Lord Herbert of Cherbury and the Presentation of the Henrician Reformation in his Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth

Abstract

It was no coincidence that Charles I commissioned a study of the life and reign of Henry VIII in the 1630s as he proceeded with controversial anti-Calvinist religious reforms in the face of Puritan opposition and suspicion that he was a closet Catholic. Lord Herbert of Cherbury's willingness to undertake the laborious scholarly task is initially more surprising but can be explained by his commitment to the eradication of religious conflict and his realization that it would enable him to disseminate his own rationalist, reunionist and Erastian views on religious belief, the organization of religion and the location of religious authority.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Charles I and the Road to Personal Rule. (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History.) By L. J. Reeve Algernon Sidney and the English Republic, 1623–1677. By Jonathan Scott The Imperial Challenge: Quebec and Britain in the Age of the American Revolution. By Philip Lawson Lord Grey 1764–1845. By E. A. Smith Whig Renaissance. Lord Althorp and the Whig Party 1782–1845. By Ellis Archer Wasson The Blind Victorian. Henry Fawcett and British Liberalism. ‘Pax Britannica’?: British Foreign Policy, 1789–1914. By Muriel E. Chamberlain British Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century. By C. J. Bartlett     

A Crisis of Lordship: Robert Ogle,Fifth Lord Ogle,and the Rule of Early Tudor Northumberland*

Henry Tudor’s diffusion of power in the English far north, and his savage pruning of resources for his wardens there to maintain good rule and defence, were perhaps necessary steps initially to prevent further challenges from overmighty subjects. Twenty years later, this was no longer an issue; and once peace with Scotland collapsed, the absence of the region’s traditional ruling magnates was keenly felt. Under Henry VIII, an obscure border baron, Lord Ogle of Bothal, was often Northumberland’s only resident lord, precipitating a crisis of lordship described as ‘the decay of the borders’. Unable to recruit as warden a reliable magnate on acceptable terms, Henry VIII then decided that, as a matter of principle, he would ‘not be bound, of a necessity, to be served there with lords’. The King appointed himself as warden-general, delegating the real work to gentlemen deputy wardens whose manraed was enhanced by feeing other leading local landowners, including Lord Ogle. Ogle’s kin and connection thus supplied successive wardens with an adequate following in peacetime; but in the ensuing war Ogle was overwhelmed with his warden on Ancrum Moor, becoming the only nobleman in England under Henry VIII to die in battle.     

Against the current. Essays in the history of ideas

In An Essay upon Civil Government (1722), Andrew Michael Ramsay mounted a sustained attack upon the development throughout English history of popular government. According to Ramsay, popular involvement in sovereignty had led to the decline of society and the revolutions of the seventeenth century. In his own time, Parliament had become a despotic instrument of government, riven with faction and driven by a multiplicity of laws that manifested a widespread corruption in the state. Ramsay's solution to this degeneracy was the extirpation of Parliament, and its substitution with a monarchy moderated by an aristocratic senate. Ramsay's adoption of certain “Country” elements, including a return to the first principles of the constitution, claimed to reflect the principles of contemporary French aristocratic theory which called for the reform of government through the nobility. In his desire to exclude popular government, and reverse the decline of the state, however, Ramsay utilised the theory with which Bossuet had defended Louis XIV's absolute France. Intriguingly, traces of the natural law system which fortified Ramsay's theory can be found in Viscount Bolingbroke's subsequent attack on Walpole's Whig ministry and the corruption of the state.     

Interest,Trade and ‘Character and Circumstances': John Campbell's (1708–1775) Earlier Work

John Campbell's (1708-1775) commercial theory in his early work demonstrates that he held more sophisticated views on British colonialism than previously thought. Campbell draws upon complex influences, which include Charles Davenant's notion of free trade and his ‘Old Whig’ arguments against corruption; Daniel Defoe's ‘new Whig’ arguments for progress and John Locke's arguments on industry and property; and Bolingbroke's Tory arguments for emphasizing common interest. By blending these ideas, Campbell offers a distinctive commercial theory that prioritizes the recognition of the interest and circumstances of all nations and peoples within an unconstrained and reciprocal exchange of commodities in order for the home nation simultaneously to resist corruption and flourish.     

‘In gente Britanniarum,sicut quaedam nostratum testatur historia …’: national identity and perceptions of the past in John of Salisbury's Policraticus

This article examines the construction of national identity in John of Salisbury's Policraticus (c.1159). This well-known treatise has not been included in recent discussions of identities in medieval Britain. The focal point of the analysis is the author's contradictory representations of Britones. John of Salisbury emphasised the distinction and hostility between the Britons/Welsh and the English; at the same time, he claimed that the ancient Britons (Brennius and his companions-in-arms from Geoffrey of Monmouth's De gestis Britonum) were ‘compatriots’ and ‘ancestors’ of the ‘contemporary’ inhabitants of the English kingdom. Comparison with other twelfth-century texts reveals specific features of the model of national identity traced in the Policraticus: the appropriation not only of the British past, but also of the British name and identity, and the imagining of a unified people of Britain. This culminated in the invention of the unique term gens Britanniarum, which nevertheless did not exclude the ‘English’ as an alternative or even interchangeable name. The article discusses political agendas behind John of Salisbury's use of the language of ‘Britishness’, most importantly, support for the pan-British ambitions of the archbishops of Canterbury. The example of the Policraticus, with its combination of both conventional and original elements, nuances our understanding of how and for what ideological purposes national identity might have been constructed in twelfth-century England.     

The ‘Sex Question’ in Anglo-American Relations in the Second World War

During the viceroyalty of Lord Curzon, 1899–1905, the Persian Gulf states came to be treated by Calcutta as closely analogous to Indian Princely states. This shift in policy was most clearly expressed in the state tour of the Gulf in 1903 by the Viceroy. During this tour a number of symbolic, informational, diplomatic, and military methods were employed by the British to expand the role of the Indian Empire in the Persian Gulf. Curzon paid particularly close attention to his government's relationship with Muscat (modern Oman) and Kuwait. The catalyst for this change in the way the Government of India treated the Gulf states was a fear that France, Russia, and Germany were attempting to gain a foothold in the region. Historians of British Indian expansion have tended to focus on the role of ambitious frontier agents; the result has been a distortion which underplays the central role of metropolitan Calcutta, and in this case Lord Curzon, the Viceroy himself.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship. By John Watts John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland 1504–1553. By David Loades The Nerves of State. Taxation and the Financing of the English State, 1558–1714. By Michael J. Braddick The Papers of Sir Richard Grosvenor, 1st Bart. (1585–1645). Edted by Richard Cust. The Scottish Parliament 1639–1661. A Political and Constitutional Analysis. By John R. Young Protestantism and Patriotism. Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650–1668. By Steven C. A. Pincus The House of Lords in the Reign of Charles II. By Andrew Swatland William III and the Godly Revolution. By Tony Claydon The Parliamentary Diary of sir Richard Cocks, 1698–1702. Edited by D. W. Hayton. John Wilkes. A Friend to Liberty. By Peter D. G. Thomas. The Waning of ‘Old Corruption’. The Politics of Economical Reform in Britain, 1779–1846. By Philip Harling Henry Goulbum, 1784–1856. A Political Biography. By Brian Jenkins Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon 1807–1815. By Rory Muir. The Decline of British Radicalism, 1847–1860. By Miles Taylormbridge Citizenship and Community: Liberals, Radicals and Collective Identities in the British Isles, 1865–1931. Edited by Eugenio F. Biagini Officials of Royal Commissions of Inquiry 1870–1939. Compiled by Elaine Harrison Democratic Ideas and the British Labour Movement, 1880–1914. By Loge Barrow and Ian Bullock The Conservatives and British Society, 1880–1990. Edited by Martin Francis and Ina Zweiniger-Bargelowska The Age of Salisbury, 1881–1902. Unionism and Empire. By Richard Shannon. Democratic Rhondda. Politics and Society 1885–1951. By Chris William A History of Conservative Politics, 1900–1996. By John Channley The Republican Crown. Lawyers and the Making Of the State in Twentieth-Century Britain. By Joseph M. Jacob. Out of Control. British Foreign Policy and the Union of Democratic Control 1914–1918. By Sally Harris. Clement Attlee. By Jerry H. Brookshire. The Diaries and Letters of Robert Bernays 1932–1939. An Insider's Account of the House of Commons. Edited by Nick Smart Politics and the Constitution: Essays on British Government. By Vernon Bogdanor. The Heath Government 1970–1974. A Reappraisal. Edited by Stuart Ball and Anthony Seldon     

British hospitality for an unfortunate prince: the Duc de Bordeaux's visit to Britain as an early test of the entente cordiale, 1843–4

In the summer of 1843, Anglo-French relations thawed in the wake of the British and French royal families' meeting at the Château d'Eu in Normandy. Members of both governments began to speak of the good understanding, or entente cordiale, between them, and much of the existing historiography points out that by 1844, what proved to be a fragile arrangement was under some pressure. However, mere months after the Eu visit, another royal visit threatened the entente, that of King Louis Philippe's exiled great-nephew, the Bourbon pretender Henri, Duc de Bordeaux (later known as the Comte de Chambord), to Britain. Owing to Britain's tradition of allowing entry to foreigners, Bordeaux was able to enter Britain freely, whilst the British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen, argued that his visit would have little political consequence. Rather, Bordeaux and his suite intended to make political demonstrations. These activities and Aberdeen's willingness to believe professions to the contrary deeply offended the French government. Aberdeen was eventually forced to admonish Bordeaux and his suite. Although the dispute was amicably resolved, it almost fatally undermined the entente soon after its inception.     

Urban law—II

This paper explores the political thought of Andrew Michael Ramsay with particular reference to his highly acclaimed book called A New Cyropaedia, or the Travels of Cyrus (1727). Dedicated to Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, to whom he was tutor, this work has been hitherto viewed as a Jacobite imitation of the Telemachus, Son of Ulysses(1699) of his eminent teacher archbishop Fénelon of Cambrai. By tracing the dual legacy of the first Persian Emperor Cyrus in Western thought, I demonstrate that Ramsay was as much indebted to Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet's Discourse on Universal History (1681)as he was to Fénelon's political romance. Ramsay took advantage of Xenophon's silence about the eponymous hero's adolescent education in his Cyropaedia, or the Education of Cyrus (c.380B.C.), but he was equally inspired by the Book of Daniel, where the same Persian prince was eulogised as the liberator of the Jewish people from their captivity in Babylon. The main thrust of Ramsay's adaptation was not only to revamp the Humanist- cum-Christian theory and practice of virtuous kingship for a restored Jacobite regime, but on a more fundamental level, to tie in secular history with biblical history. In this respect, Ramsay's New Cyropaedia, or the Travels of Cyrus, was not just another Fénelonian political novel but more essentially a work of universal history. In addition to his Jacobite model of aristocratic constitutional monarchy, it was this Bossuetian motive for universal history, which was first propounded by the German reformer Philipp Melanchthon in his Chronicon Carionis (1532), that most decisively separated Ramsay from Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, author of another famous advice book for princes of the period, The Idea of a Patriot King (written in late 1738 for the education of Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, but officially published in 1749).     

British Diplomatic Attitudes towards Europe, 1801–4Ignorant and Indifferent?

Recent decades have seen a rehabilitation of the reputation of Henry Addington's and Lord Hawkesbury's foreign policy during the course of the former's government, 1801–4. Nevertheless, the existing historiography has done little to place their actions in the wider context of British foreign policy in the early nineteenth century, nor to assess them in light of the debate around the arguments of Paul W. Schroeder's systemic theories and his attacks on eighteenth-century balance-of-power politics. This article argues that Schroeder's theories need qualifying in relation to this period and shall demonstrate that Addington and Hawkesbury conducted a logical, consistent, and Euro-centric balance-of-power policy, and one rooted in rules and assumptions governing their conduct, rather than a pell-mell free-for-all diplomatic system. It furthermore raises questions as to the continuity in British foreign policy and the need for additional research in this area.     

Unsocial Sociability in the Scottish Enlightenment: Ferguson and Kames on War,Sociability and the Foundations of Patriotism

Summary

This article reconstructs a significant historical alternative to the theories of ‘cosmopolitan’ or ‘liberal’ patriotism often associated with the Scottish Enlightenment. Instead of focusing on the work of Andrew Fletcher, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume or Adam Smith, this study concentrates on the theories of sociability, patriotism and international rivalry elaborated by Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) and Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696–1782). Centrally, the article reconstructs both thinkers' shared perspective on what I have called ‘unsociable’ or ‘agonistic’ patriotism, an eighteenth-century idiom which saw international rivalship, antagonism, and even war as crucial in generating political cohesion and sustaining moral virtue. Placing their thinking in the context of wider eighteenth-century debates about sociability and state formation, the article's broader purpose is to highlight the centrality of controversies about human sociability to eighteenth-century debates about the nature of international relations.     

Transcending the academic/public divide in the transmission of theory: Raglan,diffusionism, and mid-century anthropology

Anthropology is plural, not singular, and only a section of its history is decided within universities. A critical re-examination of the work of Lord Raglan demonstrates that retaining an overly academic conception of anthropology impoverishes our understanding of its pasts and its futures. The last of the gentleman-scholars in British anthropology, Raglan was a prominent polemicist of the mid-century, who persistently kept anthropological approaches to contemporary concerns within the public eye. Though a postwar President of the Royal Anthropological Institute and praised by scholars in neighbouring disciplines, Raglan’s diffusionism was sharply criticized by standard-bearers of structural-functionalism. Adopting a broader perspective, Raglan can be viewed as both a sharp-eyed scholar and a successful public intellectual; re-assessment of his work and its effects leads to a re-consideration of the historiography of mid-century UK anthropology: particular theories, though denigrated by mainstream anthropologists, may continue to flourish in other disciplines or extra-academic arenas.     

Joyce Family Values: Treason,Nationality and the Case of ‘Lord Haw-Haw’s’ Irish Cousin

The conviction and execution of William Joyce (‘Lord Haw-Haw’) for treason to the British crown remains controversial to the present day. He was not, however, the only wartime traitor in the Joyce family. His first cousin, the Irish-born Sergeant Michael Joyce, RAF, also volunteered his services to the Nazis while a prisoner of war in Germany, and arguably compromised himself even more seriously than his more notorious relative. In contrast to the avidity with which William Joyce was pursued, however, Michael Joyce’s crimes — which came to light as the trial of ‘Lord Haw-Haw’ opened at the Old Bailey — were efficiently concealed by prosecutors. The difference in the treatment of the cases of the two Joyce cousins not only sheds new light on the determination of the British authorities to secure a conviction against ‘Lord Haw-Haw’ at all costs, but also reveals the ambiguity and instability of ‘Britishness’ at a moment when, paradoxically, patriotism and national self-confidence were at their twentieth-century zenith.     

‘Chatham's Ghost’ and the Enduring Spectre of Lord Bute's Secret Influence: A Political Negotiation of 1778

Hints about the rise, fall, and reformulations of ministries were common currency in 18th‐century British political rhetoric. However, in 1778, chief among such rumours were three purported negotiations between the earls of Bute and Chatham, aimed at bringing one or both of them into administration. So damaging were these rumours to the political legacies of both individuals and their families, however, that they resorted to a ‘press war’ in order to absolve their respective kinsmen of any involvement. Drawing on previously neglected sources, this work examines these negotiations of 1778 and the subsequent press war in order to highlight the longevity, potency, and significance of the myth of Lord Bute's secret influence 15 years after his resignation from high office. In doing so, this work seeks to correct the common narrative that Lord Bute ceased to be a potent political symbol for constitutional issues following the publication of Edmund Burke's Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents in 1770. Far from being merely an anomalous and spontaneous revival of ill‐sentiments towards Lord Bute, this episode should be seen as a flashpoint in a process of vilification and traducement of the Scottish earl that had never, in fact, ceased and was symptomatic of the continuation of symbolic, or hieroglyphic, depictions of arguments concerning the significant constitutional issues which had been raised by Bute's political presence since the accession of George III.     

EDWIN SANDYS,ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 1577–88, ‘STIFF-NECKED,WILFUL AND OBSTINATE’: CONFLICT IN THE ELIZABETHAN CHURCH

Abstract

This article examines the events that, as legend has it, resulted in the foundation of Balliol College (c. 1263) by John (I) Balliol (d. 1268). The Balliol family had long been at odds with successive bishops of Durham over certain lands in Sadberge, the homage of which the bishops believed they were owed. John (I) began his struggle just after his inheritance in 1229 and the dispute reached its height in 1255–60, at which time an intense argument broke out. Other factors, including his actions whilst serving as one of Henry III's English representatives in the Scottish government (1251–55), led to Balliol's ultimate submission to Bishop Kirkham (d. 1260) at Durham Cathedral in 1260 and the foundation of Balliol College at Kirkham's instance. The theory remains, as one historian argues, that Balliol's penance was to give the long delayed homage to the bishop for these lands and not to establish Balliol College. However, there are no surviving records of homage and other possibilities remain, including perhaps that the penance called for Balliol's youngest son, John (II), the future King of Scotland, to be educated at a Durham school.     

Sister-in-Law Marriage in the Empire: Religious Politics and Legislative Reform in the Australian Colonies 1850–1900

In 1835, a statute was passed in the parliament of the United Kingdom making it illegal for a widowed man to marry his sister-in-law. 1 Lord Lyndhurst's Act (1835) 5 & 6 Will VI c. 54. Marriage to a sister-in-law after a wife's death was common practice in nineteenth-century England and colonial Australia and aunts often took on the responsibility of raising children after a sibling's death. In the 1840s, a protracted parliamentary and social debate began over whether a widowed man's marriage to his sister-in-law should be made legal and this debate lasted over seven decades. In the Australian colonies, where English law had been inherited, 2 Those Australian colonies settled prior to the passing of Lord Lyndhurst's Act inherited the English position regarding deceased wife's sister marriage at the time, that such unions were voidable in the ecclesiastical courts during the lifetime of the parties, and in those colonies established afterwards, the 1835 statute applied and deceased wife's sister unions were illegal. In both cases colonial parliaments attempted to pass legislation to clarify the law. a similar debate occurred in the 1870s. The marriage was legalised in most of Australia in the 1870s while it remained illegal in England until the turn of the century. The parallel debates in each country provide a window into the comparative effect of religious culture on the development of marriage law. One of the primary reasons for the protracted nature of the struggle for marriage reform in England was its significance for the relationship between church and state. This article explores the implications of the relationship between church and state in Britain and the colonies for marriage legislation.     

Augustine's Ciceronian Response to the Ciceronian Patriot

This article argues that in the City of God Augustine takes up Cicero's project of cultivating good citizens through philosophy and rhetoric. He addresses the same audience, the dedicated citizen, with a new teaching, echoing the Ciceronian concern with Rome's moral decline and affirming the Ciceronian longing for justice, peace and true community. Yet, in teaching why neither Rome nor the Roman is better off when the citizen devotes himself completely to his earthly patria, Augustine challenges Cicero's construal of good citizenship. In this way, he offers dedicated citizens a new paradigm that remains true to Ciceronian concerns while surpassing the Ciceronian framework.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: The True Law of Kingship. Concepts of Monarchy in Early Modern Scotland. By J. H. Burns. Law-Making and Society in Late Elizabethan England. The Parliament of England, 1584–1601. By David Dean. The Right to be King. The Succession to the Crown of England, 2603–1714. By Howard Nenner. A Taste for Empire and Glory. Studies in British Overseas Expansion, 1660–1800. By Philip Lawson. Officials of the Royal Household, 1660–1837. Part 1: Department of the Lord Chamberlain and Associated Offices. Compiled by J. C. Sainty and R. O. Bucholz. From Patriots to Unionists. Dublin Politics and Irish Protestant Patriotism, 1660–1840. By Jacqueline Hill. Government and Community in the English Provinces, 1700–1870. By David Eastwood. ‘Scotland's Ruine’. Lockhart of Camwath's Memoirs of the Union. Edited by Daniel Szechi. Parties, Patriots and Undertakers. Parliamentary Politics in Early Hanoverian Ireland. By Patrick McNally. Illusory Consensus. Bolingbroke and the Polemical Response to Walpole 1730–1737. By Alexander Pettit. Edmund Burke. A Life in Caricature. By Nicholas K. Robinson. The Younger Pitt. The Consuming Stmale. By John Ehrman. Thomas Erskine and Trial by Jury. By John Hostettler. Party, State and Society. Electoral Behaviour in Britain since 1820. Edited by Jon Lawrence and Miles Taylor. Education Act Forster. A Political Biography of W. E. Forster (1818–1886). By Patrick Jackson. The Transformation of British Politics, 1860–1995. By Brian Hamson. The Rise of Socialism in Britain, c.1881–1951. By Keith Laybourn. A History of the British Labour Party. By Andrew Thorpe. Generating Socialism. Recollections of L in the Labour Party. By Daniel Weinbren. The Boundaries of the State in Modern Britain. Edited by S. J. D. Green and R. C. Whiting. Jennie Lee. A Life. By Patricia Hollis. Remaking the Labour Party From Gaitskell to Blair. By Tudor Jones. The Labour Party. ‘Socialism’ and Society Since 1951. By Steven Fielding. ideas and Policies under Labour 1945–1951. By Martin Francis. Labour and conservative Party Members, 1990–92. Social Charactetistics, Political Attitudes and Activities. By Patrick Seyd, Paul Whiteley and Jon Parry. How Scotland Votes. Scottish Parties and Elections. By Lynn Bennie, Jack Brand and James Mitchell.