‘A Reward for so Meritorious an Action’ ? Lord Hervey's Summons to the House of Lords and Walpole's Management of the Upper Chamber (1727–42)

In 1733 Lord Hervey was summoned to the house of lords early. The move has traditionally been seen as part of an effort by Walpole to increase his ministry's strength in the upper chamber in spite of objections voiced by allies such as the duke of Newcastle. This essay seeks to reconsider the circumstances of the move and question more broadly the management of the Lords during the ‘Robinocracy’.     

The Irish Parliamentary Diary (1776–89) of Sir Henry Cavendish

This article clarifies the history of the ‘parliamentary diary’ compiled by Sir Henry Cavendish while a member of the Irish parliament between 1776 and 1789, correcting misapprehensions in previous accounts, in particular the assertion by A.P.W. Malcomson and D.J. Jackson that Cavendish paid less attention to recording debates in the 1780s.     

Monks and hermits in medieval love stories

Monks and hermits are frequently mentioned in courtly romances. It is an unresolved problem whether these are real men or the product of literary imagination. The monks and hermits of love literature do evolve over time: whereas in the twelfth century they are predominantly monastic figures, later they are laymen. This article examines the literary image of the monk and hermit, including their role as advocates of marital fidelity, and asks how effective these models were for contemporary Christians, especially in cases where poets abandoned their secular life to become monks and hermits. With the rise of the friars traditional literary images were not abandoned. Emphasis is placed on the role of the hermit as a symbol of the quest for divine love.     

Anatomy of a Social Virtue

Abstract

Humanity is radically and pervasively interdependent. Catholic social teaching uses solidarity as the lens through which to critically examine our interdependence. Solidarity is multifaceted, at once a feeling, an attitude, and a duty, with each of these building to culminate in the virtue. How is solidarity a virtue? What are the habits and practices by which it is cultivated? To whom does it apply? And what, if any, are corresponding vices? This article proposes that solidarity is both an individual virtue and a social virtue. By offering an examination of the anatomy of this social virtue, this article will propose the scope and boundaries of solidarity, corresponding sets of vices for this virtue, and the cultivation of this virtue by communities through practicing respect for human rights.     

T.H. Green, advanced liberalism and the reform question 1865–1876

This paper examines Thomas Hill Green's changing attitude to the Reform Question between 1865 and 1876. Section 1 sketches the Radical landscape against which Green advocated reform between 1866 and 1867, paying particular attention to the respective positions of Gladstone, J.S. Mill and Bright on the relationship between responsible citizenship and class membership. Section 2 examines Green's theories of social balance and responsible citizenship at the time of his lectures on the English Civil War. Section 3 argues that, contrary to the established scholarship, Green's Radicalism was closer to Bright than to Gladstone and Mill during this period. Section 4 counters Richter's claim that Green abandoned democracy following the 1874 General Election, while arguing that even sympathetic commentators misunderstand Green's attitude to the Reform Question immediately after this date.     

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).