‘Wee can neither Swear a new Allegiance nor Transfer ye Old; nor Assist at any Coronation while K.[ing] James the second Liue's. In these few words penned on 17 February 1689, within days of the proclamation of William and Mary, Bishop Turner of Ely scaled the heights and plumbed the depths of the loyalists’ dilemma. The unexpected manner in which the Revolution had been accomplished entailed upon churchmen a deep and bitter conflict of loyalties. Certainly none were more afflicted than the Cavalier politicians, prelates and magnates of the Church of England party, who less than a decade before had drawn together in defence of the lawful succession, the established religion and the privileges of the governing classes. As one might suspect, the re-emergence of the Cavalier leaders in the autumn of 1688, from the isolation into which they had been ungenerously thrown by the King's espousal of Indulgence, had important repercussions on events following James's abandonment of government. Yet, while contemporary attitudes to civil obedience have received close study, curiously little attention has been given to the role of James's supporters in the practical politics of the crisis, especially in its initial stages.

DESPITE the vast influence and patronage at his disposal, Sir Robert Walpole was compelled, on occasion, to pursue a course of action which he heartily disliked. At the time of the excise crisis in 1733, the First Minister was forced to revise his policies by pressure, not only from the opposition, but also from the radicals within the ministerial camp. The radical group, usually known as the ‘Old Whigs’, suddenly found themselves in a position to play a decisive role in parliamentary politics for the first time in more than a decade.

Although retrenchment, with its overtones of efficiency and its implied attack on corruption, is a familiar watchword of modern politics, it is difficult today to appreciate the deep ethical and constitutional significance of the issue of economy during the early nineteenth century, or the strong hold which the concept exerted over the attitudes and actions of British politicians and administrators in the decades following the Napoleonic Wars. Twenty-three years of costly war with France had increased Britain's national debt from £228 million in 1793 to £876 million in 1815, and the laborious process of eliminating this deficit at the rate of a few millions a year by means of a sinking fund was aptly described as ‘the attempt of a wooden-legged man to catch a hare’. The propertied classes in the post-war period considered themselves excessively burdened with taxation, and until the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 had been effectively put into operation, they were also called upon to meet the costs of an expensive and inefficient system of poor relief.

Although there have been recently critical studies on the social forces initiating both the revolutions of 1789 and 1830 in France, they have been concerned with the question of defining the ‘bourgeoisie’ or of estimating the role played by the problem by examining the origin of the idea in the political and social theories of that time to show and why the phrase ‘bourgeois revolution’ was used, and to see whether the concept is any longer of use in terms of historical analysis.

One of the standard points mentioned in discussions of the failure of Chartism is that it did not gain any strong support in London. The capital city, with a considerable part of the total population of the country, was very largely apathetic to Chartism, although we have little knowledge beyond this generalization. This contrasts strangely with the attitude of other capital cities during revolutionary movements (since Chartism, in the existing political atmosphere, had to have incipient revolution written into its programme if it were to succeed); Paris obviously played the formative part in 1789, as did St Petersburg in 1917, while most other European radical movements found considerable support among the discontented elements in capital cities. That Chartism did not gain similar success in London was of considerable importance for the movement since, although opposition to the six points was strong in the legislature, a mass following in the capital would have furthered the chances of the Chartists.

The consolidation of the Indian Empire after the Mutiny brought with it a more closely defined honorific hierarchy. From the first investiture at Windsor in 1861 of the Star of India and increasingly agter the assumption by the Queen of her new title of Empress, high service came to be rewarded in honours and distinctions with a discriminating lavishness reminiscent of the creations of the Younger Pitt. But the title assumed by the Queen and announced on 28 April 1876 had not originally been designed for India alone. It was Disraeli's caution that induced the Queen to abandon the style of ‘Empress of Great Britain, Ireland and India’. In his anxiety to avoid controversy many assurances were given that the United Kingdom would not be affected. Thus limitation of the title to India did not at first have any special significance. In reply to Lowe's criticisms, the Prime Minister saw no reason why two of the Queen's sons should not become Dukes of Canada and Australia. It was only in the course of the preparations for proclaiming the title on the first day of 1877 that the Indian Government, recovered from its surprise, suggested that the occasion might be invested with a political as well as a symbolic significance. The Viceroy, Lytton, came to believe that the occasion was a unique opportunity, not merely for broadening the base of the imperial Government through a popular symbol, but for materially strengthening the executive by a new understanding with the native princes of India.

The official biographers of H. H. Asquith believed that his sole difference of any importance with Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in the period when Asquith served as his principal lieutenant rose in connexion with the Trade Disputes Act of 1906. In fact, another important difference divided them in the following spring, this one rising out of their respective views on the proper mode of limiting the veto of the house of lords. That of Campbell-Bannerman is well known. He sponsored a plan of suspensory veto that could conceivably limit the period in which the lords' veto operated to little more than six months. Under its terms a bill sent up to the house of lords would go to a small conference representing each house equally when the two houses were in disagreement. Should the conference fail, the bill or another like it could be reintroduced in the house of commons after an interval of at least six months, passed under drastic closure, and sent once more to the house of lords. The impasse continuing, a second conference might be held; and a second failure at this juncture could entail a repetition of the whole process. But if a third conference proved unsuccessful, the bill could become law without the consent of the house of lords. Known subsequently as the C-B veto plan, it was made public by the Prime Minister in a speech in the house of commons, on 24 June 1007, when he also introduced and carried by a large majority a resolution asserting that the power of the house of lords to alter or reject bills should be so restricted by law as to secure that the decision of the house of commons should prevail within the limits of a single parliament.

Modern technical and scientific development has altered war from a contest between men into a combat between machines. Even the development of firearms did not bring about a change of this magnitude, since firearms went into combat propelled by animal energy (of man and beast). This change-over occurred first at sea when steam engines started to propel ships of war. In days of sail at sea a great deal depended on the purely human factor of seamanship. With the introduction of ships moved by machinery all came depend on the quality and power of this machinery. Drake, De Ruyter Nelson, with all their skill or experience, could have done nothing against steam man-of-war. On land this development took longer. Throughout nineteenth century railways carried men and beasts to the scene of combat and brought them their supplies, but on the battlefield men and horses carried the weapons of war into battle. The invention of the petroleum-driven internal combustion engine changed all that. For the first time man commanded the power necessary to propel engines freely over land and in the air, an invention which had already occupied the imagination of Leonardo da Vinci and appeared in the prophetic writings of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.