Born in 1090, dying in 1153, Bernard Abbot of Clairvaux lived through the aftermath of that great ideological upheaval which is generally (though rather misleadingly) known as the ‘Investiture Contest’. As he played a leading part in the religious life and ecclesiastical politics of his age it is not surprising that his massive output of sermons, treatises and letters should have given rise to an even more massive output of historiographical comment and interpretation. It is equally understandable that modern Bernardine studies should have tended to concentrate on the question of Bernard's attitude to the basic ideas of the eleventh-century reform movement—and, in particular, to the expression which was given to these by Gregory VII during his stormy pontificate. Yet, as Dr Kennan has recently pointed out, so far from providing a clear answer to this question these studies confront us with a ‘bewildering garden … from which a student can pluck an interpretation of Bernard's … theory as Gregorian, anti-Gregorian,…proto-protestant or any one of a variety of other hues’. Can order be brought into this chaos, or do these various interpretations reflect an inherent ambiguity in Bernard's own thought?

It is difficult to compose an account of the development of experimental science in seventeenth-century England without reference to the Invisible College. Indeed its grandiose title has come to be applied almost indiscriminately to any informal group of scientists, and no doubt this popular usage will continue, regardless of the conclusions reached by this or any other specialist paper. But such popular usage should not obscure the relevance of the Invisible College to certain serious historical problems. First, it is necessary to establish the identity of the scientific group which captured the imagination of the nineteen-year-old Robert Boyle. The College not only provided his initiation into science, but also inspired such strong motivation that Boyle became preoccupied with natural philosophy. For the rest of his life science was pursued not so much as a gentlemanly diversion, but in the spirit of a religious mission. Secondly, the Invisible College is relevant to any appreciation of the factors involved in the remarkable expansion of English experimental science which began shortly before the establishment of the Invisible College in 1646. This movement rapidly generated a whole spectrum of informal scientific groups and culminated with the formation of the Royal Society in 1660.

In a mood of understandable frustration, the British minister in Bangkok sent a telegram to the head of the Far Eastern department of the Foreign Office in June 1941, referring to the tedious economic discussions he was conducting with the Thai government, saying:

I am disturbed by the contradictory tone of the telegrams sent to me from His Majesty's Foreign Office … Some of them breathe that broad and statesmanlike spirit which I have learnt to respect and admire over a period of nearly forty years. Others strike a shrill and petulant note which is new to me … I have an uneasy feeling that you people in Downing Street live in an ivory tower as regards Thailand …

Concealment has proved one of the most inscrutable aspects of the land market following the English Reformation. It has received only passing reference in standard works on the period, and the gravity of the problem has never been fully appraised by historians, even though the discovery and disposal of concealed property exercised administrators and speculators alike more than any other aspect of the land market for much of the reign of Elizabeth, and consequently left an abundance of documentation.

It is appropriate that an American should address himself to the subject of public opinion. For, in terms of quantity, Americans have made the subject peculiarly their own. They have also invested it with characteristically American concerns. Most of the work done on the subject in the United States is oriented by a certain theoretical approach. This approach is democratic and rationalist. Both aspects create problems. In this paper I wish to play down the democratic problem, viz., how many of the voters are capable of thinking sensibly about public policy, and emphasize rather the difficulties that arise from modern rationalism. Here I take a different tack from most historians of the concept of public opinion, who, taking note of the origin of the term in the mid-eighteenth century, stress its connection with the rise of representative government and democratic theory.

On 6 January 1378 King Charles V of France took his place in the centre of the top table at a banquet given in honour of a distinguished guest, his uncle the Emperor Charles IV. The setting in the Palais de la Cité, the company and the menu were appropriately sumptuous. Resplendent hangings covered the wall behind the marble table: the noblest guests sat at five large tables, each raised on its own platform; and divided from them by barriers were other tables with seats for more than 800 knights. The entire company was treated to three elaborate courses, each of ten dishes. Then, from its previous place of concealment at the end of the hall, a massive model of a ship emerged carrying a crowd of armed warriors, among them persons identifiable by their arms as Godfrey of Bouillon and other leaders of the First Crusade, together with Peter the Hermit, looking—we are told—as much like the descriptions of him in the chronicles as possible. Propelled smoothly along the floor by men concealed within, it crossed in front of the top table and was then turned round to face towards the centre. An even more massive structure was next brought forward—this time representing the city of Jerusalem, complete with battlemented walls and towers defended by men dressed as Saracen warriors, with the Temple high in the middle and rising still higher above it a tower on which was another figure in Saracen dress ‘crying the Law’ in Arabic. The Crusaders then descended from the ship and attacked the city with scaling ladders, from which some were made to fall off, until finally the knights entered the city, tossed the unfortunate defenders over the walls and raised in triumph the banners they had brought with them: after which the dinner finished.

The Home Rule crisis of 1885–86 is generally held to mark a water-shed in the history of Anglo-Irish relations. This it undoubtedly does, though not necessarily for the reasons commonly advanced. The crisis was certainly important in the sense that it obliged the Liberal and Conservative parties to define their attitudes towards Irish self-government and thus to demonstrate to the Irish nationalist party in the House of Commons that their main hope for the future lay with Mr Gladstone and those Liberals who had remained faithful to him after his declaration in favour of Home Rule. But the course of events during 1886 demonstrated just how far the Irish demand still was from being met. The inadequacies of the Home Rule Bill itself, the split in the Liberal party, the firm negative of the Conservatives, the violence of the Ulster Protestant reaction, the veto of the House of Lords which had not even to be deployed in 1886 but was there for future use when necessary—all these things suggested that Home Rule, if it came at all, would not happen overnight at the waving of any Parnellite wand, but would require years, perhaps decades, of labour before it came within sight of achievement.

A student of the sixteenth century is always tempted to represent his period as being one of unprecedented change and new departures. In the case of my present subject the temptation is particularly strong, because printing was a new invention, and the technical problems and opportunities which it presented to governments were also new. Nevertheless it would be most misleading to begin a discussion of Tudor censorship with Sir Thomas More's restrictive proclamation of 1530, or even with the introduction of printing to England in 1476. The concept of society, and of the duties and responsibilities of government, which censorship was to reflect was deeply rooted in the past, and was not fundamentally challenged until the puritan revolution of the seventeenth century.

On the centenary of the birth of C. P. Scott, the political outlook of the Manchester Guardian under his editorship was explained thus: ‘He, and those who wrote under him, thought always in terms of what he called “the progressive movement”. What was important was that those who were agreed on reforming measures should work together to secure them’. In its use of the rather imprecise label ‘progressive’, in its conception of a reform movement wider than strict party boundaries, in its distinctive flowering in the press—in all these respects the progressive movement of early twentieth-century America gives us some notion of what Scott had in mind. And indeed American historiography can, I believe, suggest valuable lines of analysis which have not been fully applied in England. Perhaps the most obvious would entail giving closer attention to the intellectuals and publicists and asking more searching questions about their role in politics. A few years ago the late Charles Mowat pointed to the broadly similar problems in social policy which Britain and the United States faced at this time; and he commented on how, despite these similarities, the history of social reform in the United States had been written with due attention to the history of ideas: in Britain, by contrast, almost exclusively in terms of political and administrative history. It would not, perhaps, be fair to extend Mowat's observation by saying that in England we purposely write history with the ideas left out.

It is one of the functions of government to preserve in contentment and balance that society which it rules. Some of the tasks involved in that general purpose are familiar enough. Government exists to maintain peace in the nation—to prevent disturbance, punish crime, and generally ensure that people can lead their lives without threats from others. Government must therefore provide the means for resolving disputes peacefully: it must administer justice and be seen to do so. In addition, since no society can ever stand absolutely still, government is charged with the task of reviewing existing relationships—relationships of rights, duties, burdens and privileges—with an eye to supplying reform, that is, changes designed to keep the general balance and contentment from deteriorating. Most discussions of problems of government revolve around these points. Analysis has concerned itself with the machinery available for discharging these tasks, and assessment has concentrated on establishing the degree of success obtained.