The tales of divine judgements on sinners which are found throughout John Foxe's famous martyrology, the Acts and monuments, and also collected in a concluding appendix to the work, have often been dismissed as the products of gossip, while Foxe's printing of them has been traditionally regarded as an idiosyncratic, but ultimately insignificant, aberration in his historical writing. After examining the sources for two of these stories of providential punishment, this article will argue that some of the anecdotes of divine retribution printed in Acts and monuments were sent to Foxe in pursuit of local feuds and private grievances, arising from personal hatreds and prospects of material gain as well as religious conflict. After examining the changes made to these stories in the different editions of Acts and monuments, this article will maintain that such providential stories were central, rather than marginal, features of Foxe's work and thought. It is hoped that this article will offer a fresh perspective on Foxe's editorial practices, on the accuracy of Acts and monuments and also on the conflicting objectives of Foxe and his informants.

The Scot Adam Blackwood (1539–1613), often cited though seemingly no longer much read, studied in Paris under two of the leading humanist scholars of his time, their influence upon his thinking being profound. A staunch supporter and protégé of Mary, queen of Scots, he published in 1575 the first of his political tracts, the De coniunctione religionis et imperii, in which he argued for stability in religion as the necessary underpinning of political order, and against resistance to the monarch, seen as divinely authorized and the sole law-giver. Six years later he produced his Pro regibus apologia, a rebuttal of George Buchanan's De jure regni apud Scotos. Polemical in tone, this work of Blackwood's nevertheless developed further his view of the monarch as the principle of unity and cohesion necessary to the existence of any body politic. In both of these works he deployed a sophisticated array of legal and philosophical arguments whilst pursuing ultimately irenic purposes. But Mary Stewart's execution in 1587 drew from him a diatribe against Elizabeth I where such purposes succumbed to his outraged sensibilities and his combative rhetorical style.

Restoration historiography has so far remained silent regarding the alliance between the exiled royalists and the recusant religious houses in the Low Countries. This article examines the assistance provided to the royalist cause by Abbess Mary Knatchbull of the English Benedictine cloister at Ghent. The correspondence of Charles's leading advisers, most notably Sir Edward Hyde, reveals the extent to which the conspirators relied upon the nuns' mail service to communicate with their supporters in England and abroad, and upon the abbess's ability to obtain funds from local financiers. While the nuns were not central players in the conspiracies of the late 1650s, their activities reveal the royalists' dependency upon the networks established by Catholic exiles. The article also explores Mary Knatchbull's motives for devoting so much of her community's temporal and spiritual resources to the royalist cause. The rewards she sought from the king after 1660 suggest that she had a definite religious and political agenda which aimed ultimately at Catholic toleration. Therefore the article raises several important issues about Charles II's and his ministers' links with English Catholics and, in particular, it points to the important role of women in the hitherto masculine territory of royalist conspiracy and politics.

Already at the beginning of her reign Elizabeth I was resolved to effect at the earliest opportunity both the restoration of the Royal Supremacy and the replacement of the Latin liturgy by an existing Edwardian Prayer Book. Constrained by Marian legislation which she was firmly minded not to break, the queen signalled her intentions by conspicuous adoption in her Chapel Royal of such few and minor manifestations of Protestant liturgy and practice as fortuitously were still legitimate, amplified by certain early Edwardian practices (1547–9) originally introduced not by statute but by proclamation or injunction and therefore never formally de-legitimated by statutory repeal. That her initial intention was restoration of the Prayer Book of 1549 is indicated by the identity of certain texts set to music early in 1559 by her Chapel Royal composers, and by the response of Edmund Guest to a contemporary request that he undertake a revision of parts of the 1549 Book. Arising from her own personal convictions, Elizabeth's policy was not without merits; however, political pragmatism and ecclesiastical realities coerced her into agreeing instead to the restoration of the Book of 1552. She exacted a number of concessions to her own conservatism ; first discernible in the instructions given to Guest, these achieved their realization through the rubrics of the 1559 Prayer Book and certain of the 1559 Injunctions.

Recent work on the records of civil litigation in the central courts of Westminster has refined and extended our knowledge of levels of litigation and the types of dispute pursued at law in early modern England. This article discusses two interrelated business disputes at the port of Whitehaven in the first half of the eighteenth century pursued by two of its prominent merchants, both frequent litigants in a period when litigation overall was declining, and suggests some reasons for that decline. It matches the formal court records of King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Chancery with some illuminating, often acerbic, private correspondence, thereby exploring the process and background of litigation, and demonstrating how a third party could influence the conduct and direction of the disputes, while himself remaining almost invisible in the formal legal record.

Financing the crown was, perhaps, the seminal question in the English reign of James VI and I. Attempts to tap commercial wealth were a central feature of fiscal policy. The derivations of crown finance from commerce are straightforward; for instance, customs duties or concessions the crown held in monopolies and patents. The grandest project of James's reign, Alderman Cockayne's project to export dyed and dressed cloth, embodied these commercial-fiscal connections in addition to the goal of economic growth. The same points are exemplified by proposals to construct a fleet of fishing vessels (busses) with which to confront Dutch mastery of the trade. This project also enticed policy-makers and provides a vehicle through which to examine the relationship between crown finance and commerce, the revisionist approach to the structural failures of early Stuart government, and the politics of crown finance. The first section will trace the development of ‘projects’ and the conceptualization of crown finance as a project par excellence. The second section analyses specifically the busses projects. The final section examines the interaction of busses and fiscal policy in the 1610s. The argument is that the ultimate failure of finance was political rather than structural and the basis for this failure lay in the operation of Jacobean kingship upon policy-making.

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.

This piece reinterprets the career of the Leveller, John Lilburne, during the English Civil War, by re-examining the official sources pertaining to him, and the multitude of pamphlets written by himself and his enemies. The article recovers the chronology of Lilburne's story, by stripping away the layers of propaganda with which he later surrounded himself. It shows that he had powerful friends at Westminster, and that his tribulations were caused by political rivalries within Westminster rather than his development of a radical political theory. He is shown to have formed part of the ‘Independent alliance’ during the mid-1640s, although his protected position was eventually imperilled by the fracturing of this group after the end of the first Civil War. The aim is to improve not just our understanding of Lilburne, but the complexity of parliamentarian politics during the 1640s.

The conventional picture of early Virginia suggests an almost exclusively male population, intent on personal profit, ruthlessly ignoring social considerations, lacking stability. This article argues that such a picture is an exaggeration, and draws attention to three communities, the inhabitants of which more closely resembled the rural English societies from which they had come. Particular attention is paid to the Neck of Land in Charles City, upriver from Jamestown close to the falls. The survival of administrative records makes possible an account of this small community between 1613 and 1629, revealing a hamlet of healthy married families whose concerns were sex, land, and status, rather than death and disease or the neighbouring Indian menace; and where stability in the 1620s did not, however, mean the absence of social tensions. Thus the Neck of Land, taken together with the communities at Point Comfort and on the Eastern Shore, demonstrates the inadequacy of current perceptions of early Virginian society.

In recent years it has become widely accepted that John Locke was involved, perhaps deeply involved, in the Rye House plot of 1682–3. This article takes another look at the evidence for this, and in particular at Richard Ashcraft's claims that he was closely involved with many of the plotters, that he attended some of their meetings, that his letters contain coded references to their activities, and that he hastily left London immediately they realized they had been betrayed. These claims are found wanting. Locke was probably aware that Shaftesbury and others were planning (or at least talking about) an insurrection, but there is little to indicate that he was directly involved. An analysis of his movements during the autumn of 1682 suggests if anything that he was deliberately keeping out of the way. There is even less reason for thinking that he was involved in plans to assassinate Charles II.

The enactment of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790, which profoundly reformed the Catholic Church in France, has rightly been regarded as a major turning point in the French Revolution. Its implementation caused a substantial schism, not simply within the clergy, but also among the laity, with devastating consequences for the prevailing political consensus. Yet while a good deal of research has been devoted to an exploration of clerical responses to the crisis, rather less is known about lay reactions. By analysing turnout in the episcopal elections of 1790–1, which appointed new bishops to no less than eighty of the eighty-three departmental dioceses, this article illuminates the attitudes of wealthy notables who dominated the electoral assemblies. The study that follows also examines the operation of the electoral system and the characteristics of the priests who emerged victorious from the polls. On account of their modest social origins, and their endorsement of the unfolding revolutionary process, these prelates became known as ‘citizen bishops’.

J. W. Croker's papers are a valuable and rare source concerning British government patronage of the first half of the nineteenth century. They show us a system that was burdensome for the participants, made more acceptable since it was an extension of gentlemanly civility. The papers also show that patronage, like government generally, was able somewhat to reform itself. True, in his particular sphere as patron – as first secretary to the Admiralty (1809–30) – Croker favoured his relatives, but appointed only those he thought fit, and supervised and controlled their work in a way not feasible outside a family. Nepotism could mean efficiency. It created a Croker family circle within the Admiralty that lasted until the 1860s. Croker continued to have influence as a patron until he died in 1857. He was aided by his network of friendships, but also there was the obligation felt by those in power – of whatever party – to Croker's long years of Admiralty service. Political links had their importance, but is is argued that the three factors of family, friendship, and service were predominant. His career as patron illustrates a vital stage between ‘old corruption’ and competitive entry to the civil service.

Political historians have recognized that politics and high society interacted in eighteenth-century England; and most would also recognize the presence of elite women in the social world of politicians. These assumptions have not, however, been subjected to much scrutiny. This article takes the social aspects of politics seriously and aims to provide an introduction to social politics – the management of people and social situations for political ends – and, specifically, to the involvement of women therein. Politics in eighteenth-century England was not just about parliament and politicians; it also had a social dimension. By expanding our understanding of politics to include social politics, we not only reintegrate women into the political world but we also reveal them to have been legitimate political actors, albeit on a non-parliamentary stage, where they played a vital part in creating and sustaining both a uniquely politicized society and the political elite itself. While specific historical circumstances combined in the eighteenth century to facilitate women's socio-political involvement, social politics is limited neither to women nor to the eighteenth century. It has wider implications for historians of all periods and calls into question the way that we conceptualize politics itself. The relationship between the obstinately nebulous arena of social politics and the traditional arena of high politics is ever-changing, but by trivializing the former we limit our ability to understand the latter.

The publication of Ernest Renan's La Vie de Jésus in 1863 is rightly regarded as a key moment in French history. The book served as an important symbol of science and free thought in the battles over the Republic and laïcité, and presented a thesis that characterized French scientific philosophy in the mid-nineteenth century. Jesus, for Renan, transcended his own culture, rejecting all social constraints in the pursuit of a unique ideal of the kingdom of God, becoming in the process the first true individualist in history. Critics ridiculed his arguments, but it was typical of the Romanticism of the French positivists. Renan's philosophy was rooted not in empiricism, but in an essentially pantheistic metaphysics, prizing the realization of God within oneself as the highest ethical achievement. This was an innovation of the highest importance in France, where a traditionalist, but post-Christian theism had marked social thought since the Revolution. Renan and his generation, notably Taine, dispensed with the traditionalist religious dualism that typified the social outlook of Tocqueville, Michelet, and their contemporaries. Far from articulating a materialist dead end in the history of ideas, their Romantic individualism was critical to later developments in European thought, including aestheticism and irrationalism.

Historians have tended to discuss the image (in the singular) of the monarch in early modern England. In the case of Charles I, the Eikon basilike, literally ‘the royal image’, presented a picture of the king that claimed to be stable and authoritative. This article argues rather that royal images were the product of multiple influences, and shifted through changing circumstances, rendering all images unstable and open to differing interpretations. Charles, as well as being the son of the Rex Pacificus, inherited the martial expectations associated with the image of his brother; and images of the prince and his early years as king in the 1620s continued alongside the changed representations of personal rule. Though the Eikon for a time seemed to fix Charles's image, its very authority meant that it was, after 1660, even after 1688, appropriated by all – whigs and tories as well as Jacobites. Most importantly, through the 30 January sermons, Charles's memory became a text which all parties needed and sought to claim, a text both shared and contested in the political culture.

The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) was the major representative of Second International socialism on British soil. As a socialist organization it is usually viewed through the distorting prism of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. This article sets out to analyse the organization's strategy in its proper context – that of the struggle to transform Victorian and Edwardian Britain into the co-operative commonwealth. SDF views on the nature of revolution and what members called ‘palliative’ reforms are considered, as are their views on the character of the British state, the nature of democracy, the role of parliament, and the potential for violence at times of change. For them, the transition to socialism would be effected by well-fed, organized workers with a degree of education and culture, and their social reforms were designed to bring this revolutionary class into being. Campaigns against unemployment, work on school boards, boards of guardians, and local councils are found to have been conducted both as ends in themselves, and as a part of a grander strategy for the attainment of socialism. The SDF was a ‘parliamentary revolutionary party’ which sought to use reforms constructively in order to bring about the transformation of British society.

Drawing upon recently published research and previously unseen archival sources, the article provides a new explanation of the British conquest of Burma in 1885. Previous explanations have attributed British motives for conquest to either the need to defend the eastern borders of Britain's Indian empire from French expansion in mainland south-east Asia, or the desire to open Burma and China to British trade and investment at a time of perceived economic depression. The article contends that while French expansionism certainly loomed large in the British decision to invade, commercial interests and considerations were pivotal in persuading the British government of the French threat. In particular, the role of London-based ‘gentlemanly capitalists’ in shaping government policy is emphasized and explored. In the process, new insights into the methods and strategies of City financiers are revealed. Besides contributing to the debate surrounding the ‘gentlemanly capitalism’ thesis of Cain and Hopkins, the article also evaluates the importance of socio-economic conditions in Burma itself as a factor which stimulated British expansion.

The following attempts a modest reconsideration of one of the most well-known early modern Englishmen, Samuel Pepys. More precisely, the article suggests that much closer attention needs to be paid to Pepys's textuality (not sexuality). In modern times, his diary has achieved canonical status to the detriment of other texts scripted in unison with the famed Cambridge manuscript, now meticulously transcribed. Tracing the multiple textual transactions elided by the final manuscript allows for important insight into the diary's partiality. We need to resist, as much as possible, the temptation of contextualizing the diary with biographical detail because that detail is so often derived from the diary itself. We should reverse our interpretive strategy: begin with Pepys's texts (plural), unravel their main interconnections, and only then reach tentative conclusions about the man. Establishing motive is a risky business when there is no subject for interrogation. There is, however, a text that wants a more rigorous contextualization.

During the half century (1854–1904) which followed the opening of Japan's ports, Westerners scrutinized the rediscovered archipelago and attempted to classify its inhabitants within their racial system. Despite the claim for ‘scientific’ objectivism, Western racial views of the Japanese were largely dictated by contemporary political and moral attitudes toward Japan. Hence, writings on the Japanese ‘race’ reflected not only the racial knowledge of the period but also the asymmetry between the West and Japan. These writings embodied a genuine discourse: they were propounded in texts, historically located, and displayed a coherent system of meaning. Critically, the Western discourse regarding the identity of the Japanese people aimed to maintain, and even produce, power relations between the colonial powers and the local population, and as such it exerted ideological influence on both Western readers and the Japanese. The present article traces this racial discourse, and attempts to explain the rapid transformation of the image of the Japanese people from an almost unknown racial entity to a national group Westerners perceived as a major racial threat.

This article questions the dominant historiographical approaches to understanding the career of Benjamin Disraeli, which view him either as more opportunistic than most of his political contemporaries or as more ‘continental’ in his outlook. It emphasizes his determination to understand English history and values, and argues that a desire to defend and realize his conception of England gave his career coherence. He saw himself as a foe of dangerous cosmopolitan ideas that were damaging the national character and creating social disharmony. This allowed him to cast all his major political initiatives in a heroic, elitist yet restorative light. He conceived those initiatives as a response to the damage inflicted by the domestic and international crises of the 1830s and 1840s. Indeed it is arguable that as a result Disraeli's political strategy in later life was in some ways both quixotic and outdated.