The activities of the Yorkist council in administration are now known to have been much more extensive than Professor J. F. Baldwin, the author of the classic work on the subject, was prepared to allow. Nor can his account of its judicial work be considered definitive though, so far, this has not been investigated to the same extent as the council's administrative activities. In discussing the judicial effectiveness of the council Baldwin stated that its efforts to suppress disorder were conspicuously unsuccessful in the 1460s (by implication in contrast with earlier successes), and that even though there was a change for the better after 1468 “as regards rioters its administration was anything but vigorous or efficient.” He failed to find a single example of a prominent offender who was ever punished. In spite of this, however, he was somewhat puzzled to note a growing demand for conciliar justice towards the end of Edward IV s reign; a demand which grew to such an extent that under Richard III a clerk was specially paid to deal with the bills, requests and supplications of poor men.

This view of the council's judicial work was based in the main on two things—a belief that until 1468 commissions of arrest, in the majority of cases, were ordered to bring offenders before the chancellor not the council and on the case of Lord Straunge v. Roger Kynaston which Professor Baldwin alleged exposed “the weakness of the council to an extent that is well-nigh incredible.

“Social Darwinism” means almost as many things as there are people who have written on it; but this paper takes it to be a generic term for theories of human social development and maintenance which are in some way inspired by biological evolutionary theories—this “inspiration” could take the form of seeing human sociality as a straight extension of the animal (and perhaps plant) domain, or it could involve some sort of analogy. In discussion of the roots of social Darwinism two names invariably appear—that of Charles Darwin himself, obviously, and that of Herbert Spencer. Here, however is the end of agreement. Who was the more important and influential, divides scholars right down the middle; as also do the questions of who really came first and whether their doctrines were essentially the same.

Because there is so much disagreement, no one has yet adequately argued to precisely the right conclusion. To anticipate, this paper argues that both Darwin and Spencer represent fundamental advances (or, less normatively, shifts beyond) their common major source, Thomas Robert Malthus; and that although there was overlap (and undoubted mutual borrowing) their positions were fundamentally dissimilar. Consequently, a search for the roots of Social Darwinism yields two sources, Darwin and Spencer respectively, and that what came from these sources was different. This essay begins with a brief discussion of Malthus's views, paying special attention to his relevance to social Darwinian lines of thought, considers the views of Spencer and Darwin on human social structures, and concludes by comparing the two thinkers, noting their similarities, but arguing that these are far outweighed by their differences.

The friction between civil and military authorities was never greater than during the Great War of 1914-1918. The unprecedented casualties suffered by the British Army and involvement of every element of British life in the conflagration gave added intensity to this conflict. The ability of British democracy to wage total war was put to a severe test. Where did the responsibility of the civilians end in formulating strategy? Where did the authority of the soldiers begin? This strategic debate largely centered on the size of Britain's commitment to the ghastly slaughter in the trenches of the Western Front.

Before 1914 British war planners had thought of a short war with at most only limited involvement in Europe. After Britain's plunge into war, the civil and military authorities decided to employ the small professional British Army on the continent to save France from being overrun, a decision made easier by the widespread belief that the war would be over within a few months. By this continental commitment Britain became involved in a long and bloody war of attrition in France and Flanders.

As 1914 ended in stalemate in the West with few of the original members of the British Expeditionary Force still on their feet the debate over the employment of future British armies began in earnest. The government's chief military adviser was Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War. Although the public viewed Kitchener as Britain's greatest soldier, his appointment was almost certainly a mistake.