The fifth Earl of Carlisle's name appears regularly in works dealing with English political history of the later eighteenth century, but our knowledge of his life and works is nevertheless scanty. Accordingly this thesis seeks to furnish a fairly complete picture of Lord Carlisle, placing special emphasis on his contribution to politics and dealing at some length with his public offices, in particular his position on the Peace Commission which went to America in 1778, his presidency of the Board of Trade from 1779 to 1780, and his viceroyalty of Irelcud from 1780 to 1782. His official life, however, was brief, but contrary to received opinion it will appear in this thesis that for the rest of his life he was by no means politically inactive. Liberating himself to some extent from the influence of more powerful political characters, he deliberately refused office on several occasions and seems to have established himself consciously as a disinterested independent. Such a condition, especially in an aristocratic context, has received little attention from historians, preoccupied with the growth or collapse of party. Aside from politics, some time has also been spent on Carlisle's involvement in local politics and in other traditional practices of the time, and where possible these have been used to illustrate his political attitudes. In particular, for example, there was a direct correlation between his estimation of the value of local political influence and his conception of the structure of politics at Westminster. Finally, it is not claimed in this thesis that Carlisle was an historically influential figure in the official political establishment of his day. Independents do not seek political power. But it is suggested that he was uncommon in his conscious independence, and that he was probably only one of a more numerous body of principled independents than is generally acknowledged.

This thesis examines the administrative history of the middle decade of Edward Ill's reign, between the victories of Crecy and Poitiers, It is often assumed that, after the crisis of 1340-1, the king was only able to maintain domestic peace at the cost of his own power. But the administrative records reveal that this political stability was the result not of a renunciation, but a restoration of royal authority. The king annulled the statute of 1341 limiting his control over appointment of ministers, removed from power the Stratford party which had dominated the government in the 1330's, and gave control of the departments of state to the members of his earlier household administration of 1338-40. These men, enjoying long tenure of office, then put into effect the administrative system planned in the Walton Ordinances of 1338. Bureaucratic reforms in the Chancery, the privy seal, the Exchequer and the household created a more efficient, and therefore more effective administration. These changes were co-ordinated in the king's council, which used its legislative and judicial authority to increase central control. In parliament, the king's ministers were able to direct business, obliging the Commons to grant taxes in return for remarkably few statutory concessions. And the best-enforced legislation of the period was that which accorded with government policy, implemented in the provincial sessions of the King's Bench. The greatest success of the regime however was to transform the financial disasters of the late 1330's into the financial security of the mid 1350's. This was the work of treasurer Edington, the most influential and long-lived of the ministers of this period. The success of the government, however, depended not on one man, but on the co-operation and inter-dependence of the whole administration, united in its common determination to restore the authority of the Crown.

This Thesis examines the relationship between the organisational and ideological transformation of the Labour Party, and the decline of intra-party factionalism by the groups of the Labour Left during the period from 1979 to 1997. Two central questions are considered. First, whether the fragmentation and decline of the Left during this period can best be understood by examining the interplay between organisational and ideological factors at both the party and individual group levels. Second, whether 'New Labour' continues to exhibit some of the key traits of attitudinal dissent among its grassroots membership, despite the lack of an organisational apparatus within which sub-groups of activists could challenge the centralising tendencies of party leaders and influence the direction of party policy. Labour's ideological and organisational transformation had a number of important consequences for the prevalence of intra-party factionalism. The organisational reforms meant that Labour ceased to represent Duverger's 'branch-mass' type of party. Furthermore, party leaders regained centralised control over members and activists through the resurgence of Michels' 'iron law of oligarchy'. The depth of Labour's ideological transformation also reinforced the narrowing of the ideological gap between (radical) grassroots members and ordinary (moderate) voters, such that May's 'law of curvilinear disparity' appeared extinct inside Blair's New Labour. Labour's transformation had a remarkably fragmenting effect at the group-level. The Labour Left was a collection of various groupings, each of which displayed different structural properties and ideological characteristics. There was no single organisational form of Labour Left factionalism, nor was their any common sense of ideological purpose. The processes of party transformation would act only to further the Left's fragmentation and cement its decline. However, it would be premature to talk of New Labour as a party free from dissent. Despite the dissolution of the Labour Left, New Labour's grassroots membership has retained some of the principal features of factionalism. Using data from original survey research among party members, it is suggested that New Labour has encouraged new types of 'objective' and 'subjective' factionalism. The kind of factionalism typified by the Labour Left of the 1970s and 1980s may have disappeared, but we should not preclude the growth of new dimensions of conflict between party leaders and grassroots members.

This thesis attempts to provide an account of radical thought in Britain, 1760 to 1815, by way of a study of the tracts, pamphlets and articles of the major radical ideologues. It begins by examining the assumptions made by the radicals in respect of nature and human nature, material and moral progress, and liberty and equality. The differences revealed in relation to the basic assumptions are then analysed in the context of the major questions of politics, property and progress. On the issue of political liberty distinctions are made between mixed constitutionalist radicals and republicans, democratic or otherwise, and between those who adopted a "radical" as opposed to a "moderate" approach to voting rights. Special attention is given to Thomas Spence's and William Godwin's views on decentralization and democracy and to the radical case for an armed citizenry. Regarding property and progress a major distinction is drawn between agrarian and commercial radicals according to attitudes taken on the emergence and development of modern commercial society. The different versions of the agrarian alternative are considered and the reformist, communitarian and revolutionary approaches to agrarianism examined. In relation to commercial radicalism a distinction is drawn between Smithian and artisan approaches to the meaning of equality of opportunity and connected with a change in the social composition of the radical movement in the 1790s. A chapter is devoted to James Burgh who synthesized aspects of agrarianism and commercial radicalism. The final section of the thesis considers the alternatives proposed for the achievement of radical ends. A distinction is drawn between reformers and revolutionaries and two chapters given over to consideration of the special contributions of William Godwin and the young Coleridge. It is concluded that radical ideology is best understood as a synthesis of civic humanism and Lockean liberalism and that the class perceptions of particular radicals are important in understanding the different ways they develop the radical case.

No description available.

In the years after 1959 Britain's disengagement from her colonial Empire was comprehensive and rapid. A newly re-elected Conservative government, well aware that many special interests would suffer in the process, set out nevertheless to press the policy of decolonisation speedily to its end. This new tempo of policy was a natural enough response to the experiences of the preceding years. The decade and a half since the war had encompassed both the rise of articulate and aggressive colonial nationalism and a steep decline in Britain's own power in the world. What Macmillan and Macleod recognised, in essence, was that a point had been reached beyond which the continuation of the old gradualist tempo of devolution would precipitate more colonial unrest than Britain could hope to contain. Thus the period from the end of the war to the general election of 1959 appears in retrospect as the penultimate phase of Britain's colonial experience, spanning those events and movements of ideas in terms of which the hurried conclusion of the early sixties may be understood. This work attempts to discuss the domestic politics of colonial policy in the period. It is motivated not by any general belief that the approach to decolonisation is best studied from the domestic point of view, but simply by the hope of illuminating an area of the picture which, by comparison with the events in the colonies themselves, has remained in shadow. The study deals with the activities of the major political parties and certain pressure groups within that area of British political activity having the Colonial Office and Parliament as its focal points. It is organised around two broad questions. Firstly, how were colonial problems and issues dealt with in British politics; that is, what kinds of attitudes and activities were stimulated among parties and groups by the existence, and the changing character, of this area of British responsibility? Secondly, how far did domestic political activity affect the course of governmental policy?

No description available.

No description available.

The period from 1294 until 1307 saw England engaged in wars with the French, the Welsh and the Scotch. In only three years, 1299, 1302, and 1305 was there no campaign. The object of this dissertation is to examine the ways in which the country was mobilised for this exceptional military effort, and to investigate the means by which the wars were financed. Various aspects of both the military and administrative history of this period have been dealt with by Tout, Morris and others, but much of the surviving evidence has not been fully used, and no historian has attempted to treat the subject as a whole.

The prologue studies the Tory publication of Milton's Character of the Long Parliament (1681). It argues that the provenance of this tract is best explained if Milton did in fact attempt to include the Digression in his History of Britain. Further ambiguities in Milton's early reputation are discussed in a review of the History's reception. Chapter I surveys Milton's response to the long­ standing demand for a national history and briefly reconsiders his ideas on history and historiography. Chapter II proposes that his political sympathies led Milton to look to the British legends for his historical subject. The strong Protestant and Tudor associations of such native myth have been largely overlooked, and yet they bear strongly on Milton's proposals for a British historical poem. His reappraisal of the myths in the History indicates his disillusionment with his original historical project: and reflects his changing opinion of the national character. Chapter III charts Milton's response to the legends surrounding Lucius, Constantine and the early British church, and traces conflicts between his need to deny church history and his desire to rewrite it. It then turns to his curiously muted views on the Saxon church. Chapter IV compares the use of Gildas's De Excidio in the History with Milton's relative silence on Arthur. Milton's regard for this ancient British jeremiad recalls that of the Reformers and suggests the instability of his commitment to purely classical styles of historiography in his time. Chapter V surveys the conflicting ideological and religious pressures on the history of the Saxons and the Conquest and compares Milton's shifting response to these in his political tracts with his views in the History. The Epilogue returns to Milton's view of the national character, with special reference to the Digression. Presenting his references to climate theory in a wider context, it argues that in moving from a loosely predestinarian position to a belief in free will, Milton first sought some determining natural force to explain England's conduct through the ages.