Sixteenth century Scotland witnessed the publication of a number of historical works such as John Major's Greater Britain (1521), Hector Boece's History of Scotland (1527) and George Buchanan's History of Scotland (1582). Although these authors held differing views regarding the Egyptian myth of Scottish origins (Gathelus-Scota), they agreed that Scottish kingship was originally established by an act of the people and they maintained its continuing validity. Buchanan's History greatly influenced Whig ideology in the eighteenth century, as the studies of Colin Kidd and David Allan have shown. Previous research on the sixteenth century has tended to focus on such chronicles, either in relation to the Protestant triumph, or as the grounds for a theory of contract between the people and a king -- what some might call a theory of popular sovereignty. R. A. Mason has scrutinised the historiography of the Scottish Reformation. A. H. Williamson has examined the creation of British identity in the political discourse of Presbyterians in early modern Scotland. However, little attention has been given to different interpretations of the Scottish past in relation to the justification of kingship in the reign of James VI of Scotland. James's reign saw two competing ideas about the origin of Scottish kingship: the conquest theory and the contract theory. The Scottish past was of great importance to the sixteenth century intelligentsia as it provided the precedent for their claims about Scottish kingship. This paper discusses how the sixteenth century intelligentsia employed the Scottish past to justify their own claims regarding the origins of kingship.
The charge to the grand jury was one of the formalities which marked the opening of assizes and quarter sessions. In the first morning the grand jury was sworn in and one of the assize judge or leading magistrates delivered a speech known as a 'charge' to the grand jury. The genuine purpose of the charge was to recall the jurors the principal statutes relevant to their duties, and to encourage the due execution of the office. In practice, however, the actual forms and contents of charges varied significantly from one to another; many charges contained various other factors, including more general issues related to the government, judicial administration and the present state of the constitution, which were sometimes elaborated at length especially in the preamble. Some of them were published. This suggests that the expected audience of the charge was hardly limited to its addressee, the grand jurors. The charges can be a useful window into the contemporary views and practices of a wide range of issues concerning government, politics and religion, which makes the subject deserve serious interest of historians.
The paper aims to shed light on this largely understudied subject, based on a survey of printed and manuscript charges of seventeenth-century England, including three charges by a Yorkshire magistrate Matthew Hutton given at the quarter sessions in the North Riding of Yorkshire in 1631, c.1650 and 1661. The paper explores various aspects of charges to the grand jury, and discusses their aims and functions, the contemporary perceptions of the office of the grand jury, and the relationship between the magistrates and the grand jury.
This paper deals with the issue of the historical use of paper money. It examines economic life under the Bank Restriction Act, which exempted the Bank of England from paying notes with precious metals. Local banks in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland followed suit, thereby ushering Great Britain into an era of paper money. The question is: How did the spread of paper money affect the way in which economic life was carried out during this period?
Except for a few areas in Great Britain, such as northern part of Ireland, banknotes dominated economic exchanges during this period; they were sometimes called 'people's money' because even people with fairly modest means used them. The use of banknotes changed not only the economic backdrop, but also the perception of economic transactions. Britain's early modern economy was based mainly on personal credit, and the country sailed into the modern economy of institutionalised credit. The change was reflected back into the modern monetary theories. One example can be seen in the Bullionist Controversy, but this was not the only instance. Legal discourse which dealt with money was important, for they also needed to clarify questions of financial concerns from a different perspective.
Some everyday practices cast light on the way paper money was perceived. For instance, in an effort to tackle the crime of forgery, quasi-endorsement on banknotes became popular practice even though it seemed to be a deviation from the historical development of banknotes (i.e., from a 'promise to pay' to an anonymously circulating medium of exchange). The conclusion of this paper will discuss the balance between individuality and the anonymity of money -- an element that is crucial in securing the acceptance of money that has no intrinsic value.
In 1856-7, the London Zoological Society carried out a large-scale project to collect Himalayan pheasants, and to adapt them to the British climatic environment. Taking the case of this zoological campaign, the paper explores the ideas of 'migration' and 'identity' from two perspectives. First, the discussion examines how this project affected the identities of the various collaborators, many of whom had 'migrated' earlier from Britain to India. As a fascinating frontier of field natural history, India had induced many East India Company officers as well as professional zoologists to natural-history forays. How did they give meanings to their particular colonial experiences, and what role did the Society's campaign play in this? I will argue that the campaign provided a channel through which these men were able to communicate their heterogeneous identities. The mental landscapes of the bird-collectors were structured by the questions of empire, science and nature.
Second, the discussion considers the implications of the Society's failure to form its 'zoological empire'. The Zoological Society sought to control the ecology and geographical distribution of animals, and to mobilise natural resources of the British empire. Supported by the East India Company, the Society attempted to transport Himalayan pheasants to England, to breed them in the Society's Zoological Gardens, and to 'naturalise' them in the Scottish Highlands. If successfully 'naturalised', the birds would have become not only 'British' birds, but also an emblem of the Society's 'zoological empire'. Thus the campaign testified to the Society's ambition to control such imperial networks through which animals were transported, zoological knowledge was exchanged, and animal collectors travelled. The paper will examine why the campaign ended in a fiasco, and how this initial failure was assessed in the long term.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the historical aspect of the concept of stigma in British psychiatry. Stigma, which originally meant 'a mark of disgrace or infamy,' was elaborated as a sociological concept which signified a socially degrading attribute by the American sociologist, Erving Goffman in 1960s. In Britain, stigma weighed with the scholars of social policies, the charitable and professional organisations, and the Tony Blair's government in the issue of social exclusion of the mentally ill. Despite of such popularity, why Goffman employed the word of stigma from English vocabulary, and what stigma meant before Goffman, has remained uncharted. Goffman and his followers overlooked the historical aspect. Even when stigmatisation was academically considered within the historical context, it was only examined from the viewpoint of social control and othering. The concept of stigma itself has been never seriously examined in the psychiatric history, although it has been frequently used in the history since the late nineteenth century in Anglo-America. This paper seeks to historicize the concept of stigma, using the British case of psychiatry from the late nineteenth century to early twentieth century. Two research methods are employed here: the quantitative approach in which the usage of stigma in The Lancet, and The Times is statistically examined; the qualitative approach in which the historical construction of the concept of stigma in the psychiatric and political sources is examined. This study will show that the concept of stigma in British psychiatry was established in the climate of the reform of the Lunacy Act of 1890 and in the outbreak of shell shock, entangled with the political and professional motives of the social inclusion of the mentally ill patients, the improvement of social status of the psychiatric professions, and the medicalisation of the popularly 'biased' image of mental illness.
Britain's relations with Europe have become the central issue in discussing the future of British national identity. Britain's position in the post-war world has been seen mainly through the 'Empire to Europe' angle. Nevertheless, retreat from Empire has not necessarily made Britain's participation in Europe smooth. Andrew Gamble suggests that Britain's political economy will be determined by its relationship with Europe and with America.
With the discussion of Britain's place in the post-war world and its national identity in mind, this study re-evaluates the Attlee Labour government's external economic policy in 1950. In May the Schuman Plan was announced. Britain's rejection of this proposal has been seen as the decisive point for Britain's detachment from Europe. But it has not hitherto been explored that, behind the rejection, Attlee government pursued an active external economic policy with the aim of building the Western world economy under Anglo-American leadership, and was seeking to reconstruct the international currency position of pound sterling.
The concept of the OEEC Third Report, which described the prospects of the European and world economy mid 1950s, was discussed within the UK government. London envisioned 'Europe in the expanding world economy'. The Attlee government recognised such a vision would provide an alternative to European integration. And strengthening sterling and steady progress towards dollar convertibility was considered as the key for achieving such a world economy. On the other hand, Commonwealth countries agreed on the Colombo Plan in 1950. It is very important to grasp why in 1950 the plan was pushed forward. It had two aims. One was treating the sterling balances. The other was bringing the non-European economy into a strategy for solving the world dollar problem. The British OEEC report concept and the Colombo Plan formed very important pillars of the Attlee government's active external economic policy in 1950.
These policies revealed the Attlee government's determination that post-war Britain should play a world role in the global hegemony inherited by the United States, and should bring the Empire/ Commonwealth into that global hegemony. Through a reassessment of the Attlee government's policy and re-evaluating Britain's place in the world, we can understand that, after the Empire dwindled, not only the relation to Europe but Anglo-American relationship began to be seen as a decisive factor for the British national identity and its political economy.