of them is necessary to the history of the justice of the peace, and it is this which the present paper attempts to provide. Lambard's description of these early keepers is useful as a starting-point:

The Sheriffs I call ordinary Conservators of the Peace, because their authority was then ordinary, always one, and the same well enough knowen: But the extraordinary Conservator, as he was endowed with an higher power, so was he not ordinarily appointed, but in times of great trouble only, much like as the Lieutenants of shires are now in our days. And he had charge to defend the coasts and country, both from foreign and inward enemies, and might command the sheriff and all the shire to aid and assist him.

The earliest keepers supplemented the sheriffs in the policing of the countryside, especially in times of crisis and during the threat of invasion; and these ‘great troubles’ were frequent enough to make the keeper an increasingly permanent official.

Those present in the council chamber around teatime on Friday, 4 April 1628 would have witnessed one of the more hopeful scenes in die politics of die late 1620s. Sir John Coke, Secretary of State, arrived hotfoot from die House of Commons to announce diat it had voted to grant die crown five subsidies. The king, who had been waiting for die news, expressed ‘joy and contentment, saying he was more happy than any of die kings his predecessors …’;

A general study of the effects of the Viking Wars on Anglo-Saxon society is much to be desired. These wars lasted from the last years of the Mercian hegemony to the last months of the life of William the Conqueror. It has been abundantly shown that the English did not catch institutions from the Vikings like a sort of social measles, but common-sense alone suggests that a three hundred years war with little more than one generation's respite must have had consequences. Such a study is far too large for a single paper. What I have sought to do, therefore, is take a single campaign, that culminating in the famous battle of Maldon, which occurred at a moment of intense crisis and to try to set this campaign in a context of the relevant political and military problems of the day, and most of what I have to say relates to the much-dismissed, little studied, but well-evidenced, reign of Æthelred II.

In January 1556 Charles V renounced his rights to the Iberian kingdoms and passed them on to his son, Philip, who at once assumed the title of King of Spain. To his surprise and consternation, the English council refused to endorse it and pertly reminded him that the Kingdom of Spain did not exist. While the title had long been used, and almost every language had an equivalent for Spain and Spanish, the truth was that legally there was no such entity. Philip II's will reflected this judicial reality. He was, ‘by the grace of God, king of Castile, Leon, Aragon, the Two Sicilies, Jerusalem, Portugal, Navarre, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Mallorca, Seville, Sardinia, Cordoba, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, Algarve, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, the Eastern and Western Indies, the islands and terra firma of the Ocean Sea; archduke of Austria; duke of Burgundy, Bravant and Milan; count of Habsburg, Flanders, Tirol, Barcelona; Lord of Biscay, Molina etc.’. This lengthy litany partly explains why he and all his contemporaries habitually resorted to the title King of Spain as convenient short-hand. As we will see, however, there was more to it than simple utility. The terms were used because they were broadly understood and accepted. But it will be apparent at once that the concept of a specific Spanish identity in the sixteenth century is likely to be particularly problematic since Spain did not exist.

It is a singular paradox that one of the world's leading maritime powers should have virtually ignored the history of its merchant service. Yet such has been the case in England— inevitably, perhaps, in view of the spectacular course of naval and imperial achievement—and this notwithstanding the labours of a host of publicists to demonstrate the importance of the country's shipping as ‘a principal means to advance [its] honour, strength, safety and profit].

There has long been some measure of agreement that European people in the middle ages adhered to a form of Christianity which was ‘folklorised’, ‘enchanted’, or ‘magical’. Interwoven with the traditional creeds and the orthodox liturgy were numerous beliefs and practices which were intended to ensure spiritual and bodily welfare, and guard against misfortune. To the endless frustration of theologians, ‘religion’ and ‘superstition’ stubbornly refused to remain clearly separate, despite the intellectual effort expended in forcing them into different compartments. ‘Superstitious’ rites or beliefs repeatedly intersected with the official Catholic cult. It was believed that if a talisman were placed under an altar-cloth during mass, it would acquire spiritual potency. Orthodox prayers were constantly adapted to serve the needs of popular magic. Clergy, let alone layfolk, found the line between acceptable and superstitious practice difficult to draw. For a graphic illustration of this problem, one need only look at the following recipe for curing a hailstorm caused by sorcery:

But against hailstones and storms, besides those things said earlier about raising the sign of the cross, this remedy may be used: three little hailstones are thrown into the fire with the invocation of the most Holy Trinity; the Lord's Prayer with the Angelic Salutation is added twice or three times, and the Gospel of St John, ‘In the beginning was the word’, while the sign of the cross is made against the storm from all quarters, before and behind, and from every part of the earth. And then, when at the end one repeats three times, ‘the Word was made flesh’, and says three times after that, ‘by these Gospels uttered, may that tempest flee’, then suddenly, so long as the storm was caused to happen by sorcery, it will cease.

The epidemics of the fourteenth century have been the subject of much discussion by eminent scholars, whose investigations have been supplemented by detailed studies of various localities. No considered attempt, however, has been made to trace the course of the disease within Wales, which, by reason of its isolated position and mountainous character, is frequently regarded as having largely escaped the visitation. The study of the effects of such an agent upon a society predominantly pastoral offers a subject of special interest.

On the range of Quarry hills, midway between Lympne and Aldington, overlooking the vast expanse of Romney Marsh, lies the little hamlet of Court-at-Street, and in the fields below, belonging to the manor farm, the considerable remains of the ancient chapel. It is as quiet and pastoral a spot as you will find in all England, yet the scene of an event which has made an indelible mark upon the history of our country.

This paper examines racist discourse in radical print culture from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the passing of the Abolition of Slavery Act in Britain. Acknowledging the heterogeneity of working-class ideology during the period, it demonstrates that some radical writers actively sought to dehumanise enslaved and free black people as a means of promoting the interests of the white working class in England. It argues that by promoting a particular understanding of English racial superiority, radical intellectuals such as John Cartwright, William Cobbett, and Richard Carlile were able to criticise the diversion of humanitarian resources and attention away from exploited industrial workers and towards enslaved black people in the British West Indies or unconverted free Africans. Moreover, by presenting a supposedly inferior racial antitype, they sought to minimise the social boundaries that were used to disenfranchise English working men and reinforce their own, seemingly precarious, claims to parliamentary reform and meaningful political representation.

In Emlyn Williams's play, The Corn is Green (1938), an Englishwoman arriving in Wales is asked an important question: ‘Are you Church or Chapel?’ Since the seventeenth century, when non-Anglican places of worship made their appearance, this question has indeed been important, sometimes momentous. ‘Church’ has had one kind of resonance in religion, politics and society; ‘chapel’ has had another. Even in unreligious households, people may still opt for ‘church’ when the bread is cut (the rounded end) or ‘chapel’ (the oblong part). The distinction is far older than the seventeenth century, however, by at least five hundred years. There were thousands of chapels in medieval England, besides the parish churches, when religion is often thought of as uniformly church-based. Although these chapels differed in some ways from those of Protestant nonconformity, notably in worship, they also foreshadowed them. Locations, architecture, social support and even religious diversity are often comparable between the two eras. Arguably, the creation of chapels by non-Anglicans after the Reformation marked a return to ancient national habits.

MY purpose today is to do a kind of David Bellamy on the least promising patch of that unmapped, unloved bog-of-a-phenomenon we call ‘The British Constitution’. You know the sort of thing—‘this might just look like a boring old bundle of procedures and conventions to you, but there's life and insight in here!’

If ennui is already setting in, don't be upset. You are part of the grand tradition of our political nation. For my text today is from Mr Gladstone—his celebrated remark to the effect that:

If there are two things on earth that John Bull hates, they are an abstract proposition and the Pope.

The Norman conquerors of England had at first little cause to seek connexions with the empire of the Salian kings and they had nothing to fear from it. Before William sailed on his expedition, he enlisted, it is true, not only the goodwill of the papacy, but also that of the young Henry IV. Henry, who at the age of fifteen had by German custom reached his majority, seems to have made it known that men from Germany could go to host with William, should the latter wish it. Some of the Flemish knights who took part in the venture may have come from those fiefs of the count of Flanders which were held of the empire rather than of the kingdom of France. Bruno, in his Book on the Saxon War, would have his readers believe that the Salian king, when preparing his revenge against the Saxon rebels in 1074, sent for help also to William, who is supposed to have replied that he dared not leave England. But in the same year, only a few months earlier, it had been rumoured that the Conqueror was advancing against the Lotharingian frontiers of the Reich and about to seize Aachen at the invitation of Archbishop Anno of Cologne.

My text is taken from Macaulay, who wrote of the Cavalier Parliament of 1661–78:

‘The great English revolution of the seventeenth century, that is to say the transfer of the supreme control of the executive administration from the crown to the House of Commons, was, through the whole long existence of this Parliament, proceeding noiselessly, but rapidly and steadily. Charles, kept poor by his follies and vices, wanted money. The Commons alone could legally grant him money. They could not be prevented from putting their own price on their grants … that they should be allowed to interfere with every one of the king's prerogatives, to wring from him his consent to laws which he disliked, to break up cabinets, to dictate the course of foreign policy and even to direct the administration of war’

After her third consecutive election victory in 1987, Margaret Thatcher chose as her holiday reading Norman Gash's biography of Lord Liverpool. It was a fitting tribute from one remarkably durable prime minister to another. No one now thinks of Liverpool as a mediocrity, let alone an arch one, and the fact that many of his colleagues were more flamboyant than he was merely adds to his stature. His achievements as a statesman are emphasised by Gash, who depicts him as ‘one of the great through unacknowledged architects of the liberal, free trade Victorian state’, the first exponent of a public doctrine which, in both its economic and its moral components, would be taken up triumphantly by his successors—Peel, Gladstone, and (it might be argued) Thatcher. His achievements as a politician, meanwhile, can be measured by the fact that he sustained a fifteen year premiership, broken only by his stroke in February 1827, during a period of extreme social and economic difficulty. This seems all the more remarkable in view of the fact that the eighteenth century had seemed to demonstrate that in order to run a stable administration, a first lord of the treasury needed to be in the House of Commons.