The quality of the Norman impact upon England in the eleventh century has occupied the attention of generations of historians. Nevertheless it is hoped that some adequate apology may be found for the subject of this paper. Certainly, however, the topic I have chosen calls for strict delimitation. No attempt is made here to reopen the time honoured comparison between the Norman and Old English Churches in the earlier half of the eleventh century. Indeed I wish wholly to avoid that controversial theme—and for a particular reason. Most of those who have been concerned to emphasize the importance of the Norman Church at this period have concentrated their attention—and obviously rightly—on the monastic revival which swept through the Norman Duchy at this time. Perhaps, however, the Norman bishops of this period also merit some particular attention. For these men, put properly into the shade by their monastic contemporaries, have had a very bad press from historians. Doubtless, they deserved it. Nevertheless, it might be to the advantage of Anglo-Norman studies if the Norman episcopate between 1035 and 1066 were to be studied a little more fully for its own sake. At all events, these bishops and their work form the restricted subject of this very tentative discourse.

Parliament governs by means of acts of parliament. When the number of acts of parliament increases over a period we may speak of a rise of parliamentary government, and when it decreases, of a decline. Under Elizabeth I and the early Stuarts parliamentary government declined. Taking into account the length of their reigns, Elizabeth and James I passed fewer acts than either Henry VIII, Edward VI or Mary. Charles I passed fewer again. Under Charles II, however, the number increased, and under William III it was much higher than ever before. Thus:

If any single turn of events condemned the Great Rebellion to its final collapse and made the Restoration ultimately inevitable, it surely took place that April night in 1659 when the regiments about London gathered at St James's in defiance of Richard Cromwell, ‘unanimusly crieing up the good ould cause And A Comanwealth, and noe single person’. The coup d'état which virtually ended the Protectorate left England at the mercy of the military grandees who had headed it and the Republican politicians who meant to profit by it. Both groups found themselves sunk too low in credit to erect a new regime in place of the one they destroyed, and after exposing their political bankruptcy for half a year longer they finally committed political suicide by quarrelling between themselves.

The career of John Capodistrias (1776–1831) is briefly described, and his personality is discussed, in every work which deals with the diplomatic history of Europe and of Russia during the second half of the reign of the Tsar Alexander I. Entering the Russian foreign service in 1809, he rose five years later to a leading position in it and retired, disappointed, to Switzerland in 1822. As President of Greece from March 1827 until his death in October 1831 he became a more central, and a still more controversial, figure in the history of that country; this period still has a special fascination for Greek writers, and much has been added in recent years to the number of published works, including more than one biography, several studies of one period or one aspect of his career and a host of books which, directly or indirectly, throw some light upon it. But the modern Greek language is a barrier to many readers outside Greece, and there has been no biographical study in a more ‘accessible’ language since K. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's book, Graf Kapodistrias (1864) which was intended to be sympathetic but reflected strongly the outlook of a German liberal constitutionalist of that age. Much of the early writing about Capodistrias was also coloured by the fear and suspicion of Russia which prevailed in Western Europe in the half century after his death. No English writer seems to have been attracted to him except in relation to British foreign policy; the most detailed modern study in French, perhaps, is to be found in E. Driault and M. L'Héritier, Histoire diplomatique de la Grèce de 1821 à nos jours (in vols. 1–11, 1925–6); but this is confined, as the title shows, to the diplomatic side and, though valuable, is not free from some rash judgments.