An analysis of Thomas Mare's English version of The history of King Richard III indicates that the popular mystery cycles influenced his composition. Associated with the celebrations of Corpus Christi Day, the cycles present a series of biblical plays, beginning with the Creation and ending with the Last Judgment. The important themes of tyranny and sacrifice, which this drama explores, also loom large in Richard III. The theme of tyranny is loosely related in the cycles through Lucifer's functioning as the prototype of all earthly tyrants, including More's Richard III. Evidence of the sacrifice, which is at the heart of the mass, can also be found in many biblical scenes. More's reference to Richard's adolescent nephews as ‘innocent babes’ links them to the infants Herod earlier sacrified to his ambitions. Indeed, in Richard III, More does make an intriguing reference to a cobbler performing the role of a ‘sowdayne’ in a play. The suggestion that this drama influenced More's writing is consistent with the speculation that he composed the English version first and then, with the classics in mind, wrote out a separate Latin text, for the two versions have significant differences in imagery, word choice and structure.

The essay attempts to recover a language of liberty, a set of assumptions common participants in the mid-seventeenth-century discourse on religion and liberty. The current historiography of seventeenth-century liberty and contemporary consensus on the complementarity civil liberty and law are used as contexts. In the religious sense, liberty was commonly taken to imply submission to the will of a God of millennial purpose and providential power. In the struggle for appropriate submission to such divine authority issues of freedom arose in the Pauline paradoxes service as perfect freedom and in the process of liberation from inappropriate authorities. The polarization of liberty and authority in traditional accounts of the puritan revolution, the reduction of religious liberty to an element within a greater struggle over constitutional forms, and the identification of religious liberty with individual and corporate rights are called in question.

Crown policy towards the nobles and the rule of the provinces under the early Tudors reflected the values and social structures of ‘civil society’ in lowland England. Using as a case-study the Dacres, a minor peerage family who were wardens of the Anglo-Scottish marches, this paper explores the strains and tensions which were created by the application of these norms to the ‘peripheral’ parts of the Tudor state. The paper outlines the political ambitions, resources, and estate-management policies of a border baron, and argues that Henry VIII's policies for the rule of the borders and his expectations of his officials there were unrealistic. It also suggests that the traditional approach of historians to the problems of Tudor politics and government reflects too much a view of events as seen from ‘the centre’ and needs to be balanced by a more sensitive treatment of the problems of the ‘periphery’.

This article is a study of political conflicts in Yarmouth during the 1620s and 1630s between a group of puritan aldermen and their anti-puritan opponents. These focused firstly on efforts initiated by Bishop Harsnet to remove the stipendiary lecturers supported by the puritans; and secondly on attempts by the anti-puritan aldermen to introduce a less ‘popular’ form of town government by revising Yarmouth's charter. Throughout these conflicts the anti-puritan side were able to secure considerable backing at court, particularly from Charles I, through employing a rhetoric which highlighted the threat to order and authority presented by a combination of puritanism and ‘popularity’. The article shows how strong fears of this threat were at the heart of the Caroline regime, and how the actions which resulted could cause deep local divisions. It also illustrates the ways in which local interest groups and their supporters manoeuvred around the king to achieve their ends.

The main aim of the article is to question the widely held view that Francis Bacon's different writings form a single great project. His numerous writings on the greatness of states were not part of his scientific programme. Since Bacon's scientific writings do not provide us with the context in which we should place his texts on the greatness of states, the attempt is made to place them in their contemporary political context. These texts, it is argued, addressed the issue of the union of England and Scotland as well as the question concerning England's possible intervention in the European war in early 1620s. Several scholars have also claimed that, in accordance with Bacon's scientific project, his idea of the greatness of states was an essentially modern programme. Nevertheless, the article attempts to show that as far as his writings on civic greatness are concerned Bacon's moral and economic ideas could be classified as classical republican. James Harrington's analysis of Bacon offers a historical point of departure for reading of his writings on the true greatness of states.

This article recovers some of the classical, constitutional, and religious languages of empire in early-modern Britain by a consideration of the period between the end of the first Anglo-Dutch war in 1654 and the calling of the second Protecloral Parliament in 1656. It examines in particular the strategic and political motivationsfor CromweWs ‘western design’ against the Spanish possessions in the Caribbean and presents the response to thefailure of the design and the oppositiorud literature published around the second Protectoral Parliament as the immediate context for the publication of James Harrington's Oceana (1656). It is argued that Harrington's Machiavellian meditation on imperialism is intended as a critique of the expansion of the British republic, so placing Harrington more firmly within the oppositiorud bloc of the late Protectorate. A concluding section details the recovery of this moment of historical argument in the heat of the opposition to Sir Robert Walpole during the early stages of Anglo-Spanish hostility in 1738—9, and leads to some wider refUctions both on the ideological uses of history in the aeation of the British empire and on the centrality of the languages of empire to an understanding of Anglo-American intellectual history up to the late eighteenth century.

The 30 December 1546 date for the finalizing of Henry VIll's will is vindicated and the text re-established as the king's own work, namely (1) the supposed priority of a copy dated 13 December is shown to be erroneous; (2) the hypothesis that the will was manipulated by faction is rejected because (a) a reconstruction of the operating procedure of the Dry Stamp Office indicates the strong probability of the traditional date, (b) analysis of provisions allegedly suggesting forgery reveals no valid grounds for suspicion, and (c) circumstantial evidence; (3) the real interest of the Seymour faction in January 1547 is demonstrated as lying in implementing the king's intentions. An hypothesis is offered as to the king's motives. The prominence given to reformers is explained as projecting forward a movement from orthodoxy to reform which was inherent in the Supremacy. The conciliar provisions for Edward's reign are argued to be an attempt to create a closed regency council which would prevent both faction and individual bids for supremacy. The fact that Edward Seymour could become de facto regent only by a coup which jettisoned the will, is a vindication of Henry's provisions.

The reunification of Germany has given a new dimension and intensity to the debate about the historical identity of German political culture. In particular, it has revived the issue of whether the Lutheran heritage was inherently conservative, if not authoritarian, in tendency. This article re-examines the issues in relation to Lutheran political and social thought in the first half of the seventeenth century. The life and writings of the Lutheran pastor and influential popular author Johann Balthasar Schupp (1610–61) are examined in detail. What emerges is something more complex than a simple injunction to obey authority at all costs. While he implicitly rejected the idea of a right to rebel, Schupp placed his faith in the willingness of rulers to assist in a ‘reformation of society’. Rebellion would thus be unnecessary. The article argues that this hope was not unrealistic in the context of the small German territorial state in the early modern period. The traditional view of a politically conservative Lutheranism in this period must therefore be revised.

This article examines religious and political conflict in the Kent boroughs of Dover, Canterbury and Sandwich in the early 1680s. Section II describes the personal, political and religious divisions in Dover which lay behind a local campaign to persuade the crown to force the surrender of the town's charter. Section III charts the growth of concerted anglican opposition to the dissenting group which controlled the corporation of Canterbury. The activities of the dissenting mayor of Sandwich which aggravated political differences within the town are described in section IV. The final part of the article suggests some implications of the three case studies for understanding of English politics in the period. It argues that the government took action against the town charters principally in response to the demands of local loyalists, rather than as part of a policy of centralization. It concludes that anglican royalists within the towns were the principal agitators for, and beneficiaries of, the new charters.

While the restoration of monarchy in 1660 has attracted considerable scholarly interest, historians have usually focused upon the events that led to the abrupt change in the fortunes of Charles II rather than the less dramatic tactics by which the restored king consolidated his power. Yet the challenges Charles faced at his return were formidable, his initial personal popularity surprisingly short-lived. Somehow the regime had to quiet political and religious dissension, satisfy sharply conflicting expectations, and retrieve the power of the sword from a republican army and a volatile and well-armed public. Existing studies of the restoration years fail to explain precisely how the royal government successfully negotiated these difficulties. This essay describes the methods by which order was maintained and control reasserted; how the peaceful disbandment of the republican army and the subsequent control of its veterans were achieved; a police establishment of unprecedented size and effectiveness organized; the foundation for a permanent army laid; and the capacity of English subjects to rebel effectively diminished. In sum, it exposes the policies used to reconstruct royal authority so swiftly and securely that a host of enemies and public disenchantment failed to dislodge it.

This article considers how and why the campaign to reform manners spread from England to Ireland in the 1690s. Together with the links and resemblances between the English and Irish campaigns, the distinctive aspects of the latter are discussed. Important to the Irish activity were the shock of the catholic revanche of 1685–90; the powerful tradition of providential explanation for the recurrent crises; the tense and increasingly competitive relations between the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterians; the rapid growth of Dublin (the main centre for reforming activity) and its attendant social and economic difficulties; and the sense of cultural difference between protestants and catholics. The campaign included an assault on heterodox ideas, notably those of Toland and Molesworth, and paralleled the retributive measures taken against the Irish catholics in the same period.

James II's grant of religious toleration and his invitation to the whigs to return to office dramatically changed the English political scene and created profound dilemmasfor the crown's former enemies. Although there is ambiguity in their responses, and although Locke himself remained an immovable exile, his circle offriends took advantage of these changes. This included nomination to James's proposed tolerationist parliament, an accommodation which damaged them in the actual elections to the Convention of 1689. Some took office, and in at least two cases Locke's associates published pamphlets in support of the king. By exploring the politics of the Lockean whigs a contradiction in earlier views is resolved. For whilst Richard Ashcraft has argued that Locke's circle remained unremittingly hostile to James and engaged in clandestine plotting, other sources identify the same people as among the king's ‘whig collaborators’. The chief actors in Locke's circle are Edward Clarke, Sir Walter Yonge, Richard Duke and Richard Burthogge.

This article looks at the political role of the royal prerogative to create and promote British peers in the period 1760–1784. It argues that during the first two decades of his reign George III maintained his original intention that peerage creations should befew in number and isolated from short-term political influences, but that during the prolonged political crisis that unfolded at the end of the American War of Independence, the king's power to create peers became deeply embroiled in politics. Not only were all eight of the peerages created in 1782–1783 influenced by political considerations, this aspect of the royal prerogative became itself the topic of parliamentary discussion. It was in this context of recent creations and heightened interest in the royal prerogative that George III's refusal to make peers proved to be an effective tactic in his struggle with the Fox-North coalition. Especially damaging was the coalition's inability to secure Lord North's promotion to the upper house. Once the coalition had been dismissed, George HI used his prerogative in an overtly political fashion to strengthen the younger Pitt in both houses of parliament.

On Gibbon's death his papers contained an incomplete and unpublished essay on the genealogy of the European dynasty of which the British royal family was a branch, entitled The antiquities of the house of Brunswick. This article explains why Gibbon began this work, and why he laid it aside. Beginning by describing the nature and purpose of literature on Hanoverian genealogy in the earlier eighteenth century, and proceeding to relate the content of the Antiquities to the politics of Blackstone and Hume, the article identifies the Antiquities as a distinctively ancien régime defence of British political life and institutions which was elicited from Gibbon by the early months of the French revolution. The abandonment of the Antiquities is then explained as part of Gibbon's shocked response to the deepening gravity of events in France after the September massacres. In the polarized political atmosphere which ensued, the literary finesse of the Antiquities ran the risk of being confused with disaffection. That risk was increased when Gibbon and The decline and fall began to be used by radicals as auxiliaries in their attack on England's ancien régime. The textual history of the Antiquities allows us to perceive the rapidity with which the connotations and ownership of certain political vocabularies in England changed during the early 1790s.

The focus of this article is upon the extensive debate in France that surrounded the concept, content and application of the rights of man in the years between 1789 and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. Beginning with a detailed analysis of the discussion that surrounded the formulation of the Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen attention turns to two broad strands of criticism directed at the discourse of rights: that articulated by the defenders of counter-revolution (most notably Montlosier, Rivarol and de Bonald) and that associated with the idéologues (Daunou, Roederer and de Tracy). Amongst the former rights were associated not only with a new species of revolutionary government but also with the political, social and moral disintegration of France itself; for the latter, emphasis, via the logic of utilitarianism, fell upon seeking to deprive the language of rights of its radical dimensions and implications. It was left to Benjamin Constant to point out the possible contradictions between the claims of utility and those of rights.

During the late eighteenth century organized anti-slavery, in the shape of the campaign to end the African slave trade (1787–1807), became an unavoidable feature of political life in Britain. Drawing on previously unpublished material in the Josiah Wedgwood Papers, the following article seeks to reassess this campaign and, in particular, the part played in it by the (London) Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. So far from being a low-level lobby, as historians like Seymour Drescher have suggested, it is argued here that the Committee's activities, both in terms of opinion-building and arranging for petitions to be sent to the house of commons, were central to the success of the early abolitionist movement. Thus while the provinces and public opinion at the grass roots level were undoubtedly important, not least in the industrial north, it was the metropolis and the London Committee which gave political shape and significance to popular abolitionism.

In 1791, in one of the most remarkable documents penned in eighteenth-century Georgia, a group of white women petitioned for the life of a male mulatto slave who had been condemned to death not because of the offence he had committed but because of his reputation as ‘villain’. Although barely a page long, the Sunbury petition provides a fascinating statement of the racial attitudes, political consciousness and modus operandi of elite white women in early national Georgia. The women of Sunbury were articulating their understanding of the role and duties of women in the new republic. If necessary, those duties included correcting the civic behaviour of men.

This article is concerned with explanations of the failure of stateformation and nation building in liberal Italy, and concentrates on attempts to integrate western Sicily into the new political framework. The marxist account of this process has emphasized the extent of peasant revolt against the new state, and its brutal repression. Unification, it is argued, failed because it was based on coercion and domination rather than on leadership by popular consent. The present article suggests that this explanation is incomplete as it ignores the behaviour and attitude of local elites within western Sicily. The dominance of local affairs by such groups was challenged by the advent of a modern centralizing state. The article uses records from this period to show that many local notables frustrated government efforts to set up new town councils, new police forces and a liberal judicial system. This kind of resistance was far more difficult to overcome than popular revolt, because it could (and did) challenge the whole basis of centralized liberal rule. The article also looks at the military repression of the 1860s and argues that it too was undermined by the opposition of local elites. An additional reason, therefore, for the failure of unification after 1860 may be the new state's lack of appeal among its supposed class allies.

This article continues an examination of the British government's counter-revolutionary organization begun in ‘The Alien Office 1792-1806’, The Historical Journal, XXXIII (1990), which outlined the department's functions and secret service policy. The Swiss and Swabian agencies were one aspect of British foreign secret service; they linked the French princes' secret agents to the British government under the central European control of William Wickham, ambassador in Berne 1794–7, and military and diplomatic subsidiaries. Anti-republican secret committees were set up covering all France, Switzerland, northern Italy and southern Germany, which included members from every grade of society. French republican generals, even Ministers were swayed, allowing infiltration of the French secret police. British control was however limited to the finesse of finance – bribery was implicit. By never offering enough to the leaders and too much to assistants, initial constitutional intentions slid into subversion and assassination. The first complete andfully documented description is included of how, why, and by whom, the French deputies were assassinated at Rastadt.

By contrast with those for whom the Wealth of nations marks the origin of economics as an autonomous science, this article argues that Smith's significance lies in his attempt to repossess political economy by restoring its links with the sciences of morals and natural jurisprudence — those concerns which are characteristic of his writings as a moral philosopher. The case proceeds by re-examining two topics derived from these sciences. The first begins with Smith's ungenerous treatment of his mercantile predecessors as a clue to what he believed was distinctive about his own system. Smith was antagonistic to precisely those rationalist, utilitarian and reductive models of behaviour based on self-interest that he is held to have in common with mercantile writers; he was answering rather than joining those who felt it necessary to isolate and legitimate rational economic self-seeking. The second topic turns on Smith's natural jurisprudence: his application of the criteria of natural justice when criticizing mercantile policies and institutions, where the emphasis falls on the negative injunctions of commutative justice rather than the positive ones of distributive justice. The separation of the ethics of the Theory of moral sentiments from the Wealth of nations, therefore, tells us more about Smith's successors than Smith himself.