Search

This paper explores the continued debate concerning the status and treatment of Anglo-Saxon saints after 1066 through the discussion of the fate of St Æthelwold of Winchester's cult. Current historiography favours Susan Ridyard's 1986 thesis that the new Norman bishops and abbots used the Anglo-Saxon saints to establish their authority, integrate themselves into their new religious houses, and guard their communities' land and possessions. She challenged the notion that the churchmen were sceptical of and mistreated Anglo-Saxon saints' cults. However, historians such as Paul Hayward, and more recently Tom License, have disputed Ridyard's thesis. This article examines the status of St Æthelwold's cult at Winchester and Abingdon after 1066, where there is clear evidence that the cult was suppressed. This paper will explore the means by which, and the potential motivations why, the abbots of Abingdon and bishop of Winchester expressed disrespectful attitudes towards St Æthelwold's cult, discussing the implications this has on current historiography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, historians have contended that the Scottish revolution of 1688-90 was at least as radical as the simultaneous revolution in England. This article makes a complementary claim: that James VII and II's policy of tolerating almost all Christian worship, which was introduced first in Scotland, had a greater impact in the northern kingdom than has previously been recognized. Using hitherto unexamined local church court papers, the article argues that James's indulgences of 1687 initiated a 'multiconfessional experiment', a period of largely unfettered competition between religious groups that lasted until the overthrow of the king in the revolution. Not only Scotland's small Catholic and Quaker communities, but also a large body of presbyterian dissenters, benefited from this multiconfessionalism. The revival of presbyterianism ultimately allowed for the re-establishment of presbyterian government in 1690. Though there was peaceful coexistence between rival religious groups in 1687-8, the outbreak of religious violence at the revolution suggests that most Scots remained intolerant of cultural difference. The wider importance of James's experiment was to reveal how difficult it was for an established Church accustomed to uniformity to perform vital social functions - including poor relief and moral discipline - in conditions of religious pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Edward Snowden is not the first - nor will he be the last - disgruntled US intelligence officer to spill the beans. Using newly declassified materials, private papers and interviews, this article explores how the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA) dealt with whistleblowers and disillusioned staff in the 1970s, a period often described as the Agency's 'Time of Troubles'. It will be argued that ugly revelations by former employees caused more distress to the CIA than disclosures that emerged in the press and on Capitol Hill. At Langley, there was genuine shock that supposedly trusted insiders would write tell-it-all books and betray the Agency's code of 'never celebrate successes, never explain failures'. Focusing on the CIA's attempts to manage three intelligence apostates - Victor Marchetti, Phillip Agee and Frank Snepp - it will be shown that the Agency invariably made a rod for its own back. As well as ham-fisted efforts to spy on them and steal manuscripts, the CIA constitutionally frogmarched certain whistleblowers off to court, provoking widespread criticism that it was an enemy of free speech. By looking at how the CIA responded to the challenge of leaks in the 1970s, this article places into long-term perspective the contemporary struggle between intelligence agencies and rebellious insiders who use electronic media to promote transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will discuss the defence arguments that were used to oppose the channel tunnel, the relationship between these arguments and Britain's island status, the perceptions of British insularity, together with how and possibly why these changed in the period 1882-1975. The opposition to the Channel Tunnel project, especially in the period 1880 to 1945, can provide historians with a valuable insight into the British relationship with the sea. In particular, the opposition to a channel tunnel provides a way of analysing concepts of island status within Britain and what being an island meant to the British sense of self and identity, as they were expressed in the media as well as in official papers. At the same time, the changing attitudes to a channel tunnel, notably in the inter-war period and the post-1945 era, also show how the British understanding of what being an island state gave them in terms of security and identity changed. Such a change was as a result of new or improving technologies, particularly the aircraft, and the resulting impact it had on conceptions of security that being an island provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians have traditionally framed debates over Irish policy in the early 1840s between London and Dublin Castle in sectarian terms. Robert Peel's 'liberal-minded' attitudes towards Catholics have been portrayed as conflicting with his lord lieutenant's, which were supposedly anti- Catholic, sectarian and 'Orange'. Using the Earl de Grey's political papers in addition to Peel's for the first time in historical analysis, this article shows this is a misinterpretation which has concealed the actual nature of the policy debates between Peel and De Grey during the 'Repeal Year' period. Conflict arose, not along sectarian or ideological lines, but over the cause of the sudden rise in popular support for the Repeal Association and the nature of public policy which would best counteract this. De Grey thought the 'Repeal Year' crisis was the result of economic grievances, while Peel considered it a religious issue. In the resulting disagreement over the most effective policy, De Grey favoured policies based upon economic conciliation, and Peel prioritized religious concessions towards Irish Catholics. This anticipated debates in Irish policy much later in the nineteenth century between constructive unionists, who advocated economic conciliation to combat the rise of Irish nationalism, and those who supported religious and constitutional reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the private papers of Lord Killearn in conjunction with official government documents from the British national archives and the French colonial archives, this article builds upon previous historical scholarship to highlight the importance of Killearn's South-East Asian diplomacy to the resolution of the international food crisis following the Second World War. As Britain's senior diplomat in South-East Asia Killearn had little choice but to become entangled in various international disputes often centred upon French Indo-China - Killearn's failure to do otherwise would not have preserved adequate international rice supplies. Therefore this article not only demonstrates the magnitude of Killearn's concern for South-East Asian rice production during the immediate post-war food crisis but it also reveals the depth of Killearn's frustration towards the chaotic priorities emanating from French Indo-China, and thus it substantiates a more significant and complex understanding of Killearn's diplomatic mission to South-East Asia than has been formerly stated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks again at the ‘Peterloo massacre’ of 16 August 1819 in Manchester, and offers new evidence from the Home Office Disturbances Papers about how it came about and who was responsible. In Section I the revisionist case that Peterloo was a conflict rather than a massacre is examined and found wanting. Section II argues that in the months before Peterloo, the Home Office had consistently urged the Lancashire magistrates to combat radical agitation ‘either by the law or the sword’; its well-known advice for restraint on 16 August was a piece of qualified back-pedalling which came too late. It also argues that the authorities misinterpreted the peaceful mass platform agitation of 1819 in the light of their experience of the attempted insurrections of 1817. Section III shows that the prosecution at the Peterloo trial privately conceded that its own version of events had been discredited. Section IV suggests that both conservative and progressive versions of what happened at Peterloo are constricted by whiggish assumptions, proposes some questions for further study, and offers a brief summary explanation of the Peterloo massacre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]