In 1935 in New York the publishing house of Harrison Smith and Robert Haas published George Dangerfield's The Strange Death of Liberal England. Now, fifty years later, the book is as vital, if not more so, as when it was first published. It was quite appropriate that the book, and its author, were celebrated last Spring at a meeting of the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies at San Luis Obispo in California, quite close to Santa Barbara where Dangerfield lives overlooking the Pacific ocean. Even nicer, perhaps, is that in this year we shall see Halley's Comet again, which Dangerfield remembers having seen as a child, and being told that it would not appear again in his lifetime. The comet appears on the first page of the book (heralding the dazzling prose to come), observed by the Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, from the deck of the Admiralty yacht Enchantress, “to blaze forth the death of a king”: Edward VII.

The Strange Death of Liberal England has had, eventually, a strong impact upon the historical profession, as well as something of an odd history. The original publishers quite soon went out of business and the book was not kept in print in America. It was published a year later in England for the first time by Constable, but in a slightly truncated form without the important epilogue on Rupert Brooke. Over the next twenty-six years it was a book known only, I believe, by a few, recommended by word of mouth and not, on the whole, given much attention by the historical profession or the reading public.

For the past twelve years one Whig historian after another has attempted to turn back the tide of Jacobite studies, meeting with as much success as King Canute. The purpose of this article is to challenge Clyve Jones's conclusions in this journal (“Jacobitism and the Historian: The Case of William, 1st Earl Cowper,” supra, 23, 4 (Winter 1992): 681-96) that Lord Cowper never became a Jacobite, that Lord Orrery was not a key player in the Atterbury Plot, and that the Duke of Wharton was not a committed Jacobite until the end of the plot. Jones uses a discussion of the evidence of Lord Cowper's involvement with Jacobitism as a means of dismissing the whole subject, using the same arguments as previous Whig critics. “James III” and his advisers were wildly optimistic about the prospects of a Stuart restoration and, therefore, their testimony may largely be disregarded. James, on the contrary, was pessimistic by temperament and may be criticized for over caution rather than rashness. The Stuart papers, Jones argues, are not complete. What historical collection is? Despite the gigantic size of the collection, some papers that were brought to England from Rome have disappeared, notably the letter written from the Tower by Lord Oxford in 1716, expressing the utmost indignation at the harsh treatment meted out to him by George I and the Whig ministers and offering his services to James in the management of Jacobite affairs in England. This letter was found by Sir James Mackintosh when the collection was first deposited at Carlton House, but it has disappeared since. An additional difficulty is that after the discovery of the Atterbury Plot by Walpole and Townshend in 1722, Atterbury, Lord Stafford, and Lord Orrery, leading conspirators, destroyed most of their papers before being arrested. Similarly, Lady Cowper destroyed a large part of her diary and a substantial part of her husband's papers at the time of the Atterbury Plot. The papers destroyed were probably more significant than what remains and this helps to explain why Walpole could find so little evidence about the plot that would stick in a court of law. A good deal of material, nevertheless, has survived, and is it too much to ask that it should be used in the same way as any other historical evidence?

Dorsetshire's elite, the leaders of its “county community,” continued to exercise their customary influence in the county's elections from 1604-1640. However, there was a notable change from the Elizabethan age. During the great Queen's reign, no one family was able to establish a preponderant voice in the county's elections. A “sustained monopoly” was, it seems, impossible and the best any influential squire could hope for was to be twice returned for the county. Indeed, it is probable that only Sir Ralph Horsey of Clifton Maubank, chosen in 1586 and 1597, and Andrew Rogers of Brianston, elected in 1586 and 1588, achieved that degree of eminence. Even the great Sir Walter Raleigh, after establishing himself at Sherborne, only managed to serve for Dorsetshire once, in 1597.

That changed after 1604. Dorsetshire elected eleven men to its eighteen knightships of the shire from 1604-1640, and one man, Sir John Strangways of Chirk Castle and Melbury Sampford, established what can be described as a “sustained monopoly.” He served for the county in 1614, 1621, 1624, and 1628; his repeated victories were recognition of his wealth and estate, his close connections with John Digby, Earl of Bristol (1622) and with other county families of note. Strangways had married into the Trenchard family of Warmwell and Wolveton, near Dorchester; one of his daughters married, first, into the influential Rogers family of Brianston and later, in 1624, took as her second husband the stepson of the Earl of Bristol, Sir Lewis Dyve. Strangways was, no doubt, an active supporter of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Trenchard, in Dorset's 1621 election and, in a bitterly fought contest in 1626, it was Strangway's power and influence that accounted for the return of Sir George Morton. Altogether, Sir John's influence can be credited with five, and more probably six (or one-third), of Dorsetshire's knightships through 1640. Given his ability to win a place for Morton in the face of fierce opposition in 1626, it is possible that his influence was even more widespread in the county's elections.

Aphra Behn (1640–89) stands simultaneously at the center and on the edge of Restoration literature. As one of its most prolific writers, her success as a playwright was rivaled only by Dryden; however, as a woman, she defied and challenged contemporary ideas about sex, gender, and authorship. Behn was remarkably aware of the ambiguity of her position; a widow, a writer, and a professional, she inhabited and personified the grey areas of seventeenth-century gender roles. For these reasons, her work provides an interesting window through which to view the relationship between gender and literature in the late seventeenth century.

The subject of several book-length studies and many more articles, Behn has experienced a renaissance in the academic community during the last ten to fifteen years and has been installed in the seventeenth-century literary canon. Two related aspects of her career however have been overlooked. The first is her interest in natural philosophy, including her criticism of philosophers for not sharing their knowledge. The second aspect is her work as a translator, especially as a translator of scientific texts. Perhaps the enduring perception of translation as an essentially derivative activity has led scholars to dismiss Behn's translations as uninteresting or unoriginal. In so far as natural philosophy was a “masculine” discipline, however, Behn's translations demonstrated her ability to participate in and translate between elite natural philosophy, often written in Latin (the most “masculine” language), and a general or female audience.

In matters of public controversy the eighteenth-century Englishman displayed a cast of mind that was legalistic and unpragmatic. The first question he tended to ask was not what the benefits of a policy might be but whether anyone possessed the right to implement it. Public debate was legitimist in emphasis. There were few disputes where the issue of jurisdiction was ignored; very often jurisdiction was the only issue in contention. The great example of this is to be found in the debate over American taxation. The question was not whether the taxes had been voted for some improper purpose or whether the colonies could afford to pay. The argument turned on the issue of authority: did Parliament have the right to tax the colonies for any purpose whatever regardless of their ability to pay? The same emphasis on jurisdiction is to be found in the debate over the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. This act restricted the right of members of the royal family to marry whom they pleased. Opponents of the act condemned it not in terms of policy but in terms of right and jurisdiction. It was “repugnant to the natural rights of mankind.” It was “null and invalid.” Parliament possessed no authority to legislate such a measure, and it could be submitted to “only as the effect of power.” This eighteenth-century pre-occupation with legitimacy is evident even in the writings of its most radical and eccentric thinkers. Thomas Paine's chief complaint against the ancien régime in England was not that it governed badly but that it governed without legitimate authority. Whether it governed well or ill, it remained by Paine's standards an usurpation. Paine's zeal for democratic legitimacy may have been peculiar, but his method of debate was not.

Among the numerous preoccupations of historians one of the most persistent concerns the political and diplomatic skill of England's Elizabeth I. From the two extremes of James Anthony Froude and Elizabeth Jenkins through the judicious work of J. E. Neale, scholars have long been frustrated by the English queen's apparent inconsistency, though dazzled by the brilliance of her reign. The result is a plethora of argument. It is the attempt here to illuminate Elizabethan foreign policy by isolating one minor aspect of it: the career of the Portuguese Pretender, Don Antonio. Hopefully the result will be a slightly clearer perception of that most illusive lady.

It can be asserted that two interests went to the very heart of foreign affairs in the reign of Elizabeth I: the encouragement of English maritime expansion and the resolve to keep the Netherlands from absolute domination by a major continental state. The maelstrom of international events in the second half of the sixteenth century placed both of these policies in stark juxtaposition to the interests of Spain, the greatest state of the age and the spear's tip of the militant Counter-Reformation.

By 1580 Anglo-Spanish relations had suffered a steady deterioration for two decades. The might of Philip II of Spain appeared boundless. Then in that year Philip's power grew perceptibly greater by the acquisition of the Portuguese throne, the significance of which did not escape the English. Had it not been for a persistent rival-Don Antonio, the Prior of Crato—King Philip might have conquered an old and respected kingdom with no more effort than it took to lace his boots.

Between the founding of Jamestown in 1606 and the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, images of Indigenous men and women rose and fell on the great seals of the British Atlantic colonies. At the peak of this process, “the Indian” was the most persistent seal icon save for that of the arms and image of the monarch himself. This essay traces the sigillary Indian's illustrious career, as evolving imperial structures and legal debates about the nature of empire positioned and repositioned him (and her) in relation to just claims of authority. Early depictions reflected the settler colony concerns of private charter companies, justifying claims to land, not the rule over people. Royal colonies, by contrast, imagined Indians as a form of vassal, essential aids in the procurement of raw materials from the land. By the mid-eighteenth century, however, the image of the Indian had yielded to classical motifs and representations of the land through maps, mirroring the increasing centrality of territoriality to British imperial thought. Taken together, seal images of Indians in the British Atlantic present the rise and fall of a visual paradox: depicting Indigenous people as symbols of authority over white settler colonies.