A foreigner, an elector of the empire, a dual sovereign cast in the double role of absolute monarch in Saxony and constitutional ruler in Poland-Lithuania, Augustus II was Poland's George I. In the last septennium of the Great Northern War the two kings, united by a formal defensive treaty of a local character and by the bonds of the loosely knit northern alliance, pursued analogous aims in relation to Sweden: what Livonia was to the one, Bremen with Verden was to the other. The disintegration of the northern alliance in September 1716 in the thick of the preparations for a Russo-Danish landing in Sweden opened the way for negotiations leading to a separate peace between Charles XII and Peter I at the expense of the remaining northern allies. The northern crisis had begun.

Class has long been used as an analytical tool in the study of history and much has been written with regard to the formation of class-consciousness, which has to a considerable extent been related to the first half of the nineteenth century and especially to the events surrounding the passing of the first Reform Bill. Professor Briggs has noted the growing use of the term ‘class’ in the early nineteenth century and has postulated a middle-class consciousness created by the media of the Reform Bill and Anti-Corn Law agitations. ‘Sandwiched between an entrenched landed Parliament on the one hand and a bitter but still imperfectly integrated labour movement on the other, the middle classes were compelled to lay down their own postulates and programmes.’ More recently E. P. Thompson, in a brilliant and wide-ranging study of the working classes, has seen the formation of a working-class consciousness which involved ‘consciousness of identity of interests between working men of the most diverse occupations and levels of attainment’ and also ‘ consciousness of the identity of interest of the working class, or “productive classes”, as against those of other classes; and within this there was maturing the claim for an alternative system’.

The fine and delicate balance of political forces and interests in midnineteenth century Britain is nowhere better demonstrated than in the activities of certain social and religious pressure groups during the general election campaign of 1859. The two main parties were certainly conscious of their past and of the traditions imposed upon them by those who had gone before; equally certainly the differences between them were more the outcome of these traditions than of real contemporary disagreements as to policy or outlook. The Tory administration led by Lord Derby, which had come to power in February 1858, was in a minority in the House of Commons. Its survival depended on an ability to attract dissident Whigs and men of independent views. Derby, never the most optimistic of men, had realized as early as April 1857 that his party, ‘if not an actual corpse’, was at most ‘in a state of suspended animation’.1 By the beginning of 1859 it had become evident to a number of Tory leaders, and particularly to Disraeli, that if the government were to survive, it would be necessary to obtain help from quarters hitherto untapped by the party. A peculiar set of circumstances led Disraeli to look to sections of the Roman Catholic community for such support. Although Catholicism was a growing force in England, the centre of its political operations lay of course in Ireland, which then returned 105 members to Westminster.

When Joseph Chamberlain launched his striking tariff reform campaign in 1903 he was contributing to a very old debate. At the centre of the discussion had usually been the triangular relationship between free trade, protection and imperial unity. Were preferential tariffs compatible with British free trade? Was imperial preference necessary to maintain imperial unity? Could an empire divided against itself on tariff questions stand? Questions of that type became increasingly pertinent in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Entry for British exports into continental markets had become more difficult in the 'eighties, not only because of the tariff barriers which were more prominent but also because Britain found herself with few bargaining counters in the European tariff negotiations. The Anglo-French commercial treaty of 1860 had provided that neither party would, in its own country, subject the produce of the other party to higher duties than similar produce from other countries. This Most-Favoured-Nation clause had been the basis of a series of commercial treaties linking the European nations. The new network which arose in the ’eighties, covering Europe and the Americas, was negotiated largely without British intervention and the classification and rates were not designed to favour Britain. Britain sometimes even had difficulty in securing renewal of her M.F.N. agreements.

It has often been argued that British ministers in the years leading up to the Union of South Africa in 1910 were so obsessed with the principle of white self-government that they forgot their obligations to the African majority.1 The result, it is alleged, was that African interests in general were sacrificed on the altar of Anglo-Afrikaner reconciliation, and in particular betrayed in the South Africa Act of 1909. If there is a partial exception allowed—the withholding of Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland from the Union—then, it is assumed, the credit for this could not possibly be given to the imperial government. The recent article in the Journal of African History by Alan R. Booth argues that, in the apparent absence of any actual imperial policy or concern, local African tribal and missionary pressures on the high commissioner were decisive in bringing this about.

On 26 April 1915 the governments of Great Britain, France, and Russia signed a treaty with the Italian Government settling the terms for Italy's entrance into the war on the allied side. The Treaty of London was the result of hard bargaining, particularly because of extensive Italian claims in the Adriatic which were resisted by the Russian government, and which would leave a difficult legacy for the postwar period. Nevertheless, the evolution of Italy from membership in a rival alliance system and potential foe to an active ally was completed after less than a year of neutrality. Italy's defection from the Triple Alliance was hardly a surprise to anyone with the slightest idea of Austro-Italian relations, and for over a decade before the outbreak of the war the strength of her commitment to Austria and Germany had been diluted by secret agreements with France.In Austria-Hungary leading naval and military officials took little trouble to conceal their mistrust; while unpopular measures by Habsburg officials could be counted upon to produce hostile demonstrations before the Austro-Hungarian embassy or consulates in Italy. Nevertheless, the French, although well aware of Austro-Italian friction, were never really sure of their southern neighbour and at times exhibited a suspicion of Italy which rivalled that of the Austrians. France and Italy were in a sense Mediterranean rivals and the development of the Italian fleet was followed closely by the French naval staff.

‘The Power of the Man in the Saddle’: this was the burden of the Liberal chief whip's advice to David Lloyd George in April 1918. But the Prime Minister hardly needed any instruction in this theme: the uses and the limitations of power formed his absorbing passion. Even at the time many felt that his period as prime minister had marked a totally new departure in British politics. Some later commentators (most recently Mr Humphry Berkeley) have even claimed to detect the dawn of a new political era between 1916 and 1922, one in which ‘prime ministerial government’ gradually took the place of conventional cabinet government. But, despite their certainty, the precise character of Lloyd's George premiership, like the man himself, is still shrouded in mystery. Was it rule by a dictator or by a democrat? Did any consistent principle animate the ‘man in the saddle’ or was it all opportunism gone berserk ? Was Wales's Great Commoner really ‘rooted in nothing’, as Keynes was to allege? Not even Lloyd George's closest associates, Kerr and Riddell, felt able to say with any assurance. They were as baffled as the rest. Lloyd George was suddenly thrust from office in October 1922 with the issue still inconclusive. Ever since then the debate about his premiership has been passionate and unremitting. Each observer seems to have seen a different prime minister, one created in his own image. Fifty biographies on, the essential Lloyd George remains as elusive as ever. He remains the most controversial and contradictory of political animals, ‘the Big Beast’, the rogue elephant of twentieth-century prime ministers.