In a previous article, we examined Herbert Butterfield's identification of a certain pattern of anachronism in historical writing, in his classic book The whig interpretation of history (1931). In the decades since that book was originally published, Butterfield's designation has been extended far beyond its original domain of political and religious history. The terms ‘whig history’ and ‘whiggish history’ have passed into the common parlance of historians. This very success, however, has masked a failure to define the nature of such anachronistic writing, its causes and remedies. Such definition is all the more necessary since Butterfield's own attempts were clearly inadequate. Building upon and amending certain tentative formulations of Butterfield's, we defined the root of the anachronistic error as present-centredness: that is, that the historian, in seeking to study, reconstruct and write about the past, is constrained by necessarily starting from the perceptual and conceptual categories of the present.

It is increasingly common in modern literary theory to read that a text's meaning must be elicited from the textual ‘possibilities which are not said’. At this level of generality, the proposition applies equally to the interpretation of non-literary as literary texts. In this paper, I shall endeavour to illustrate the usefulness of this approach by considering the meaning of Locke's argument in Two treatises in terms of things which Locke chose not to say. I shall argue two points. First, I shall suggest that many of the controversies which have arisen in recent years about Locke's meaning have suffered because inadequate attention has been paid to the precise character of a number of silences in Locke's argument. The persistence of an inadequate framework for understanding the character of Englishmen's appeals to an original contract, constitutional law and history in the late seventeenth century will occupy my attention here. Second, I shall suggest that attention to the details of Locke's most significant silences can cast light on current controversies about the intellectual status of Locke's argument. In particular, I shall argue that the current tendency to locate Two treatises within a context of coded, conspiratorial politics is mistaken.

For most British readers, the Peninsular War is synonymous with the campaigns of Sir John Moore and the duke of Wellington. That this should be the case is hardly surprising in view of the fascination which they have exercised for many historians at the expense of other aspects of the struggle. In defence of such anglocentrism, it might be argued that British involvement was the decisive factor in the war and, further, that without the duke of Wellington the Iberian Peninsula would never have been freed from French domination. That is true enough, but it is also true that Wellington could never have been successful but for the continued resistance of the Spaniards and the Portuguese. Indeed, it is fair to say that without the thousands of Portuguese soldiers who served in his army, and the indirect assistance provided by the Spaniards in pinning down a large proportion of the French forces, the Duke was so outnumbered that he could never have carried the war into Spain at all. Given that Wellington could probably have maintained a British presence in Portugal almost indefinitely, the Spanish contribution is of particular importance. While the British were still bottled up in Portugal during 1810 and 1811, however, the French all but destroyed the basis for Spanish resistance. Had not the Russian campaign intervened to divert Napoleon's attention eastwards, and with it the vital reinforcements that might have completed the French conquest, Spain could conceivably have been subdued. Wellington's victories of 1812 and 1813 would then have been an impossibility.

Allied to Bismarck and more national than liberal, the National Liberal party split the liberal movement and became the largest and most successful party in Germany from 1867 to 1879. But it acted singularly ineffectively when it plunged headlong into the greatest crisis of its history by failing to support tax legislation during a year-long negotiation with Bismarck begun in the summer of 1877. For one thing, the party focused its attention on a single issue when many were at stake, any one of which could have been an obstacle to an agreement with Bismarck. Secondly, although its factions had continually demonstrated their willingness to reach unanimity, these agreements had taken so long to develop and lasted so briefly that in effect the party spent the greater part of a critical year in opposition to Bismarck. Furthermore, by weakening the degree of its commitments in response to Bismarck's hostility towards its demands, the National Liberal party appeared indecisive, unreliable and deceptive. The issue which had produced this inept behaviour was the implementation of the party goal of maintaining parliamentary power in Germany, specifically of assuring to the Reichstag the right to vote annually the sources of the revenue of the imperial government. The story of that issue is the concern of this article. It argues that knowledge of the tensions generated by divergent principles and goals on parliamentary rights will clarify both the schismatic tendencies and the character of the National Liberal party in the later 1870s. Thus the proper assessment of the role that the issue played in the history of the party requires that the actual decision-making process be counted at least equally with agreements. Whether continual co-operation among National Liberals on parliamentary rights was based upon increased hostility or cordiality has remained the critical and unanswered practical question.

The final phase of Venizelism (1928–1933) has traditionally been considered as a period of considerable foreign policy accomplishments (e.g. friendship treaties with Italy, Yugoslavia and Turkey). Yet despite the attention which has been paid to these agreements, the period was clearly marked by the government's drive towards internal infrastructural changes via its commitment to extensive public works programmes. This effort necessitated a huge influx of capital from abroad; in fact, in the period between 1924 and 1931 more money entered the country than at any time since 1875–90. In this context, Britain's influential role was further enhanced as a result of the indispensability of the London credit market, and her financial presence in Greece was to set the tone and pace of Anglo-Greek relations. Probably no institution reflected this uneven relation more accurately than the International Financial Commission (I.F.C).