The Armada Tapestries in the Old Palace of Westminster

The tapestry series of the ‘Defeat of the Spanish Armada’ was a national artistic treasure which hung in the old Palace of Westminster from the mid 17th century until the fire of 1834. This article outlines the creation of the tapestries in the 1590s and covers the major treatments of them in illustrations of parliamentary interiors and in John Pine's 1739 engravings; it ends with a short account of the curious episode of the tapestry which escaped the conflagration. In the absence of any known historical record of how the tapestries were displayed, suggestions are offered about how many and in what order they hung in the two chambers occupied successively by the house of lords (before and after 1801), and about how they were physically supported on the walls of the Parliament Chamber.     

The Campaign for a Free Parliament, 1659–60

The clamour for ‘a free parliament’ in the winter of 1659–60, the most widely articulated public demand since the outbreak of civil war, has not received attention proportionate to its significance. Here the contours and chronology of the movement are reconstructed. Its goal was the summoning of an assembly which, through the restoration of parliamentary representation and the emancipation of the electorate from voting restrictions and military interference, would possess the authority to speak for the nation and secure a national settlement. The outcome was that essential instrument in the peaceful return of the monarchy, the Convention. The term ‘a free parliament’ was a slogan, used for a variety of political ends. Yet it was a unifying phrase which allowed the two parties opposed to the republic, the royalists (who had been denied parliamentary representation in 1642) and the presbyterians (who had been forcibly removed from parliament in 1648) to suspend their differences. The movement also connected national politicians of both parties to intense grievances in the regions. Local sentiment was voiced in a cascade of manifestos, published in the names of counties and towns, which illustrate the hold of parliament on public feeling.     

从流民法看都铎时期议会与王权的关系

都铎时期是英国从中世纪封建社会向近代资本主义社会过渡的历史大变革时期。英国虽确立了君主专制制度,但国王在政策上仍需要议会的支持,议会亦需要王权的保护。这种“互助”的关系也反映在流民立法上。当英国出现严重的流民问题时,议会颁布的一系列法令法规中充分体现了国王的意志。因此,无论是“血腥立法”还是“社会福利”立法,其根本目的都是解决社会危机,避免发生动乱,稳固统治,在这一点上议会与国土的利益是一致的,国王与议会的关系是对立统一的。     

Robert Harley and the Ministerial Revolution of 1710 (edited by W.A. SPECK)

The ministerial revolution of 1710 transformed a predominantly whig administration in April to a tory-dominated ministry by September. Historians have generally attributed this transformation to the political objectives and skills of Robert Harley. But such a conclusion makes the methodological error of deducing his intentions from the outcome. On close examination Harley did not intend to make such drastic changes initially. On the contrary, he wished to limit them to the removal of the earl of Sunderland from his secretaryship of state and the earl of Godolphin from the lord treasurership, and to curtail, if not eliminate, the influence of the duke of Marlborough and his duchess in affairs of state. Other whigs, especially the so-called junto, he hoped to retain in power. This would have necessitated the retention of the existing parliament which did not have to be dissolved under the Triennial Act until 1711. These plans came unstuck. The junto, though prepared to take Harley seriously, eventually refused to deal with him and resigned their offices. Harley was also obliged to take in more tories than he wanted. The main reason for the failure of his original plan was the influence of Queen Anne, which has been overlooked or underestimated in previous accounts.     

论明治宪法中议会预算审议权的形成

1889年的明治宪法是一部以天皇大权为中心的专制宪法,议会的权限有限,但是由于它被赋予了重要的预算审议权等财政权限,促使战前日本天皇制的政治体制中竞产生了政党政治。那么,宪法的缔造者——伊藤博文为什么会把这么重要的权力赋予议会？有学者认为,伊藤博文等人对“宪政及各类政体的精神”有着“深刻的理解”是重要原因。而本文则通过对近世以来日本地方上存在的租税协议惯行、明治维新后地方民会和府县会的预算审议权以及宪法发布前政府及民党的宪法草案内容等进行分析,认为议会拥有预算审议权等财政权限已是当时普遍的基本的认识,具有广泛的社会基础,伊藤博文不可能逆社会潮流而动也是重要的原因之一。     

The Political Mistress: Intimacy,Emotion, and Parliamentary Politics in the Late 18th Century

Between c.1796 and 1809, Lady Harriet Ponsonby, Countess Bessborough and Lord Granville Leveson Gower were embroiled in a passionate affair. Their liaison created tensions in aristocratic society because they belonged to rival political parties, the Whigs and the Tories respectively. In the early years of their relationship, Leveson Gower was emerging on the political scene, while the countess was already well-versed in the complexities of party politics. Leveson Gower thus solicited her advice and support and Bessborough duly shared her knowledge and insight into the political world, which created an unusual dynamic that scholars have yet to explore. This article examines several letters that Bessborough wrote to Leveson Gower to analyse how she supported her lover's fledgling parliamentary career and how she navigated their political differences. I argue that Bessborough adapted a rhetoric of affection, deference, duty, and loyalty, that was typically used by aristocratic wives, to justify her interest in her lover's career and her passion for parliamentary politics. This article contributes to scholarship that explores aristocratic women's political participation by examining the strategies a political mistress could employ to exert influence over men. It also illustrates the value of using methodologies from the history of emotions to investigate the drives and passions that shaped interactions in the late 18th-century political sphere.     

Sorcery at court and manor: Margery Jourdemayne, the witch of Eye next Westminster

Margery Jourdemayne, the ‘witch of Eye next Westminster’, Eleanor, duchess of Gloucester, and three scholars of the ducal household were foremost amongst those accused of treasonable witchcraft in 1441. The paper explores Margery's part in this episode, and then examines her background: her husband William came from a prosperous Middlesex yeoman family living at Acton, and he himself was a manorial official on Westminster Abbey's Ebury (Eye) estate.     

Why the History of Parliament Has Not Been Written*

There have been legions of individual studies of the history of the English/British/United Kingdom parliament, which is not surprising, since its history is widely acknowledged to be so closely bound up with the history of the nation state itself. But there have been remarkably few attempts to put the story together, to try to consider the long‐term development of parliament as an institution. What would such a story look like? This essay discusses some of the critiques of the whiggish narrative of constitutional and parliamentary development to recognise a common theme in whiggism's tendency to anthropomorphise parliament, to describe it as a single organism with agency and purpose. To forgo that temptation, however, makes it difficult to provide a satisfying narrative of parliament over time. The essay tries to imagine how one might construct a history of parliament as an institution which no longer sees it as an actor in its own story, but, instead, a complex collection of ideas, processes, customs, and conventions, which competing forces struggle to organise in order to achieve their goals, and which is also an arena and forum for that competition.