The ordinary revenue of the kings of Scotland in the early seventeenth century was drawn from a wide variety of sources. The comptroller received the revenues known as ‘property’ - fixed revenues and rents from Crown lands, payments from royal burghs, customs duties and the impost of wines. Out of these he met the"expenses of the royal household. The treasurer was responsible .for meeting nearly all other official and royal expenses out of the ‘casualty’, which included feudal casualties (irregular payments such as wards and reliefs), escheats, compositions and other profits of justice. The collector general and the treasurer of the new augmentations received various revenues from former church property. Administration of these revenues was simplified in 1610 when the earl of Dunbar, already treasurer, was appointed in addition comptroller, collector general and treasurer of the new augmentations, thus bringing responsibility for all branches of the ordinary revenue into the hands of one man, though he continued usually to be referred to simply as the treasurer. This amalgamation of offices became permanent, though the four offices all continued to exist in name until 1707, and separate accounting for the different branches of revenue continued until 1636.

During periods of recession, both historians and policy-makers have tended to revisit the multi-faceted relationship between health and economic crisis. It seems likely that the current economic downturn will trigger a new revival of efforts to gauge its implications for people's health around the world. This review will reflect on aspects of the relationship between health and economic crisis, exploring some of the unanswered questions within the historiography of the Great Depression and health, and suggest new directions that this work might take. Within a broadly transnational framework, I will reassess the diverse historiographies of interwar public health, in order to highlight ways in which the methodologies used could inspire future studies for neglected areas within this field, such as Southeast Asia. In doing so, I will illustrate that the effects of the interwar economic fluctuations on health status remain imprecise and difficult to define, but marked a transitional moment in the history of public health.

Mid-nineteenth century Imperial trade policy has been discussed mainly from the standpoint of the constitutional historian. It is probably for this reason that the economic events with which the policy is connected have received very little critical analysis, and are usually expounded on lines laid down by contemporary partisans. The orthodox view that the Canadian corn-exporting trade was encouraged by the English grant of increased preference in 1843, and in the midst of consequent expansion was injured by the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and later revived in some measure by the compensating repeal of the Navigation Laws in 1849, was the view normally held by Canadian writers in 1850. Having its origin in past politics, it characteristically exalts the influence of legislation. It is hoped to show in this article that when disturbing factors besides English tariff policy are taken into account—speculation, harvest fluctuation, and the policies of foreign states, to name no others—the interpretation which has proved so seductive is in the main a legend. A legend, it is true, whose acceptance in the late “forties” is not difficult to understand.

This article explores early twentieth-century British political and humanitarian engagement with the Balkans. It focuses on the Balkan Committee, a liberal pressure group that served as the main hub for British interest in the region in the decade before the First World War. Whilst drawing attention to the specific challenges presented by the Balkans to the British liberal mind, it is argued that the Balkan Committee was part of a wider movement of humanitarianism and political activism that encompassed both continental and colonial questions. The issues around which the committee campaigned are related to humanitarian protests against the use of forced labour in Africa, in particular the Congo Reform Association, as well as to the Persia Committee, formed in protest against the 1907 Anglo-Russian agreement. This approach highlights how ‘Europe’ and empire were interconnected agendas within an overarching liberal-internationalist worldview and reformist conscience, despite the different cultural lenses through which humanitarian questions in different parts of the globe were viewed. It is suggested that research into British interaction with the Balkans offers a fruitful means by which to integrate historical analysis of the continental and imperial aspects of Britain's external relations in the ‘age of empire’.

This article examines Germany's efforts to instrumentalize Islam in the Balkans during the Second World War. As German troops became more involved in the region from early 1943 onwards, German officials began to engage with the Muslim population, promoting Germany as the protector of Islam in south-eastern Europe. Focusing on Bosnia, Herzegovina, and the Sandžak of Novi Pazar, the article explores the relations between German authorities and religious leaders on the ground and enquires into the ways in which German propagandists sought to employ religious rhetoric, terminology, and iconography for political and military ends. Interweaving religious history with the history of military conflict, the article contributes more generally to our understanding of the politics of religion in the Second World War.

THE development of any major industry has, either more or less directly, important political repercussions. Its history therefore has a political aspect. The brewing industry's changing relationships with Parliament provide an apposite, even if an atypical, story to illustrate how one segment of the business world of the eighteenth century, with its appropriate set of political alignments, gave way to very different orientations in the nineteenth century. This article seeks to plot developments over a long period of time in a field which has received less detailed attention from political and economic historians than others which are more obviously the preserve of each. Width of survey of necessity limits the depth of evidence: the consequences of the changes which took place between 1830 and 1870 have here been explored in much less detail and in less personal terms than the parliamentary representation of the industry in the previous century.

During the early years of the nineteenth century the distribution of patronage n i Ireland—‘the spoils system’—reflected current English practice, but with peculiarly Irish overtones. The duke of Wellington's observation in 1830 that the government was losing its control of patronage to private members of Parliament may well have been applied to the Irish scene at any time after the Union. The men who benefited from the Irish system were drawn almost exclusively from the Ascendency party, that group of upper class Anglo-Irish Protestants long favoured by law and custom. Their pre-eminence had been assured during the negotiations prior to the Act for the Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. In the same manner that Pitt and Castlereagh had achieved their objective by exploiting Irish ambitions for titles, pensions and sinecures, Ascendency politicians established themselves as the dominating force in domestic politics. Commonly referred to as ‘Irish tones’, these men consistently exalted their special religious and economic needs far above any comprehensive British tory interests. Within the permanent Castle staff their influence was all pervasive. They shared a sense of power and the overriding confidence which characterized generations of Anglo-Irish families. Their satisfaction with ‘Orange’ politics served to compliment their pre-occupation with their own self-interests and the maintenance of the status quo.

Lucca was the smallest and least important of the three Italian republics that survived the Renaissance. Venice and Genoa still command the attention of historians. But in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for all that it might seem out-of-the-way, Lucca developed an extraordinary political literature. The regular election of senators was marked by the musical performance of a text, generally drawn from Roman history, that illustrated the way citizens of a republic were to behave. The poet and composer were natives and the event was a lesson in citizenship. A close look at the content of these serenades, or operas, makes clear that the republic's motto might have been Libertas but its teaching emphasized constantia. The themes and the heroes of Lucca's political literature were those we associate with neo-Stoicism. The relationship between neo-Stoicism and citizenship in early modern Lucca is the focus of this article. These texts present us with the self-image of an early modern republic and its understanding of what it meant to be a citizen. They are an important source for anyone interested in early modern debates about citizenship and in the political ideas that are conveyed in the commonplaces of baroque visual and musical culture.

On 10 May 1791 the British house of commons was divided on an unsuccessful attempt to move the repeal of the Test Act as it applied to Scotland. Since then this has been one of the more neglected of the many religious issues which were deeply embedded in late eighteenth-century British politics. It might be described as the ‘Scottish sequel’ to the movement in 1787–90 for the general repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. Yet it had its own distinctive features and reverberations which were by no means confined to Scotland. It is proposed here to examine the background, nature, progress and outcome of the Scottish application, to consider how it differed from the events of 1787–90, to investigate the role of its sponsor and leading parliamentary advocate Sir Gilbert Elliot and to look closely at the voting on the subject of the Scottish M.P.s. The aim will then be to consider the episode against the background of contemporary parliamentary politics.

Early in 1782, republican rebels in Geneva removed the city's magistrates and instituted a popular government, portraying themselves as defenders of liberty and Calvinism against the French threats of Catholicism and luxury. But on 1 July 1782, the republicans fled because of the arrival at the city gates of invading troops led by France. The failure of the Genevan revolution indicated that while new republics could be established beyond Europe, republics within Europe, and more especially Protestant republics in proximity to larger Catholic monarchies, were no longer independent states. Many Genevans sought asylum across Europe and in North America in consequence. Some of them looked to Britain and Ireland, attempting to move the industrious part of Geneva to Waterford. During the French Revolution, they sought to establish a republican community in the United States. In each case, a major goal was to transfer the Genevan Academy established in the aftermath of Calvin's Reformation. The anti-religious nature of the French Revolution made the attempt to move the Academy to North America distinctive. By contrast with the Irish case, where religious elements were played down, moving the Academy to North America was supported by religious rhetoric coupled with justifications of republican liberty.