Surprisingly little attention has been given by modern historians to the composition or the detailed proceedings of the Convention Parliament of 1660. The generalizations of past generations of historians have been accepted and transmitted. In particular, terms of description have been applied to the political and religious groups in this parliament without precise definition or even verification. Since the demolition work performed by Professor Hexter, few would use the terms ‘presbyterian’ or ‘independent’ in talking of groups in the Long Parliament, at least without qualifications and additional definition. Yet they are still generally and confidently used in speaking of major groups in the Convention. So too is the label ‘royalist’, a quite useless term to use of 1660, when all but a few members wanted the return of the King, whatever their attitude had been in the 1640's. Yet these terms are still used as if ‘royalist’ and ‘presbyterian’ denoted separate and mutually exclusive groups. Some historians also see nothing illogical in contrasting ‘presbyterian’ (which if it means anything is a religious classification) with ‘royalist’ (a political term).

The debates between ‘rationalism’ and ‘traditionalism’ and between ‘organization’ and ‘community’ 1 which are such a striking feature of contemporary political thought may be traced back in their modern form to the eighteenth century. Men like Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Bolingbroke, Hume, Bentham and Burke recognized the relevance of these debates to theory and practice and they attempted to link the issues by exploring the conceptual and practical connexions between rationalist politics and the theory of community. The problems were not, of course, discussed in either an intellectual or a political vacuum. The intellectual context was produced by the impact of the discoveries of natural science on social investigation. Students of social affairs hoped to discover behind the apparent diversity and complexity of actual societies a framework of uniform, consistent and, above all, predictable rules which would be analogous to the laws of the planetary system.

The passage of Catholic emancipation in April 1829 was resisted, in the name of the inviolability of the Protestant Constitution, by a group of ‘ultra’ anti-catholics.1 The principles and personnel of this group have already been well described, 2 but its political activities have been inadequately explored. Since 1824, when they criticized Lord Liverpool's Government for dilatoriness in prosecuting O’Connell's Catholic Association, these ultras had tended to form a distinct group on the right wing of the anti-catholic Tories, and had been the most aggressive opponents of Canning's short-lived ministry in 1827. The emergence of an Irish demand for Catholic emancipation, of unprecedented force, was shown in O’Connell's victory at the County Clare by-election in July 1828 and in the ensuing months. This produced a determined resistance by the Irish anti-catholics, which had its counterpart in a British no-popery movement led by the ultras. Most of the leading ultras were peers, and the most prominent among them were the dukes of Cumberland and Newcastle, the marquess of Chandos, the earl of Winchilsea and Lords Colchester and Kenyon. For nine months before the passage of the relief bill they sought to counteract the immense fervour of the Irish Catholics by stimulating the ingrained anti-catholic feelings which had characterized the English masses since the sixteenth century. Their efforts, however, were of no avail against Wellington's decision to carry a Government emancipation measure. It is the object of this study to investigate the no-popery movement and to account for its failure.

One of the chief features of the history of nineteenth-century England was undoubtedly the increase in the size of cities, and in the proportion of the total population who lived under urban conditions. Since this process turned out to be a long-term trend, the urban communities, especially the larger ones, were always historically more important than the statistics of urban to rural population in any one decade would have suggested.2 They were the growing points of the new society, and decisions taken there were to be of cumulative significance far beyond the borough boundary. The problems of the towns in any one generation became increasingly the problems of the nation in the next. For instance, it was assumed in 1848 that the administrative measures under the Public Health Act of that year were applicable to urban areas only. By 1872 it had been realized that they would have to be extended to the country as a whole.

‘I wish there was no such thing as Local Government’, wrote Lord Salisbury,1 exasperated by the difficulties of securing a measure his whole Cabinet could accept. Gladstone's second administration had already encountered difficulties in considering the question, and had not proceeded to legislation. The subject thus passed to the Conservatives. And, though Local Government was not considered an issue of the first importance, the fact that they were to some extent dependent upon the support, and therefore influenced by the wishes, of the Radical Unionists made for prolonged negotiations before County Councils were finally established in 1888. These negotiations and difficulties are principally interesting for the light they shed on the politics of the time. But, since they revolved around technicalities, they cannot be understood without some exposition of the possible courses open to a legislator.

The Treaty of Rapallo, signed on 16 April 1922, cemented a German-Soviet partnership that promised advantages of several different kinds: economically, the reconstruction and development of the Soviet Union by means of German trade and investment seemed good business for both partners; militarily, the secret co-operation between the Red Army and the Reichswehr made possible the introduction of the latest weapons for the one, evasion of the Versailles Treaty for the other, and effective training for both; and politically, German and Soviet policy-makers entertained hopes which ranged, according to the time and the individual concerned, from the modest expectation that the treaty-partner would refrain from joining any hostile coalition to the grandiose ambition of jointly attacking and dismembering the fragile and presumptuous state of Poland.