The Roll of Parliament, supposedly the master record of that institution, actually occupied that place until some time in the sixteenth century. Yet it has never been systematically studied for the period after parliament had institutionally emerged in the middle of the fourteenth century. Since the rolls down to 1504 and for several of the parliaments of Henry VIII have been in print for some 200 years, their contents have been used often enough; but no one has subjected the originals to scrutiny, so that the documents themselves have not been made to tell what they can. This paper will consider the rolls for the years 1449–1547, the period covered by the extant early journals of the house of lords which have already been analysed. The manuscripts reveal that the print hides many interesting features, but since the texts as printed are sound enough it will at times be convenient to use them for purposes of reference.

Who became protestant in sixteenth-century France? This question has long exercised historians. A contemporary, La Popelinière, himself a huguenot, pointed to the varied attractions of the reformation for the politically ambitious and for the socially and economically underprivileged. Moving on to the beginning of this century, Henri Hauser postulated a protestantism dominated by artisans and the lower urban classes, although he later emphasised the appeal of the new religion to all social groups, a point of view endorsed by Lucien Romier and E. G. Léonard. Despite the political and military significance of the adherence of both some high court nobles and lesser rural hobereaux, it is nevertheless clear that Calvinism was predominantly and intentionally an urban phenomenon; Genevan missionaries were directed primarily to the cities and towns, though there were some notable exceptions such as the Cévennes area in southern France. It is, however, possible to advance from these rather cautious generalizations and to ask whether the social and economic profile of those who converted to Calvinism reflects that of the French people as a whole or whether there is some special relationship between status and religion, and whether there is any regional differentiation. Some of the answers, which in the current state of research must remain tentative, may be drawn from lists of huguenots drawn up by judicial and municipal authorities in the course of the civil wars. These lists provide, as Jean Delumeau has recently pointed out, a marvellous introduction to the sociology of French protestantism and indeed, one of the few ways of approaching the issue. Very few registers of the état-civil of protestant churches survive from the sixteenth century and those that do often fail to note occupational status. Lists of refugees in Geneva and elsewhere offer some evidence from a protestant point of view, but are distorted by a number of factors and may be unreliable in respect of geographical distribution and occupations.

Several administrative reforms in the reign of James I are commonly associated with the name of Lionel Cranfield. One such reform is supposed to have occurred in the ordnanceoffice in 1620, though curiously little is known about it. The two principal accounts of the ordnance project are contained in the well-known studies of Cranfield by R. H. Tawney and Menna Prestwich.1 From these two accounts it is possible to glean only a few apparent facts; and these can be stated briefly as follows. The ordnance project is alleged to have been carried out by a special commission appointed in November of 1618 or 1619. Although several officers of the ordnance were included on this commission, they apparently offered no resistance to the reform of their own office. And, finally, the recommendations of the commission are assumed to have been implemented with the result that in 1621 King James was able to report to parliament that ordnance expenditure had been reduced from £34,000 to £14,000 annually.2 The first objective of the present article is to show that all of these assumptions about the ordnance reform of 1620 are mistaken. The second objective is to provide a new account of the ordnance project that is more consistent with the existing evidence. A final objective is to shed new light on the career and impeachment of Lionel Cranfield. Cranfield's career lends itself quite naturally to heroic narrative. His attempt to stave off financial disaster by reforming many departments, including the household, navy, and wardrobe, has the appearance of a Herculean undertaking.

An issue that has long concerned historians of colonial America is that of the social origins of the English men and women who came to the New World in bondage. It has been estimated that half of all white immigration to the thirteen colonies was made up of indentured servants; therefore no quantitative description of the labour force or the social structure of colonial America is possible without some knowledge of what kinds of people bound themselves to serve in return for passage to the colonies. Historians' assessments of these early immigrants have ranged widely, from Abbot Emerson Smith's judgment that they were ‘the most ignorant and idle’ of English contemporaries to Mildred Campbell's view that ‘most were drawn from the middling classes…the productive groups in England's working population’.

The importance of presbyterianism in London politics during the 1640s has long been recognized, but only recently have its secular aspects received their proper emphasis. The burdens and uncertainties generated by prolonged warfare found expression in a rising tide of moderation and concern for property and social order. ‘City shopkeepers and merchants’ saw in a presbyterian system of church government the means of reimposing discipline upon parochial life through the offices of vestrymen and ruling elder. Of course, London presbyterianism was not merely an expression of economic and social dislocation. Indeed, this study will be very much concerned with the activities of a group of religiously committed presbyterians who were able to secure considerable political influence by exploiting the more amorphous presbyterian sentiment of many of the propertied citizens.

The repeal of the sacramental test in the Corporation and Test Acts seemed far more important in later years than when it was carried. In 1828 the event aroused comparatively little opposition, and it is not much of an exaggeration to say that ‘the repeal took place with amazing smoothness. Hardly a dog barked.’ The practical change made by repeal was scarcely perceptible. Repeal merely confirmed and strengthened the liberty enjoyed under Annual Indemnity Acts, while dissenters still found it difficult to enter some town councils until the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 caused a striking influx of them to take place. Despite the lack of concern in 1828, the duke of Newcastle claimed in 1837 that ‘a sure consequence’ of repeal was the emancipation of catholics in 1829; that, as a consequence of this in turn, ‘liberalism, conciliation, and concession, prevailed without limit’ and that, ultimately, by an incredible combination of terms, ‘Jesuitical influence triumphed, and the Reform Bill was carried…Revolution was forcibly established.’ Neither the advocates of repeal in parliament, nor those politicians who acquiesced in it, expected that catholic emancipation would follow as a necessary consequence, though the former hoped that this cause would be encouraged. Even further removed, in 1828, seemed a wide measure of parliamentary reform. When this did come in 1832 it opened to dissenters a share in political power which was not envisaged four years before and gave greater importance to the change of 1828. Members of Oxford university showed this in 1863 when remonstrating with one of their M.P.s, W. E. Gladstone, for favouring the removal of the declaration adopted in place of the sacramental test in 1828

‘Lord Randolph Churchill and Tory democracy’ is a cliché topic of late-Victorian historiography. All the monographs on Lord Randolph emphasise his enthusiasm for tory democracy. This enthusiasm has been explained by recent historians of Victorian Conservatism in terms of personal ambition rather than commitment to specific policies. But both these schools of interpretation are based on mistaken assumptions and insufficient or misleading evidence. I believe that neither the ‘orthodox’ nor the ‘revisionist’ explanations of Churchill's involvement with tory democracy fit the facts of the case in most of their aspects. The following inquiry examines the various ways in which Churchill actually was, or has been alleged to have been, involved with that ambiguous concept, tory democracy. This necessitates an examination of the usage and meaning which Churchill gave to the phrase and of the extent to which he associated it with progressive social policies. It is also instructive to compare Churchill's outlook with that of Gorst, his Fourth Party colleague, who was also identified with tory democracy. In order to assess the role which ambition played in determining Churchill's support for tory democracy it is necessary to consider his relations with the official tory leaders and his own political expectations. Finally, it is relevant to examine his involvement in the activities of the National Union of Conservative Associations. On the one hand, it has been argued that his role in the National Union was indicative of his desire to launch progressive toryism on a recalcitrant party, while on the other, it has been viewed simply as part of his campaign to further his own position in the party.

In 1934 two commissioners (for England and Wales and for Scotland) were appoineted to tackle the problems caused by high and Persistent unemploed in areas dependent on a narrow and depressed range of industriues. These Statutory Special Areas were only some of the most depressed parts of the country, in scotland largely west-central Scotaland but excluding Glasgow. defects in the policies adopted, and in their implementation by the commissioners, are well known, especially their alleged failure to encourage adequatelythe newindustrial development the special Areas needed. Certainly the powers and the financial provision given tio the commissioners in 1934 were slight, but they were increased in new legislation in 1937 and had little time to become effective before the outbreak of war. In addition, lack of success, especially in the end towards which the policies were directed as much as because of their own inadequacy or insufficiency. the end, justifiable in the conditions of the 1930s, was to releive unemployement, not to encourage a distinctive policy of regional industrial diversification. The Report of the Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population Suggested a new direction in 1940, but its views were applied as part of an overall strategy only in the 1960s. A comment of 1952 may be applied from the pre-war years throughout the 1950s. Only the name of the special Areas had been changed.

The Anglo-American Committee, whose appointment was announced on 13 November 1945, had its origins in a purely British initiative: an ad hoc, spur-of-the-moment attempt to associate the United States responsibly with British policy in Palestine. However, this committee did not succeed, any more than had its many predecessors, in finding a solution to the Palestine problem palatable to all parties. Nor did it bring relief to the mass of refugees wasting away in displaced-persons camps in Europe. Its vigorous rejection of partition was shortly to be brushed aside by a different kind of logic, that of force majeure.