This article seeks to advance the debate surrounding contemporary attitudes to settler colonialism in Britain by looking at the reinvention of the reputation of the former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith in British print media. This is becoming an increasingly important area of historical debate, but one that has not yet been fully explored. In order to investigate these issues, this article uses journalistic sources to reconstruct the ways in which Smith was talked about in public debate during the period from Zimbabwean independence in 1980 to his death in 2007. It argues that, while in the 1980s Smith was generally dismissed and condemned for his role in Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence, by the later 1990s and 2000s assessments were far more mixed, with many people comparing him favourably against Robert Mugabe. Indeed, it suggests that the suffering of Zimbabwe under Mugabe was the catalyst for Smith’s rehabilitation. Ultimately, it posits that interest in Smith highlights the unusually extensive interest that opinion formers had in Zimbabwean affairs, which was a legacy of the unique status of Rhodesia within the British empire.
{"title":"Changing interpretations of Ian Smith in the British press, 1980–2007","authors":"Hugh Pattenden","doi":"10.1093/hisres/htae019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htae019","url":null,"abstract":"This article seeks to advance the debate surrounding contemporary attitudes to settler colonialism in Britain by looking at the reinvention of the reputation of the former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith in British print media. This is becoming an increasingly important area of historical debate, but one that has not yet been fully explored. In order to investigate these issues, this article uses journalistic sources to reconstruct the ways in which Smith was talked about in public debate during the period from Zimbabwean independence in 1980 to his death in 2007. It argues that, while in the 1980s Smith was generally dismissed and condemned for his role in Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence, by the later 1990s and 2000s assessments were far more mixed, with many people comparing him favourably against Robert Mugabe. Indeed, it suggests that the suffering of Zimbabwe under Mugabe was the catalyst for Smith’s rehabilitation. Ultimately, it posits that interest in Smith highlights the unusually extensive interest that opinion formers had in Zimbabwean affairs, which was a legacy of the unique status of Rhodesia within the British empire.","PeriodicalId":13059,"journal":{"name":"Historical Research","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142199578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article is the first to reconstruct the contemporary legend that Charles Stewart Parnell staged his own death in 1891, pending his messianic return. Although the British press folklorized it as a pre-modern Irish ‘peasant’ delusion, this article demonstrates that the story was one of several pseudocidal narratives about ‘great men’ shaped by the British ‘cult of Napoleon’. The legend did circulate in Ireland, but among city-dwelling Dubliners, not ‘peasants’. This article argues that for some urban Parnellites it functioned as a mode of political resistance; but for most Irish people, doubt and uncertainty, rather than wholehearted belief, characterized its reception.
{"title":"‘One morning you would open the paper … and read, Return of Parnell’: rumours, legends and conspiracy narratives about Charles Stewart Parnell’s staged death","authors":"James McConnel","doi":"10.1093/hisres/htae018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htae018","url":null,"abstract":"This article is the first to reconstruct the contemporary legend that Charles Stewart Parnell staged his own death in 1891, pending his messianic return. Although the British press folklorized it as a pre-modern Irish ‘peasant’ delusion, this article demonstrates that the story was one of several pseudocidal narratives about ‘great men’ shaped by the British ‘cult of Napoleon’. The legend did circulate in Ireland, but among city-dwelling Dubliners, not ‘peasants’. This article argues that for some urban Parnellites it functioned as a mode of political resistance; but for most Irish people, doubt and uncertainty, rather than wholehearted belief, characterized its reception.","PeriodicalId":13059,"journal":{"name":"Historical Research","volume":"39 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142199636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Received wisdom suggests that a conservative, even sentimental Royal Navy clung to the battleship long after it ceased to have any strategic rationale; that the battleship finally disappeared due to its vulnerability; and that its withdrawal was imposed on a reluctant admiralty by more enlightened politicians. This article challenges each of these assertions to argue that the admiralty in fact had a reasoned case for temporarily retaining battleships; they departed because other capabilities could better perform their role; and the admiralty actively developed these replacements, while rapidly shrinking and retiring its battleship fleet in the face of some political resistance.
{"title":"‘Largely a matter of sentiment’? The demise of the battleship in the post-1945 Royal Navy","authors":"Tim Benbow","doi":"10.1093/hisres/htae016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htae016","url":null,"abstract":"Received wisdom suggests that a conservative, even sentimental Royal Navy clung to the battleship long after it ceased to have any strategic rationale; that the battleship finally disappeared due to its vulnerability; and that its withdrawal was imposed on a reluctant admiralty by more enlightened politicians. This article challenges each of these assertions to argue that the admiralty in fact had a reasoned case for temporarily retaining battleships; they departed because other capabilities could better perform their role; and the admiralty actively developed these replacements, while rapidly shrinking and retiring its battleship fleet in the face of some political resistance.","PeriodicalId":13059,"journal":{"name":"Historical Research","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141739378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores how the biological realities and cultural constructions of ageing combined to influence a daily decision taken by Victorian women: what to wear. The cartoons found in Punch, and the guidance given by fashion papers and journalistic and literary sources highlight the individualized experience of dressing the ageing body, and the knowledge and skill needed to chart a course of compromise between ageing and the expectations that came with longer-held identities such as class, gender and sexuality. The difficulties in navigating this transition demonstrate how ageing was an art, and doing it well was a merit.
{"title":"‘The Hideous Old Lady of Fashion’: dressing the ageing body in Victorian Britain","authors":"Ruby Ellis","doi":"10.1093/hisres/htae015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htae015","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores how the biological realities and cultural constructions of ageing combined to influence a daily decision taken by Victorian women: what to wear. The cartoons found in Punch, and the guidance given by fashion papers and journalistic and literary sources highlight the individualized experience of dressing the ageing body, and the knowledge and skill needed to chart a course of compromise between ageing and the expectations that came with longer-held identities such as class, gender and sexuality. The difficulties in navigating this transition demonstrate how ageing was an art, and doing it well was a merit.","PeriodicalId":13059,"journal":{"name":"Historical Research","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141614669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The religious historiography of Britain during the 1950s remains underdeveloped. Such scholarship as there is has drawn disproportionately upon national church statistics and opinion polls. In this article, the findings of three contemporaneous studies of religion in northern industrial towns are presented: Rawmarsh and Scunthorpe (1954–6), Billingham (1957–9), and Bolton (1960). Sundry indicators are illuminated, including churchgoing and rites of passage. No support is found for the claim that the 1950s were a decade of ‘religious revival’. Mainstream Protestantism was at an increasingly low ebb, and Catholicism was soon to feel the chill winds of secularization also.
{"title":"A secularizing society? Case studies of English northern industrial towns in the 1950s","authors":"Clive Field","doi":"10.1093/hisres/htae014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htae014","url":null,"abstract":"The religious historiography of Britain during the 1950s remains underdeveloped. Such scholarship as there is has drawn disproportionately upon national church statistics and opinion polls. In this article, the findings of three contemporaneous studies of religion in northern industrial towns are presented: Rawmarsh and Scunthorpe (1954–6), Billingham (1957–9), and Bolton (1960). Sundry indicators are illuminated, including churchgoing and rites of passage. No support is found for the claim that the 1950s were a decade of ‘religious revival’. Mainstream Protestantism was at an increasingly low ebb, and Catholicism was soon to feel the chill winds of secularization also.","PeriodicalId":13059,"journal":{"name":"Historical Research","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141609666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 858 King Lothar II granted Bishop Hunger of Utrecht the abbey of Sint Odiliënberg to serve as a refuge against viking attacks. This article examines the political circumstance surrounding this event, arguing that the Utrecht clergy’s relocation was not a straightforward response to viking violence but was instead the result of pressures upon them caused by Frisia’s place at the centre of difference circles of overlapping authority. Through taking Frisia’s role in multiple polities and sub-polities seriously, I offer a new interpretation of the events of 858 and point to some further implications for earlier medieval politics.
858 年，国王洛塔尔二世将 Sint Odiliënberg 修道院赐予乌特勒支主教亨格，作为抵御维京海盗袭击的避难所。本文研究了与这一事件相关的政治环境，认为乌特勒支神职人员的迁移并不是对维京人暴力的直接回应，而是弗里斯兰处于权力重叠的不同圈子的中心所造成的压力的结果。通过认真对待弗里斯兰在多重政体和次政体中的角色，我对 858 年的事件做出了新的解释，并指出了对早期中世纪政治的进一步影响。
{"title":"Overlapping authorities, vikings in Frisia and the church of Utrecht","authors":"Fraser McNair","doi":"10.1093/hisres/htae012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htae012","url":null,"abstract":"In 858 King Lothar II granted Bishop Hunger of Utrecht the abbey of Sint Odiliënberg to serve as a refuge against viking attacks. This article examines the political circumstance surrounding this event, arguing that the Utrecht clergy’s relocation was not a straightforward response to viking violence but was instead the result of pressures upon them caused by Frisia’s place at the centre of difference circles of overlapping authority. Through taking Frisia’s role in multiple polities and sub-polities seriously, I offer a new interpretation of the events of 858 and point to some further implications for earlier medieval politics.","PeriodicalId":13059,"journal":{"name":"Historical Research","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141609625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Histories of lust have often been separated from that of rape, due to a concern with naturalizing male violence against women. However, ideas about lust have been significant at various historical moments in framing understandings of sexual violence and masculinity. This article explores how ideas of disorderly emotion, including lust, shaped the prosecution of rape in eighteenth-century Scotland. It highlights that placing legal accounts of rape within a framework of the ‘emotional ethics’ that guided early modern society helps to explain the low prosecution rates for rape in contexts where sexual violence was nonetheless considered sinful.
{"title":"Malignant passions and carnal desires: rape in long eighteenth-century Scotland","authors":"Katie Barclay","doi":"10.1093/hisres/htae013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htae013","url":null,"abstract":"Histories of lust have often been separated from that of rape, due to a concern with naturalizing male violence against women. However, ideas about lust have been significant at various historical moments in framing understandings of sexual violence and masculinity. This article explores how ideas of disorderly emotion, including lust, shaped the prosecution of rape in eighteenth-century Scotland. It highlights that placing legal accounts of rape within a framework of the ‘emotional ethics’ that guided early modern society helps to explain the low prosecution rates for rape in contexts where sexual violence was nonetheless considered sinful.","PeriodicalId":13059,"journal":{"name":"Historical Research","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141609753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Secretary William Davison (d. 1608) is best known for his involvement in the execution of Mary, queen of Scots, in 1587. This article explores Davison’s earlier diplomatic career, specifically his mission to the Low Countries in autumn 1585. It argues, first, that Davison was an influential political actor prior to his elevation to the privy council, as he fulfilled significant diplomatic responsibilities and was highly regarded by his conciliar patrons; and second, that study of Davison’s diplomatic career casts new light on familiar debates over mid-Elizabethan diplomacy, men of business and patron-client relationships.
{"title":"The diplomatic authority of William Davison","authors":"Rosalyn Cousins","doi":"10.1093/hisres/htae011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htae011","url":null,"abstract":"Secretary William Davison (d. 1608) is best known for his involvement in the execution of Mary, queen of Scots, in 1587. This article explores Davison’s earlier diplomatic career, specifically his mission to the Low Countries in autumn 1585. It argues, first, that Davison was an influential political actor prior to his elevation to the privy council, as he fulfilled significant diplomatic responsibilities and was highly regarded by his conciliar patrons; and second, that study of Davison’s diplomatic career casts new light on familiar debates over mid-Elizabethan diplomacy, men of business and patron-client relationships.","PeriodicalId":13059,"journal":{"name":"Historical Research","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141614613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article uses diverse forms of electoral culture – including newspapers and magazines, election plays and ballads – to recover an overlooked aspect of perceptions of political corruption in the ‘pre-Reform’ era: the partisan control of electoral space. These forms also present new perspectives on the political engagement of voters and non-voters, showing how perceived spatial corruption was actively exposed to public view. In the process, the article unearths a multimedia precursor to Hogarth’s famous series on the ‘humours’ of an election, which combines text, mapping and visual satire to challenge the legitimacy of an election result, and how the dynamic interplay between drama and electoral culture – including the contemporary puppet play – helped to popularize opposition to the ‘stage-managing’ of elections. Election ‘mapping’ affords new avenues into the eighteenth century as an age both of perceived corruption and of active challenges to that corruption.
{"title":"Mapping and ‘stage-managing’ elections in the long eighteenth century: electoral culture, popular politics and the rhetoric of political space","authors":"Kendra Packham","doi":"10.1093/hisres/htae008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htae008","url":null,"abstract":"This article uses diverse forms of electoral culture – including newspapers and magazines, election plays and ballads – to recover an overlooked aspect of perceptions of political corruption in the ‘pre-Reform’ era: the partisan control of electoral space. These forms also present new perspectives on the political engagement of voters and non-voters, showing how perceived spatial corruption was actively exposed to public view. In the process, the article unearths a multimedia precursor to Hogarth’s famous series on the ‘humours’ of an election, which combines text, mapping and visual satire to challenge the legitimacy of an election result, and how the dynamic interplay between drama and electoral culture – including the contemporary puppet play – helped to popularize opposition to the ‘stage-managing’ of elections. Election ‘mapping’ affords new avenues into the eighteenth century as an age both of perceived corruption and of active challenges to that corruption.","PeriodicalId":13059,"journal":{"name":"Historical Research","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141509677","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This note assesses Philippa Langley’s four proofs for the survival of the two Princes in the Tower after 1485. Neither the Lille document nor supporting evidences prove that Lambert Simnel was really Edward V rather than Edward, earl of Warwick. The Gelderland manifesto recounting the escape of Richard, duke of York and the pretender’s pledge to Duke Albert of Saxony were propaganda as necessary for the imposter Perkin Warbeck as for the real prince. The blemishes of Warbeck’s body cannot be shown to identify him as the younger prince. While useful additions to the continental plots against Henry VII, these new evidences do not prove that either prince lived beyond the reign of Richard III.
{"title":"Historic doubts about the survival of the Princes in the Tower after 1485","authors":"Michael Hicks","doi":"10.1093/hisres/htae009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htae009","url":null,"abstract":"This note assesses Philippa Langley’s four proofs for the survival of the two Princes in the Tower after 1485. Neither the Lille document nor supporting evidences prove that Lambert Simnel was really Edward V rather than Edward, earl of Warwick. The Gelderland manifesto recounting the escape of Richard, duke of York and the pretender’s pledge to Duke Albert of Saxony were propaganda as necessary for the imposter Perkin Warbeck as for the real prince. The blemishes of Warbeck’s body cannot be shown to identify him as the younger prince. While useful additions to the continental plots against Henry VII, these new evidences do not prove that either prince lived beyond the reign of Richard III.","PeriodicalId":13059,"journal":{"name":"Historical Research","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141509648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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