Abstract In recent years the idea that the assemblage of territories accumulated by the king of England at the end of the thirteenth century should be considered as “the first English empire” has found favor among historians of the medieval British and Irish Isles. However, from the late fourteenth century onward the English monarchy’s imperial project began to come under considerable strain, facing intensifying resistance from native populations in Ireland and Wales. Irish kings, in particular, proved to be extremely effective in this regard, winning back considerable amounts of territory and influence in Ireland. Traditionally, studies of the Irish recovery have focused on its cultural and political aspects, paying little attention to the financial requirements associated with the cost of making war against the English. By drawing on a range of Gaelic, Anglo-Irish, and English sources this article will argue that it was the integration of Irish rulers and their subjects into English commercial networks emanating from Anglo-Irish port cities such as Limerick and Waterford, and their connections to English commercial centers such as Bristol that enabled Irish kings to challenge the political and military supremacy enjoyed by the king of England and his ministers in Ireland since the thirteenth century.
Abstract Timed to coincide with the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence that launched a revolution that created the United States of America, this series of articles complicates traditional narratives of this transformative event by situating it in a larger British world context.This article places the Anglo-American events of 1776 in the context of developments in France and the French Caribbean. It argues that both French efforts to exploit the imperial crisis and the American patriots’ tenuous intercolonial unity were inseparable from the rapid, brutal expansion of slavery and the economic power generated by unfree labor in the French Caribbean. Although elided in the period's texts, the French Empire's enslaved population generated racial politics that influenced developments in the United States and Great Britain into the nineteenth century.
Timed to coincide with the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence that launched a revolution that created the United States of America, this series of articles complicates traditional narratives of this transformative event by situating it in a larger British world context. This article examines the controversy surrounding the lightning strike at the Royal Gunpowder Magazine at Purfleet-on-Thames in 1777 to explore how political conflict shaped scientific authority during the American Revolution. Although Benjamin Franklin's theory of electricity and pointed lightning conductors had achieved broad acceptance within the Royal Society, the Purfleet incident enabled his long-standing rival, Benjamin Wilson, to revive discredited criticisms by appealing to patriotic sentiment and royal patronage rather than experimental evidence. Drawing on correspondence, Royal Society records, published pamphlets, and committee reports, this article demonstrates that the scientific consensus remained firmly in Franklin's favor even as political opposition to the American cause reshaped public perceptions and institutional priorities. The Purfleet controversy reveals how political allegiance could influence scientific institutions, redirect research agendas, and transform the public presentation of science without overturning established scientific knowledge.
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Justice Samuel Alito cites the Ellenborough Act of 1803, the first statutory prohibition of abortion in the Anglo-American common law system, and endorses one interpretation of the bill as an effort to protect fetal rights. However, the reasons behind Lord Ellenborough's decision to criminalize abortion have been unclear to historians, especially given the common law's historical indifference to abortion and the absence of general outcry over the practice at the time the bill was passed. This article argues the Act's origins instead lay in Ellenborough's professional history as counsel for the Merchants of Liverpool in their opposition to various abolitionist bills before Parliament between 1792 and 1799. The article incorporates data collected from the first comprehensive review of nineteenth-century abortion trials held in England and Wales, whose statistics on domestic, birth-related prosecutions illustrate that abortion was not a crime the criminal justice system was interested in punishing. Instead, using Ellenborough's personal and professional papers, the article argues that the 1803 statute should be interpreted through Ellenborough's sustained commitment to the protection of private property and the defense of the institution of slavery.
Timed to coincide with the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence that launched a revolution that created the United States of America, this series of articles complicates traditional narratives of this transformative event by situating it in a larger British world context.As American Patriots declared their independence from Great Britain, there was one British politician whom they continued to celebrate as a hero: William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. In 1776, Chatham's face adorned statues, portraits, swords, and even waxworks throughout the new American states. By Chatham's death in 1778, however, Americans had cooled appreciably on the British "Patriot" leader. Why did William Pitt remain an American hero for so long? And why, after 1776, did his reputation fall so quickly? This article argues that the issue of American independence caused a political split in a once-powerful transatlantic Patriot alliance. While American Patriots viewed independence as their paramount goal, British Patriots such as Chatham could not conceive of a British Empire that did not include North America. The British Patriots' attempts to balance imperial sovereignty and civil liberty proved unworkable, and ultimately, they chose empire. The death of William Pitt represented the end of British Patriotism's core political ideal: to create a British Empire that was both expansive and free.
