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This thesis examines how English towns and townsmen interacted with the aristocracy in the late middle ages. To do so, it compares the experiences and behaviour of four towns and their inhabitants across a 'long' fifteenth century running from 1377 until 1509. These four examples - Exeter, Norwich, Salisbury and Southampton - represent a cross-section of important provincial towns, with each providing a different picture because of their differing contexts and circumstances, particularly the contrasting political societies of the counties which surrounded them. The first half of the study considers links between individual townsmen and aristocrats. In particular, it discusses the patterns displayed by both groups' property ownership as well as their involvement in royal government, before investigating direct connections which existed between them. It concludes that although links did emerge between these groups, most were short-lived and had few political or social implications. The exception was a group on the boundary of gentility, including lawyers, administrators, royal servants and a small number of prosperous townsmen. These men moved relatively easily between town and country and often had interests in both spheres, but their activities rarely combined the ‘aristocratic' and the 'urban'. In addition, their low status in landed society meant that they rarely drew wider urban and aristocratic society into contact. The second part of the thesis examines the relationship between aristocrats and town governments. It argues that aristocrats could provide significant benefits to towns, but only if they possessed national influence and local authority. This combination was originally exclusive to regional magnates, but the 'new monarchy' empowered progressively minor figures, and towns ultimately preferred to seek the aid of these junior men. It also argues that aristocrats received some benefit to their prestige and worship from helping towns, and that magnates were perhaps even expected to do so by both towns and the king.

Whilst the literature underpinning counselling psychology generally acknowledges that values and ethics are inherent in therapy1, the different ways in which they feature and to what effect are under-explored areas. Though therapeutic literature would seem to recommend that counselling psychologists take a critically reflexive approach to values and ethics, the extent to which counselling psychology training engenders this kind of thinking is unclear. This research project therefore set about examining the ways in which values and ethics were constructed in the talk of final year trainee counselling psychologists discussing values and ethics in counselling psychology training and practice. Four focus groups comprising a total of nineteen participants were conducted and transcribed. The transcripts were analysed using Willig’s (2008) six-stage approach to Foucauldian discourse analysis, identifying and exploring the ways in which participants constructed values and ethics in counselling psychology training and practice. The analysis examined the implications of the different constructions identified for counselling psychology training and practice and the subjective experience of counselling psychologists within these contexts. Three discursive constructions of values and two of ethics were identified, drawing on four discourses. The use of each discourse produced its own effects, offering participants different subject positions with different consequences for their therapy practice and subjective experience. The relationship between contrasting constructions of values and ethics from within an institutional and a humanistic discourse dominated discussion and appeared to have greatest impact on participants’ practice and subjectivity. Tensions were experienced between the differing demands of the institutional and humanistic discourses, resulting in feelings of dissonance and discomfort, as participants tried to mediate between contrasting constructions in an attempt to forge a coherent sense of identity and practice involving both.