ROBERT BACON is the first Dominican master at Oxford about whom anything certain is known. Prof. J. C. Russell has collected those details about his life which can be found in chronicle and record sources. To summarize:—Bacon was already a master in 1219, when he was presented to a living at a church in Oxfordshire. He resigned in 1227, probably in order to become a Dominican; he is said to have received the habit from Jordan of Saxony, who was in Oxford in 1229/30. Bacon continued his teaching until his death in 1248. He was a friend of Grosseteste and a friend and schoolfellow of St. Edmund Rich, and he seems to have shared their views on politics. Matthew Paris tells us that Bacon preached an outspoken sermon before the king and certain bishops in 1233, when the barons had refused to meet Henry at Oxford. The king would never have peace, Bacon said, until he removed the bishop of Winchester and Peter des Rievaux from his counsels. Paris couples Bacon with another English Dominican, Richard Fishacre, who died in the same year, in a glowing tribute to the two friars. Both had a great reputation for scholarship, ‘in theologia et in aliis scientiis’, and for preaching: ‘populis gloriose praedicaverunt verbum Domini’. Bacon served on a number of commissions and was active in connexion with the Oxford Jewry. Professor Russell concludes that ‘these tasks show him a man of business ability often entrusted with responsibility’.

THE rise of political parties in the reign of Charles II was an inevitable consequence of the increase in the power and prestige of Parliament during the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth. By 1660 Parliament had advanced far beyond the stage at which it could be content with merely criticizing the Government, or presenting its more substantial grievances for the royal consideration. It was now prepared to express decided opinions on all matters of national concern, and even, though rather hesitatingly, to assume the direction of policy both at home and abroad. Within a few years Charles in a memorable speech was to give the Commons the severest rebuke of which he was Capable for invading his most fundamental prerogative, that of making peace and war, and not merely desiring him ‘to enter into such leagues as might be for the safety of the kingdom’, but telling him ‘what sort of leagues they must be, and with whom’.

Of all forms of historical writing, that which deals with particular places is perhaps the most pregnant with the possibilities of boredom, for the general reader can seldom hope to share the parochial enthusiasms by which the study of local history is so often inspired. But local history, and particularly urban history, can be approached from two different points of view. It can seek to portray the changing pattern of life within the few square miles which it takes for its field of study. Or it can endeavour to interpret that changing pattern as a symptom of greater changes in the nation as a whole. For, as the sociologists are never weary of reminding us, a town is essentially a social product. It is. brought into being by forces external to it. It continues to exist because, and only so long as, it serves a social purpose. During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the population of London and its immediate suburbs grew much more rapidly than the population of the country as a whole. Confronted by that fact, one of the obvious tasks of the historian is to make clear the purposes which that metropolitan expansion served; to indicate the wider developments of which it was a symptom; and to explain why, to contemporaries, it appeared as a symptom of disease rather than of health in the body politic. For that the growth of London was widely considered to be a morbid growth is incontestable. Topographers and chroniclers might write with admiration and affection of the city whose contours they described and whose history they told.

CEREMONIAL played an important part in the actions of the Yorkist kings. Their sumptuary laws and the incorporation of the minstrels and later of the heralds are examples of the concern felt by Edward IV and Richard III for the outward forms of public life. Of especial interest are those solemnities by means of which the Yorkist dynasty announced its possession of the crown. Ceremonies such as these provide what may be called the iconography of kingship.

IT is not possible to study the diplomacy of the war of the Spanish Succession without taking into account the Northern war which threatened in 1707 to upset the whole strategy of the Grand Allies. Ever since the formation of the League of Augsburg France had tried to win Sweden to her side, and the apparent military genius of Charles XII made her an even more desirable ally. Sweden might have seen much to recommend such an alliance, particularly in 1707 when Swedish disputes with the Empire took on a new importance, and when the prestige of the Grand Allies had suffered by the defeat at Almanza and the failure of the Toulon expedition. But this turning-point in the Spanish Succession war came and passed, Charles XII turned eastwards against Russia and disputes with the Empire ended in agreement. Never again were the two separate wars in danger of becoming one.

UNTIL the eighteenth century, British naval operations rarely strayed outside the strictly European theatre. Engagements in North American waters were isolated enterprises, having little connection with the decisive area of battle which lay off the west coast of Europe in the vicinity of the British Isles. This concentration of forces in home waters was deter-mined as much by structural, technical and hygienic deficiencies as by strategic doctrine. Disease and gales were always the worst enemies, and in the manner bf continental armies, the ships of the Royal Navy sought winter quarters in or after November. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, improvements in naval architecture and the technique of navigation, as well as methods of preserving food and protecting health (slight as they may appear to this age), enabled ships to keep at sea for longer periods, and at greater distances from their home ports.

The United Provinces in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the refuge of the oppressed of Western Europe. From the days of the Marian persecutions, considerable numbers of English exiles were to be found jostling one another in the busy street of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, wandering penniless along the quiet avenues of The Hague or seeking freedom in the more desolate expanses of Zealand. Reasons for the popularity of Holland as an asylum are not far to seek. In an age when religious heterodoxy was a political crime, the freedom of worship permitted in Holland was eagerly taken advantage of. The refugees went to live among a people who encouraged such immigration as a means of increasing the material prosperity of their country. English pamphleteers attributed the flourishing condition of Holland to this policy. ‘Liberty of Conscience’, wrote Sir Charles Wolseley, ‘would be a more serious blow to Holland than all the victories yet gained.’ Another writer drew attention to the part played by the refugees from the tyranny of Mary and Laud, in building up the prosperity of Amsterdam.

The great offices of state have their origin in the offices of the royal household of the Norman kings, most of which offices existed in Normandy before the Conquest. The duke of the Normans had his stewards and his butlers, his chamberlains and his constables, when he invaded England; and when he became king of the English his officers accompanied him. For they were still his personal officers; who served him wherever he might be. It was not until his dominions were divided between his sons that occasion arose for the appoint; ment of separate officers for England and Normandy; and after Henry I had recovered Normandy from his brother, he did not maintain separate officers for the duchy. It was not until 1133 that Henry I took the first step towards the division of the chief offices by granting to Aubrey de Vere the office of master chamberlain of England, while the Tancarville family remained hereditary master chamberlains in Normandy.