Daniel O’Connell was and remained Paul Cullen’s political hero. This chapter traces Cullen’s involvement with O’Connell and his campaign for the Repeal of the Union.

In early 1323, abuses in the collection of taxes by the Flemish ruling elites had precipitated an uprising in coastal Flanders that soon spread from the countryside to other castellanies and urban centres like Bruges and Ypres, whose skilled artisans quickly made common cause with the rebellious peasantry. While some of the first rural riots were dispersed by the year's end, the general hatred felt towards the nobility, together with the pro-French stance of Louis I, count of Nevers (r.1322–46), who had recently succeeded his grandfather as count of Flanders, soon transformed this localised peasant insurrection into a full-scale rebellion supported by a much broader coalition drawn from across the social hierarchy. At first the rebels were mostly peasants but, by the end of 1323, they had been joined by a significant section of the urban nobility and artisanal classes. As townsmen and peasants fought alongside each other under the banner of Willem de Deken, the burgomaster of Bruges, the socially mixed insurgents quickly captured the cities of Nieuport, Veurne and Ypres. At Courtrai, they were even able to take Count Louis himself prisoner. In 1325, however, the rebels’ momentum diminished after their attempts to seize Ghent and Oudenaarde had failed despite two lengthy sieges. The king of France, Charles IV (r.1322–28), used this opportunity to intervene and negotiate the Peace of Arques, the terms of which included the release of the count of Flanders from captivity in February 1326. But the ceasefire broke down just a year later, prompting the rebels to take up arms once more.

After the end of the common stock annals c.892 we can more accurately refer to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles in the plural, as the work of many authors, revisers and scribes working in many different places across the following two-and-a-half centuries. The evidence of the surviving OE versions and other witnesses points to a pattern of dispersal, divergence and at times neglect of the annals across the following century, beside recurrent contact between the developing Chronicle texts. In various places, especially in relation to annals across the second half of the tenth century, points of contact provide evidence for the retrospective work of eleventh-century chronicle making.

This chapter explores the authoring and compilation the Chronicles across the tenth century, beginning with the annals of the so-called ‘First Continuation’ (893–96). This group of annals, authored c.900, takes up the story of the viking army that appeared in Wessex in 892 and is shared by ABC, but is also found in D as the result of a collation of a Northern Recension text with a *BC-type Chronicle. Other witnesses – the E Chronicle, the Mercian Register, Æthelweard's Chronicon and St Neots – present varying patterns of convergence and difference at this point, signalling a dispersal of copies of the common stock annals from the 890s. A, B and C continue to share annals as far as 914, after which A and *BC part company. A continues the annals of the reign of Edward the Elder as far as 920, after which this manuscript was neglected for some decades, until a revival of interest at Winchester in the middle of the tenth century.

Three consecutive texts in Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Brogyntyn ii.1, all copied by the scribe who has been identified as the chief organizer of the manuscript, form a sophisticated memento mori sequence dedicated to guiding the gentry owners of the manuscript to prepare their souls for the inexorable coming of death: item 24, The Father of Pity (DIMEV 5256, fols. 63v–79r); item 25, ‘Lo Worldly Folks’ (DIMEV 3160, fol. 79v); and item 26, ‘Earth upon Earth’ (DIMEV 1170, fols. 79v–81v). The Father of Pity is a unique Middle English rhyme royal translation of a popular Latin verse debate between the body and soul known as the Visio Philiberti. Prefacing the translation is a translator's prologue, explaining his purpose and methods in translating the Visio Philiberti. The poem concludes with a homiletic address to readers, reminding them of the inevitability of death and instructing them in right behavior while alive. ‘Lo Worldly Folks’, also unique to Brogyntyn ii.1, is a transitional piece between The Father of Pity and ‘Earth upon Earth’. Written in rhyme royal, like The Father of Pity, it recapitulates the moral lessons of the preceding text and instructs readers to ‘thynke uppon youre end’ (l. 14). Finally, ‘Earth upon Earth’ is part of a popular tradition of poems punning on the multiple possible interpretations of the word ‘earth’, including (but not limited to) humanity, worldly goods and the literal soil. Its central theme is admonishing readers about the futility of amassing riches in the world when they are destined to return to dust.

Deep inside State Papers, among a gathering of obscure and barely legible manuscripts, lies an extensive ‘relation’ by W. M., dated 19 May 1630. It presents an anxious argument, with stressful moral consequences, about a subject's lawful duty, career anxiety, faith, altruism, and readiness to die so that another might live. It introduces a forgotten life of thwarted clerical ambition, lived in the shadow of the religious troubles of the age. It opens a chain of letters and papers, up to the eve of the civil war, involving a network of associates who considered themselves ‘the well-affected people of God’. Never previously published, the Morton materials are worth close scrutiny. Any glossing necessary to identify named individuals is indicated here in square brackets.

The W. M. who agonized at length on paper in 1630 was William Morton, a member, perhaps a young fellow, of Sidney Sussex College. The biographical register Alumni Cantabrigienses appears to have confused him with another William Morton, appending the one's academic degrees to the legal and political career of another. This misidentification persists in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and The History of Parliament, though the online Clergy Database notes the ordination as deacon on 20 September 1628 of William Morton, M.A., by the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield Thomas Morton, a possible relation. There is no record of his subsequent ordination as priest, though gaps in such records are not unusual.

Special Sundays became common in the Church of England during the early twentieth century. These are particular Sundays each year on which the sermon and prayers during church services might be directed towards a specific ecclesiastical, moral or social cause, and in most but not all cases a financial collection made to assist the organization or organizations that promoted this cause. These special church collections have often provided a substantial part of the annual income of the sponsoring charitable association or church society. Special Sundays are distinct from the Church of England's annual round of religious festivals and commemorations, given in the calendars of the BCP and the church's later service books. They are not prescribed, but are approved or commended by the archbishops, church assemblies or collectively by the bishops: decisions on whether to observe them in particular dioceses and places of worship are a matter for individual bishops, cathedrals and parishes. Although these occasions came to be known generically as ‘special Sundays’, because most were initially or eventually observed on a Sunday, a number of anniversary appeals were or are observed on weekdays or for a whole week or octave (from one Sunday to the next).

Special Sundays and other church anniversaries differ in two respects from the national anniversary and particular acts of special worship that are the main focus of this edition.

This chapter discusses how quantitative tightening is conducted and the arguments surrounding the pace at which it is undertaken as well as how to gauge when to stop.

On Friday 4 May 1638 Thomas Harrison (1595–1649), rector of the country parish of Crick, Northamptonshire, pushed his way through the crowds at the Court of Common Pleas in Westminster Hall on an urgent but foolhardy mission. He was accompanied by his servant John Bodington and his curate Nathaniel Harrison (both apparently kinsmen), who later explained that they had no idea what was about to happen. Unconcerned by the disputes of property and debt that brought petitioners by the hundred to Westminster, the rector had more consequential matters in mind. Approaching the bench where Justice Sir Richard Hutton was presiding, Harrison was stopped at the bar where officers ‘bade him forebear; if he has anything to move the court in, it must be done by his counsel’. Undeterred, he planted himself before the judge and declared ‘in a rude and uncivil manner … with a loud or high voice [other sources say ‘falsely and ambitiously… furiously, boldly, audaciously, and maliciously… in undue and boisterous manner’], I do accuse Mr. Justice Hutton of High Treason’.

This was sensational, scandalous, and disruptive. It undercut the dignity of the court, violated the solemnity of proceedings, and defamed one of the king's most senior judges. The Court of Common Pleas, like other high courts of law, dealt justice with gravity and decorum, but Harrison's outburst caused confusion.

Roman provincial societies created religious landscapes that structured both individual and communal interactions, serving as a foundation for identity formation. However, analyzing these religious experiences is challenging due to their diversity and the scarcity of adequate documentation.

30 November: 1555–8 (England & Wales)

Mary Tudor, proclaimed queen of England on 19 July 1553, was determined to overturn the break of the English church from Rome made by her father, Henry VIII, and the protestant reformation undertaken during the reign of her half-brother, Edward VI. Her marriage on 25 July 1554 to Philip of Spain, son of the emperor Charles V and titular king of Naples and Sicily, cemented the international alliances needed to consolidate the restoration of relations with the papacy, and on 24 November of that year the queen and king received the papal legate, Reginald, Cardinal Pole. On the 28th, Pole addressed both houses of parliament in the presence of Mary and Philip on the terms of reconciliation; afterwards, the lord chancellor, Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, on behalf of the queen and king, exhorted the two houses to accept reunion with the Church of Rome and to repeal the laws directed against the papacy and catholicism. On the 29th, the two houses prepared a joint petition expressing repentance for the schism, their renewed submission to papal authority and their readiness to abrogate the offending legislation. After this supplication had been presented to the queen and king and then to Pole at Whitehall on 30 November, St Andrew's day, Pole, by authority of Pope Julius III, with the lords and MPs on their knees, absolved them and the kingdom of their sins of disobedience towards the papacy, and formally announced the reconciliation of England and Wales with the catholic church.