The Politics of Chivalry: Sir Robert Walpole,the Duke of Montagu and the Order of the Bath

This article explores the complex circumstances surrounding the foundation of the order of the Bath in 1725, and seeks to correct the commonly‐held view that it was initiated by Walpole simply to augment the patronage available to his supporters in parliament. The proposal for a new order of chivalry based on the medieval ‘knighthood of the bath’ in fact emanated from the court, having been prompted by one of its central figures, the duke of Montagu. Walpole and his colleagues were by no means oblivious to the practical political value of such a move, but having only lately consolidated their position at court, their main priority was to seize a unique opportunity to flatter the new royal dynasty and garner popularity for it through the medium of the order's rediscovered history. The ministers selected the order's 36 founder‐knights with considerable input from senior courtiers, but ensured that those nominated were mostly peers and MPs who could evince ministerially useful connections between court and parliament. Though the order was later derided as a symptom of Walpoleian corruption, its foundation can be regarded as something of a turning point in Walpole's rise to power.     

深圳商品住宅二级市场不规范行为及治理对策

深圳是房地产法律法规相对健全,市场发育相对成熟的地区。深圳房地产市场面临的问题,在国内有一定先行性和代表性。总结深圳房地产市场存在的问题,剖析其原因,提出治理对策,对国内其他城市和地区有一定指导和借鉴意义。本文利用2002年深圳市在售楼盘调查资料,归纳出了深圳商品住宅二级市场不规范行为的28种具体表现,揭示了相关制度不尽合理、开发商(中介商)存在投机心理、购房业主自我保护意识不强、管理部门监管难度大等原因,最后提出通过完善制度和加强管理予以规范和治理。     

试论徽州地理环境对徽商和徽派民居建筑的影响

文章从文化生态学角度,论述了徽州地理环境对徽商和徽派民居建筑的影响,认为:1、徽州人商业活动起源于徽州物产\"结构性失调\",徽州\"地狭人稠\"促使\"徽民寄命于商\";2、徽商经营行业受徽州地理环境影响,以徽州物产余缺为基础;3、徽州群山环抱,陆路交通闭塞,新安江等水路从而成为徽商境内外贸易的主要通道;4、徽商投资产业多在徽州以外地域,明显受徽州物产和市场因素影响;5、徽州民居建筑在选址、用地、材料、结构、造型等方面,与徽州地理环境和谐、协调。     

Housekeeper,correspondent and confidante: the under-told story of Mrs Hayes of Charlecote Park, 1744–73

All too often, servants are accorded limited space in country house studies: rarely allowed to venture beyond the kitchen and service rooms, either in academic studies or interpretations for visitors. They are defined by their work not their lives and are seen as serving the physical rather than social or emotional needs of the owner. This paper challenges this viewpoint by exploring the relationship between George Lucy, owner of Charlecote Park in Warwickshire and his housekeeper, Mrs Phillipa Hayes. Drawing on their mutual correspondence, on other letters to and from Mrs Hayes, and on her Household Book, I construct a richer and more nuanced picture of the multiple roles that could be played by a senior servant. She was a housekeeper, but also a correspondent, confidante and hostess, who offered comfort and pleasure to her employer as well as sound economic and social management of his household. Although in some ways unusual, this case study illustrates the importance of placing senior servants more centrally when exploring the country house.     

Looking for circular structures in post hole distributions: Quantitative analysis of two settlements from bronze age England

A statistical procedure is suggested for the analyses of hypothetical round-house plans among post hole patterns. The data are compared with an analogous random scattering of points and differences are noted. Plausible interpretations are contrasted with chance configurations to determine their strength. Single-link cluster analysis and statistical geometry are used. The emphasis throughout the paper is on data analysis rather than hypothesis testing.     

In No One's Shadow: British Politics in the Age of Anne and the Writing of the History of the House of Commons

The publication in 1967 of Geoffrey Holmes's masterpiece, British Politics in the Age of Anne , effectively demolished the interpretation of the 'political structure' of early 18th-century England that had been advanced by the American historian R.R. Walcott as a conscious imitation of Sir Lewis Namier. But to understand the significance of Holmes's work solely in an anti-Namierite context is misleading. For one thing, his book only completed a process of reaction against Walcott's work that was already under way in unpublished theses and scholarly articles (some by Holmes himself). Second, Holmes's approach was not simplistically anti-Namierist, as some (though not all) of Namier's followers recognized. Indeed, he was strongly sympathetic to the biographical approach, while acknowledging its limitations. The significance of Holmes's book to the study of the house of commons 1702–14 (and of the unpublished study of 'the Great Ministry' of 1710–14 to which it had originally been intended as a long introduction), was in fact much broader than the restoration of party divisions as central to political conflict. It was the re-creation of a political world, not merely the delineations of political allegiances, that made British Politics in the Age of Anne such a landmark in writing on this period.