English History

A long standing traditional cultural division exists between the Irish, the Welsh and the Highland Scots on one side, who are of Celtic heritage, and the English on the other side, who are of mixed Germanic, French, Celtic and even Roman ancestry. Until recently, no historian could really agree on on much influence the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans had had on the British and Irish gene pools, let alone agree on where the Celts came from before that. Were the Celts descended from Bronze or Iron Age invaders from the Continent ? Were they the direct descendants of the Neolithic farmers who built Stonehenge, or even of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who recolonised northern Europe at the end of the last glaciation 10,000 years ago ? Before the age of historical population genetics these questions were left to anyone's guess and speculations. The fast paced progress in genetic sequencing have shed a new light on our prehistory and it is now possible to answer all those questions with a great degree of certainty. This page attempts to retrace the origins of the British and Irish people through the analyses of their genetic markers using Y-chromosomal (Y-DNA) haplogroups, which are passed on nearly unaltered from father to son, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited only from one's mother, and complete genomic studies looking at all the chromosomes.

The 19th century in England is also well known as the Victorian Period because it was the long reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). The characteristic of this period was the changing of economy, politic, and social views as the result of Industrial Revolution.
The industrial expansion caused the economy field in England reached its prosperity. In the middle of the period, England became the most progressive industrial country in the world. Victorian Period was also the witness of political liberal and democracy expansion so that each of persons in England got their rights as the citizen and chance to use their rights. While in social field, we could see the growing and strengthening power of industrial workers who along the period demanded justice.  Besides the workers, the middle class people were also progressing. The traders and industrialists were the strongest people in Victorian Period.

En este estudio podemos apreciar cómo el surgimiento de la Masonería está ligado estrechamente a la desesperada lucha que los protestantes llevaron a cabo en el último cuarto del siglo XVI para combatir los triunfos de la Contrarreforma católica.  Ésta última liderada como bien sabemos por el poderoso monarca español Felipe II, teniendo como su adversaria principal a la reina de Inglaterra Isabel I. Sorprendentemente la masonería no nació en 1717 con las Constituciones de Anderson, como habitualmente se pensaba, sino casi un siglo antes, y por obra del estadista inglés Francis Bacon, fundando la primera Logia nada menos que ya en 1579.  Además, el autor nos pone sobre la pista con numerosos hechos de que la fundación de la Masonería está llena de precedentes durante el siglo XVII.  Personaje central de la Masonería en el siglo XVII fue por ejemplo el escocés Sir Robert Moray (1608-1673), que se constituyó en el enlace más eficiente para conectar a los judíos con los masones.

In 1016 the young Danish prince who was to become Cnut the Great, King of England, Denmark, and Norway, laid siege to the city of London as part of a program of conquest that would see him crowned as King of England by 1017. This millennial year is an appropriate time to reflect on the consequences of London's defiance as a city that was rapidly evolving into the economic capital of a united English polity. As the siege did not end in Danish victory, the resistance of the independent minded Londoners had implications upon how Cnut would conduct juridical, financial and religious policy in relation to the city. Cnut could not allow the city to exert such oppositional autonomy unchecked. Yet the Danish king had ambitions of establishing an Anglo-Scandinavian Empire and London was a strategically important city in that vision, valued for both its continental connections and its wealth. Cnut could not afford to stunt London's economic life through punitive repression. The Danish king's early years were then characterised by a series of carefully balanced retributive policies that were designed to remove London's agency for rebellion, while not crippling it as an established economic and commercial centre.

Written and submitted as the final piece of my master's degree study, this dissertation explores the complex relationships between death, dying, and belief about undeath in the Medieval world. Utilising interdisciplinary approaches and employing an array of written, visual, and archaeological evidence, this piece attempts to shed light upon the frequently unorthodox and intensely personal beliefs and attitudes held by communities in the Middle Ages towards death and dying. Inspired by contemporary attitudes towards death and dying alongside current historiography and scholarship, I aim to inject a measure of humanity into our ancestors who, throughout the study, I argue perhaps are not as different from us as we may think.

This piece won the University of East Anglia's Larry Butler Prize for Best Dissertation 2017.

The 927 AD conquest of Scandinavian Northumbria by the ascendant Anglo-Saxon king, Æthelstan, seems a straightforward action of military annexation. Yet Æthelstan's actions, both leading into, and subsequent to, his annexation of York, demonstrate a nuanced strategy of assimilation of which military dominance formed only a part. Examining chronicle accounts of Æthelstan's reign, alongside a key royal diploma, numismatics, and archaeology, this paper argues that the Anglo-Saxon king's intent was not to establish hegemony over Viking York through force and subsequent occupation alone. Rather, Æthelstan wielded a combination of military power and strategies of social integration to bring the Scandinavian north into his developing English kingdom as a functionally homogenised territory.

In his incarnation as 'Morus' in Utopia, Thomas More asserts his profound disagreement with his fictional character, Raphael Hythlodaeus. Whereas Hythlodaeus extols the merits of commonality and the moral value of pleasure, Morus dismisses the whole project as absurdity, or hopeless wishful thinking. This divergence has been variously interpreted, but mostly played down. This paper argues that the civilized, amicable, and yet genuine discord between Raphael Hythlodaeus and Morus is the key to Utopia. We can appreciate its importance only if we understand who Hythlodaeus is, and what the purpose of the dialogue is. We also have to do justice to Thomas More's politics, which were grounded on the authority of the Christian tradition, in the Old and the New Testament. Over the years, Thomas More maintained a very clear and consistent line of thought on the legitimacy of worldly wealth, the responsibilities inherent in its management, the imperative to curb their enjoyment, the temptation of 'business' and greed, the duty of charity, and the value of penance, remorse, prayer, and other kinds of self-inflicted suffering. In A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, Anthony, the wiser character, conveys Thomas More's relentless praise of pain. Anthony has the last word. So, too, does Morus.

Róbert Péter (ed), British Freemasonry, 1717-1813. Vol. 4. Debates (New York: Routledge, 2016)

volume 1: Institutions (C. Révauger)
volume 2: Rituals I – English, Irish and Scottish Craft Rituals (J. A.  M. Snoek)
volume 3: Rituals II – Harodim Material and Higher Degrees (J. A. M. Snoek)
volume 4: Debates (R. Péter)
volume 5: Representations (R. Péter)

For a limited access to vol. 4 see
https://books.google.hu/books?id=xLdCDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT84&dq=British+Freemasonry,+1717-1813+Debates+Church&hl=hu&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjY9Ye8moDQAhVJORoKHT0FCfoQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=British%20Freemasonry%2C%201717-1813%20Debates%20Church&f=false

More information about the edition is available at:
https://www.routledge.com/British-Freemasonry-1717-1813/Peter- Revauger-Snoek/p/book/9781848933774

The attached copyright material was provided by the Routledge division of Taylor and Francis on 20 October, 2016.

F or many scholars, the term British Enlightenment, using John Pocock's words, "does not ring quite true." 1 He also claims that "the historiography of enlightenment in England remains that of a black hole." 2 As Stephen Hawking recently announced that black holes are not completely black since the information swallowed by them could be recovered, Roy Porter, similarly proved, once and for all, that there was indeed a British Enlightenment in his The Creation of the Modern World. 3 As Hawking has revolutionised theoretical physics with this statement, echoing the opinion of critics, so has Porter the scholarship of the Enlightenment. In the introduction of his seminal work, Porter stresses the wide-ranging character of the movement and argues that there never was a monolithic 'Enlightenment project'. Although Porter emphasised the centrality of religion in the eighteenth century, his study focuses on the heritage of those progressive intellectuals, whom with their liberal, secular and rationalist ideas, laid down the foundations of our modern world. His chapter titles such as the 'Rationalising religion' and 'Secularising' well illustrate his main focus. Though Porter highlighted the complexities and contradictions of the liberal minds, he paid less attention to those tendencies and figures of the era that openly ran counter to the general tenets of the Enlightenment. For instance, Methodists, Hutchinsonians and the circle of William Law, though in different ways, rejected the basic assumptions of rationalist thought and freethinking. By defending and proclaiming the mysteries of orthodox Christianity by relying on the authority of Scriptures rather than the faculty of reason alone, they detested the so-called natural religion of the deists. The guardians of orthodox Christianity upholding faith against individual rationalism, deism and atheism could be seen as the representatives of the 1 J. G. A. Pocock, "Post-Puritan England and the Problem of Enlightenment," in Culture and Politics from Puritanism to the Enlightenment, ed. P. Zagorin (Berkeley, 1980), 91. 2 J. G. A. Pocock, "Clergy and Commerce: The Conservative Enlightenment in England," in L'età dei Lumi. Studi storici sul Settecento europeo in onore di Franco

When discussing identity, particularly perceptions of identity, one immediately enters into something of an academic minefield. Nonetheless there are good reasons to review the issues of identity in a British context, not least as a result of the ongoing debates which have been raging about the subject since the opening of the devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999. One thing that seems clear from this scholarly (and often less than scholarly) renewed interest is that there is an underlying assumption that a concept of Britishness emerged, developed and is now suffering from some sort of irreconcilable clash of cultures which pits the Irish, Welsh and Scot against the larger and more powerful neighbour of England. Yet throughout the early modern period we also witness an undeniable movement towards bringing Scotland and England closer together into what would eventually become Great Britain in 1707. That process took the better part of two centuries to come to fruition and only after numerous contesting claims and projections of British identities at local, national and supra-national level had been adressed.

King John's own discourse enables us to recover his ideas about his royal power.  His statements, though disordered and occasionally discordant, support a lofty view of kingship,  He found historical precedents to support his view of authoritarian monarchy with royal supremacy based on custom.

Why do the British adopt far fewer children from abroad but more domestic children than the French? To examine this question, this article compares the history of adoption law and practice in France and England and Wales. Although these countries have had similar adoption laws since the 1920s, there have long been many more adoptions in England and Wales. This is partly due to the greater numbers of abused and neglected children being put forward for adoption in the UK. In addition, memories of the forced migration of children, coupled with heated debate over transracial adoption in the 1980s, cast doubt on the idea that intercountry adoption might benefit children. Consequently, local authorities give higher priority to the placement of children born in the UK with its system of open adoption. In contrast, French prospective adopters face a dearth of domestic children available for adoption and so turn their attentions overseas.

The English Civil War from 1642 to 1651 was a period of social belligerence, religious disputes, political experimentation and instability in England, Scotland and Ireland. However, less is known but much is debated about the causes since they did not seem likely to produce the conflicts, just the type of it. Some historians have focused on society and the masses, others on elites, others on socio-economic aspects and many more in the running of the church and the state. Others complain about the top-down approaches, too much focus on Scotland and Ireland, and misinterpretations of documents left by royalists and parliamentarians. There are those who argue it was a religious conflict, while others argue that it was portrayed by some contemporaries as a holy war. Although many still disagree, there is a growing consensus among historians that religion did played a paramount role in causing the conflicts. The years leading to the Civil War were a period of royal miscalculations, Scottish and Irish revolts due mainly to religious tensions, religious discussions between royalists and parliamentarians, and religious zeal which produced an unexpected and unwanted civil war. While political and constitutional grievances seemed to have triggered the conflicts and build up tension, religion was the primary underlying factor.

This paper was written in partial fulfillment of the course requirements of United Methodist History under the instruction Dr. Tamara Lewis at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Fall 2013.  Following a review of literature pertinent to the study of Susanna Wesley in Methodist History, this essay argues specifically that his mother, who embodied a theologically-rich fusion of Puritanical pietism and Anglican orthodoxy, and her relationship with her “Jackie” should be understood as a prime source in the development of John Wesley’s practical theology of piety and mercy.

H.M. Chadwick's 'Origin of the English Nation' (1907) reconstructed ancient Northern traditions in order to unearth the origin of the English before they came to Britain. J.R.R. Tolkien encountered this ground-breaking work when an undergraduate at Oxford. The paper traces the ways in which Chadwick's work shaped Tolkien's gradual creation of a lost ancient English mythology, culminating in 'The Lord of the Rings'.

This is a record of my ancestors, drawn from a variety of sources. Sources include, but are not limited to, living memory of my family members, family papers, and a plethora of hints gleaned from Ancestry.com. I don’t always know the actual sources of any one piece of information, so I will not always provide sources. Except for information about me and those relatives I know, or have known, in life, none of the information is my personal creation. It is impossible to own the names, dates, and places of one’s ancestry, the way one would own authorship of a literary work.
I do not for one moment claim that this work is complete or all-encompassing. I know that there are people, places, dates, and relationships that are incorrect, contradictory, or missing altogether. I hope that I can fill in the gaps in some later edition. For now, even an incomplete look at history is enough to start with. I will state that no piece of information in this book has been deliberately falsified by me, and I have done all that I know how to do with the resources presently available to me to make it as accurate as I know how.
Readers may notice that certain ancestral lines wander into the realms of mythology or of Biblical tradition. I report what I have collected, even if it seems far-fetched or absurd to be descended from gods of any kind. I ask that you bear with me in these far distant corners of my ancestry. I would like to find more credible ancestors, but we cannot choose our relatives.
I have chosen to trace my ancestry back from me, since that is the one point in my family tree of which I am completely sure. In each generation back in time, I include those ancestors whom I can identify, even if I know only part of a name, or if I know that someone is the grandchild of a particular other person. When my information on a particular line runs out, I simply don’t include that line in the next generation back.

The native English Heathen religion had a cult in which the pinnacle and most important deity was its Earth Goddess. Also, that cult was the most important in the religion, and many people continued to think of themselves as the Earth goddess' children even under Catholic supremacy. The conclusion is supported by Old English literature, archeological evidence, place names, and analogies from foreign religions, including Proto-Germanic religion.

This article offers the first study and critical edition of the Liber de motibus planetarum (Lmp), a neglected Latin text on planetary theory that appears anonymously and without any clear indication of date or place of origin in nine manuscripts of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. An analysis of its sources and parallels to other Latin treatises and translations from Arabic indicates that the Lmp originated in England in the third quarter of the twelfth century. A plausible terminus post quem is provided by the appearance of similar passages in the anonymous treatise Ptolomeus et multi sapientum (1145), which can be linked to Abraham Ibn Ezra and his astronomical tables for the meridian of Pisa. The Lmp would appear to be historically significant for its relatively detailed textual and diagrammatic presentations of Ptolemy’s planetary models as composed of multipart physical orbs. While it is generally accepted that physicalized or ‘orbed’ versions of these models entered Latin astronomy through the influence of Ibn al-Haytham’s Maqāla fī hayʾat al-ʿālam (On the Configuration of the World), the early history of this idea in a Latin context has not been studied to any deeper extent. In this regard, the Lmp offers clear evidence that Ptolemaic orbs and diagrams representing them already were a part of Latin astronomy three centuries before Peuerbach’s Theoricae novae planetarum (1454).

This article discusses recent developments in the field of Scottish relations with Europe in the early modern period. It does so in two sections; firstly by précising some of the important scholarship conducted in this field over the last decade. This has revealed in greater depth the important military, diplomatic and commercial links one small Atlantic nation had with her European neighbours. The second section of the article flags up the biggest single omission in the field of Scottish migration by looking to Scotland's closest neighbour (and the only European country with which she shares a land border), England. It reflects on the few previous endeavours that have contemplated this field; postulates why the field remains largely untilled and concludes with an assessment of where England might fit in comparison to those locations that have benefited from sustained scholarly attention.

Gesta regum Anglorum, written by William of Malmesbury in the twelfth century, is a key source for the life of the tenth-century Anglo-Saxon king, Æthelstan (924–939). Contemporary narrative histories provide little detail relating to Æthelstan’s kingship, and the account of Gesta regum Anglorum purports to grant an unparalleled insight into his life and reign. William’s abbey at Malmesbury had a unique connection to Æthelstan—the Anglo-Saxon king had gifted the abbey lands and relics in life, and in death had been laid to rest there. Thus, two-centuries after his death, Malmesbury was perhaps the most likely region in England to retain an affection for Æthelstan. However, due to this regional affinity with the Anglo-Saxon king, William’s narrative must be viewed with some suspicion, designed as it is to emphasise Æthelstan’s connection to Malmesbury and eulogise the abbey’s Anglo-Saxon benefactor. It is a complex literary construction that at times demonstrates an historian’s concern for the veracity of sources and the integrity of their interpretation, while at others is wont to delve into hagiographical hyperbole. This paper undertakes to examine critically William’s historiographical methodologies as identified within his life of Æthelstan, thereby exposing the intrinsic interrelation between source documents, local tradition, material history, and authorial invention in his construct of the Anglo-Saxon king.

There is a lot of misinformation circulating about this battle. This is largely based on retrospective accounts of the day, and some particularly partisan accounts.  This section challenges these through a forensic study of eye-witness accounts of the battle. In so doing it completely revises our understanding of the battle.

This paper looks at how the suburban ideals that were articulated and promoted by interwar politicians and the popular press were interpreted and played out on England’s council estates. Focusing upon the domestic garden, it looks at how tenants tried to overcome material and cultural obstacles in their efforts to live up to these standards. Evidence is taken from a range of written, visual, and oral sources related to life on the Wythenshawe Estate, Manchester, and the Downham Estate, South-East London. Ultimately, this paper shows that, despite their best efforts, the residents of England’s interwar council estates were unable to achieve the much-publicised ‘suburban ideal.’

For no less than 300 years, c. 1550-1860 the Dutch way of fishing was the envy of neighbours in the North Sea area and looked upon as the undisputed best practice. This was a lasting consequence of the Dutch Golden Age in fishing outliving the reality of best practice with at least 150 years. This paper explores the consequences of the image of Dutch dominance, as seen through 41 different attempts to build a fleet and run fishing operations similar to the Dutch. Most of them were short lived, and some never made it to the fishing grounds before going bankrupt. When reviewed one by one, they all have unique reasons for lacklustre performances. Privateering, warfare, bankruptcy, bad fishing luck are all valid explanations at the level of politics and short term events. However, when looked upon in connection to each other, some recurrent features of more or less sound policies appear, as well as structural social and natural conditions for varying degrees of success and failure. Two waves of imitation emerge from this comparison. In the mid-17th century and during the 1760s-70s there was a particularly strong European wide interest in emulating Dutch fisheries.

The term 'empire' is frequently applied retrospectively by historians to historical trans-cultural political entities that are notable either for their geographic breadth, unprecedented expansionary ambitions, or extensive political hegemony. Yet the use of the terminology of empire in historical studies is often ill-defined, as exemplified by the territorial hegemonies of Æthelstan (r. 924-939) and Cnut (r. 1016-1035). In their programs of territorial expansion and political consolidation, modern historians have credited both Æthelstan and Cnut as the creators and overlords of trans-cultural European empires. Yet common characteristics that warrant categorisation of the polities they governed as 'empires' are not readily discernible. Not only were the regions each controlled territorially and culturally distinct, but their methods of establishing political dominance and regional governance were equally varied. This raises the question as to whether the term 'empire' can be considered to define a distinct and coherent category of political power when applied to medieval monarchical hegemonies. By analysing the Anglo-Saxon 'empires' of Æthelstan and Cnut within the frameworks of empire set out by modern political theorists, this paper will establish whether the structural commonalities of their domains supersede their inherent diversity, thereby justifying a common categorisation as 'empires'.

This essay is concerned with the drastic change in life of women during the industrial revolution. During this period, women's position in society changed from worker in the domestic industry to a tough part of the labor force as an early Victorian house angel. As time goes by, so must the way of life we lead as a civilization. This was no different for women during the industrial revolution in Britain. Can it be said that due to the industrial revolution the most important and most beneficial of all social revolutions of the last two centuries took place: the emancipation of women? By examining academic opinions on women's new position in society compared with pre-industrial conditions, new working conditions, the standards of living and the concept of the family wage, the question whether or not the industrial revolution was beneficent for women will be investigated.

"""Bodiam Castle, one of the most visually striking medieval castles in England, is situated in East Sussex on the river Rother, near Robertsbridge. In 1385 Sir Edward Dallingridge (c.1364-1393) was licensed to ‘strengthen with a wall of stone and lime and crenellate and construct and make into a castle his manor house at Bodyham [Bodiam], near the sea in the county of Sussex, for defence of the adjacent county and resistance to our enemies’.  This licence was issued at a particularly turbulent time in English history. England faced the threat of invasion from France and internal conflict during the reign of Richard II. However, interpretations of the function and purpose of the castle have been deeply divisive in the field of castle studies over the course of the last two decades. In the absence of documentary sources, with the exception of the licence to crenellate, attention has focused on the architectural evidence for the castle. The traditional view, as characterised by Thompson, is that Bodiam Castle was built to provide protection for the nearby coastal towns of Rye and New Winchelsea, which were navigable from Bodiam via the river Rother. 

However, since the 1990s, a new consensus on castle studies, particularly following from the work of Charles Coulson, using the evidence of licences to crenellate, claims that castle architecture in the Late Medieval Period was primarily motivated by symbolism and status.  In his view, Bodiam has weak defensive features, such as an easy-to-drain moat, badly situated gun-ports, and thin walls, with the military themed architecture intended to convey a ‘message of power and deterrence’ through the studied exaggeration of features of defensive origin.  In Coulson’s opinion, Dallingridge was a newcomer to the area, who needed to compensate for his lack of pedigree; by constructing a magnificent looking castle he was able to promote his wealth and social standing.  This interpretation is contested by Platt, who stresses that Bodiam Castle was intended to serve a military purpose, but other authors, such as Creighton and Liddiard, have sought to move away from the ‘war or status’ debate. 

The most contentious issue regarding Bodiam Castle has centred on Dallingridge’s motivation in building the castle. Why would a member of the gentry build such an impressive castle at this particular time in Southern England?  In the absence of other evidence, the study of Dallingridge’s life is important in understanding why Bodiam Castle was built. Previous studies on Bodiam Castle have been rather superficial in their treatment of Dallingridge, which has tended to reflect their views on the motivation for its construction; for instance, by laying emphasis on his social aspirations or his military career. This article will examine Dallingridge’s life to see what insights it provides into the circumstances in which Bodiam was built in the late fourteenth century. By looking at his family background, military career, political career and his financial holdings, it will show that the motivation for the construction of Bodiam Castle was influenced by the turbulent events of 1385, and served as a visual demonstration of Dallingridge’s social standing in east Sussex."""

ABSTRACT
The Jacobean era's infamous witchcraft trials are recalled after reservoir repairs close to Pendle Hill reveal a buried cottage with bricked‐up cat. Interpretations of the building as the site of Malkin Tower, recorded in court records as the venue of a witches coven are critically evaluated in the light of archaeological and historical evidence.

KEYWORDS
WITCH, PENDLE WITCH TRIALS, PENDLE HILL, MALKIN TOWER, FOLK BELIEF, MAGIC, LANCASTER ASSIZES, WISE WOMEN, CUNNING FOLK, ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, SEVENTEENTHCENTURY, ALIZON DEVICE, SALEM WITCHES, THOMAS POTTS, LOWER BLACK MOSS, ELIZABETH SOUTHERNS, DEMDIKE, ELIZABETH DEVICE, JAMES DEVICE, ANNE WHITTLE, CHATTOX, ANNE REDFERNE, JANE BULCOCK, JOHN BULCOCK, ALICE NUTTER, KATHERINE HEWITT, ALICE GRAY, JENNET PRESTON, GUNPOWDER PLOT, CAT

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century a large and complex English literature on the Ottoman Turks developed, characterised by its diversity in form, content, opinion and context. This was a literature in the sense of a large body of
texts sharing a topic, written in a similar time and place and in similar context, but also in the sense of a discourse, sharing literary conventions, citing similar sources, recycling information, accepted ‘facts’, anecdotes and images and drawing upon the same authorities.

I examine this literature from its sixteenth-century roots, tracing its growth at the turn of the seventeenth century and its development into a complex literature, influenced by English religious and political contexts as well as growing Anglo-Ottoman trade and diplomacy, until the dramatic changes brought by diminishing Ottoman power in Europe at the close of that century. I draw these sources together as a ‘literature’, by examining trends, chronological developments and connections between them, while on the other hand I focus upon the contexts of individual works and a nuanced reading of their representations of the Ottomans. Through this I seek to bring a broader and more balanced perspective on both English literature on the Ottomans as a whole and the diversity and complexity of the works of which it was comprised.

Please note that since the completion of this thesis I have published the book Writing the Ottomans (2015) with Palgrave MacMillan. This book develops the research and argument of my thesis substantially. The introduction is available as a sample for download on my academia.edu page.

November, 2017, marks the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. Theodore Herzl, along with his colleagues tirelessly labored for 35 years to obtain a statement from a European nation affirming the right to Jewish nationhood. Three-hundred and fifty years earlier Christian Zionists in England began pressing for Parliament for Jewish welfare, emancipation, and Jewish return to their land. In fact, three-centuries of Christian Zionist efforts, at a time when emancipated Western Jewry was satisfied with European assimilation, paved the road to the Balfour Declaration. This paper follows the path of Christian philo-Semites whose theological writings, political efforts, and humanitarian service made the Balfour Declaration possible.

Think you know the Tudors? Think again...

We know what they wore. We know what they ate. We know the details of their monarchs' sex lives, and how they caused seismic changes in our country's religious and political history. But what about Black Tudors? Until now, the story of the Africans who lived and died in sixteenth-century England has remained untold. Dr Miranda Kaufmann thought she knew the Tudors too, having devoured their stories at school, at university, and in countless novels, films and TV dramas. None of these mentioned black Tudors. But one day she found an official letter dating from 1596 that clearly stated that there were Africans living in England, with more having arrived since the onset of war with Spain. Surprise turned to an all-consuming curiosity that fuelled a painstaking search for further evidence of their lives and experiences. Many of the over 360 African individuals Kaufmann found in the archives are recorded only by a brief mention in a parish register or tax return. But in a few cases it has been possible to piece together something more of their lives that not only casts new light on the Tudors, but also on our own debates surrounding race and identity.