This essay reexamines the fall of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, in the last coup of Henry VIII's reign. Further evidence of Surrey's purported treason is uncovered. A study of his poetry reveals his allegiances, in religion and politics. The nature of the group which aligned against him – the ‘conjured league’ – is analysed, and the way in which he was betrayed, by whom and why, is discovered.

Debates over billeting and martial law arose in the parliament of 1628 in conjunction with such other grievances as the forced loan and discretionary imprisonment employed by royal servants from 1626 onward to keep alive the war effort against the monarchs of Spain and France. Both houses dealt with billeting rather quickly, the Lords by resolving a dispute among magistrates and military officers in Banbury, Oxfordshire, and the Commons by hearing general and particular complaints from civilians, expelling a member who signed an order for billeting, and petitioning the king. Attacks upon the employment of military law internally when a state of war did not exist in England originated in the Commons, reawakened fears over the perceived threat of Roman or civil law superiority to the common law, and set off fierce debates in which royal servants and civil lawyers supported and leading common lawyers denounced as illegal the commissions of martial law issued by the privy council. Underlying these debates, as with those over discretionary imprisonment, were conflicting interpretations of England's ancient constitution with practical consequences for the governance of the realm.

The aim of the high church agitation in the 1690s for a convocation was to establish doctrinal discipline within the anglican church. When convocation met in 1701 the lower house produced censures on Toland's Christianity not mysterious and Burnet's Exposition of the thirty-nine articles.

It was Francis Atterbury who insisted that Burnet's Exposition was heretical. He had long been critical of Burnet's views on the trinity and his erastian interpretation of English church history in his History of the reformation. And if Burnet's History was an attempt re-write English church history from the perspective of a latitudinarian, then his Exposition was its theological counterpart.

It was assumed that the charges against Burnet were lost. But a copy of them has surfaced and it confirms that it was the connection between latitudinarians and dissent which led to the attack on Burnet. In his zeal to heal divisions within anglicanism and between anglicans and other protestants Burnet had introduced a ‘latitude and diversity of opinions’ which misrepresented true anglican doctrine. This was dangerous, because Burnet intended his Exposition as ‘a platform laid for Comprehension’ with the dissenters and other ‘Adversaries of our Church’. These included obvious heretics like socinians and the deist Toland.

Madeleine Rebérioux was right to wonder whether France was truly a ‘Radical republic’ in the years between the Dreyfus affair and the Great War. Archives only opened or explored since Rebérioux published in 1975, and the re-interpretation of older newspaper sources, show that control of the Third Republic was still hotly contested in those years. The Radicals tried to build a republic in their own image, but in a situation where left and right were closely balanced, they were almost always foiled. Crucial to this process was a politically republican but socially conservative centre – best typified by the A.R.D. The A.R.D. wanted a Third Republic frankly favourable to the interests of big business. Since it held the parliamentary balance of power between the left and a right only partly republican, it generally got its way. Statistical sources also support this interpretation.

The aim of this essay is to re-examine the government of the southwest of England in the 1530s in the light of Dr M. Robertson's essay in The Historical Journal (December 1989). Drawing on her research on Thomas Cromwell's political affinity, Dr Robertson argued that Cromwell ‘managed’ southwestern government very effectively through a system of patronage of leading local officeholders. In this essay, this thesis is challenged in two ways using research into southwestern government from a provincial perspective. Firstly, by identifying the officeholding elite of the province, examining its recruitment and tracing its activities, the practical limitations on Cromwell's power and freedom to manoeuvre in his dealings with local government are highlighted. The conclusion follows that it was, in practice, beyond Cromwell's competence to ‘manage’ southwestern government. Secondly, it is argued that ‘management’ from the centre was, in any case, potentially at least, inimical to good governance in this period because it denied local governors the scope for pragmatism and flexibility of action which were essential to effective local policing. Thus, the essay also takes issue with Professor Elton's thesis that Cromwell's revolutionary handling of local government was the key to the successful enforcement of the Reformation in the 1530s.