William of Orange tried to be as absolute as possible. Inroads upon the power of the executive were fiercely resisted: indeed, William succeeded in keeping even the judiciary in a precarious state of independence. To maintain the prerogative and gain the needed supplies from parliament, he relied upon a mixed whig-tory ministry to direct court efforts. Following the Glorious Revolution, the whigs had divided into two principle groups. One faction led by Robert Harley and Paul Foley became the standard-bearers of the broadly based Country party, maintained the “old whig” traditions, did not seek office during William's reign, tried to hold the line on supply, and led the drive to limit the prerogative. The “junto,” “court,” or “new” whigs, on the other hand, were led by ministers who, while in opposition during the Exclusion crisis, held court office, aggressively sought greater offices, and wished to replace monarchy with oligarchy. They soon joined tory courtiers in opposing many of the Country party attempts to place additional restrictions upon the executive. To defend the prerogative and gain passage for bills of supply, William also developed techniques employed by Charles II. By expanding the concept and power of the Court party, he sought to bring together the executive and legislative branches of government through a large cadre of crown office-holders (placemen) who sat, voted, and directed the votes of others on behalf of the government when matters of importance arose in the Commons. So too, William claimed the right to dissolve parliament and call new elections not on a fixed date, as was to become the American practice, but at the time deemed most propitious over first a three-year and then (after 1716) a seven year period.

Throughout much of the nineteenth century relations between Britain and Germany were blessed not only by the absence of any fundamental conflicts of national interest, but also by positive factors tending to encourage friendly ties. Memories of the common struggle against Napoleon, the predominantly Protestant character of tioth countries, and the marriage of Queen Victoria to a German prince all suggested a natural affinity between them. German liberals and conservatives alike found much to admire in English political institutions, while Englishmen in turn approved the steps, however halting, by which many of the German states adopted constitutions and representative institutions.

During the late 1840s British statesmen did appear to have recognized the benefits that would accrue for Britain through consolidation of the German Confederation, and there was also some discussion regarding the prospect of an Anglo-Prussian alliance. After 1846, thanks to Palmerston's stridency in the affair of the Spanish marriages, Britain lost the good will of France and thus remained diplomatically isolated in the face of the powerful conservative coalition of Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

“Disguise in all its forms is a badge of slavery.” That J.S. Mill, at one time an ardent advocate of secret voting and later its equally ardent opponent, should have included this sentiment in his attack on the ballot may strike one as rather odd. Yet the expression of sentiments of this kind was not an uncommon feature of the debate provoked by the ballot question during the mid-Victorian period and before. Although Mill himself did not explicitly stigmatize the ballot as “un-English,” the emotional content of his condemnation strongly resembled a considerable number of written and verbal assaults on secret voting which attached that label to the proposed reform. Such denunciations of secret voting as un-English were taken seriously at the time, and should be treated seriously by historians of early and mid-Victorian England.

It is, however, necessary to place this un-English aspect within a broader context. The opponents of the ballot were motivated by a number of considerations, and different opponents attacked the measure for different reasons. The formulation of the case against the ballot incorporated several diverse elements: the self-interest of an aristocracy nervous about the potential impact of secret voting on the existing distribution of political power; intellectual convictions concerning the nature of the franchise; and emotional commitments which rejected secret voting as un-English. To ignore the first two of these elements would be to obscure the relative significance of the last. Thus it is perhaps best to begin with the emergence of the ballot as a practical political issue.

Selecting a name for the gold rush colony of British Columbia, although apparently trivial, embarrassed the government, threatened to become the focus for a groundswell of opposition to the whole idea of establishing a new colony, and offers a curious sidelight on the role of the Crown.

On 24 June 1858 Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, the Colonial Secretary in Lord Derby's second ministry, wrote to the Queen to inform her that “in consequence of the recent discovery of Gold in the Neighbourhood of Fraser's River, on the Western Coast of British North America, rendering expedient the immediate establishment of Civil Government,” the government had decided “to erect at once a New Colony there.” Parliament had to authorize this, “& it is desirable that the name of the new Colony shall be inserted in the Bill.” Since the measure was to be introduced within a week, the procedure was slapdash. In asking the Queen to select a name, Lytton informed her that explorers had used the name “New Caledonia,” but did point out that the name had been used elsewhere, most notably for “the chief island of the New Hebrides Group in the South Seas where the French have lately signified their intention to form an establishment.” He added that the names New Cornwall and New Hanover had also been applied to parts of the coast by some mapmakers. While the monarch retained a significant role in mid-nineteenth century government, this hardly extended to, acting as a cartographical research institute for the Colonial Office. On 27 June the Queen informed her minister that she had settled on New Caledonia as the most generally accepted name.

Recent studies of the social history of birth control in America have noted the importance of eugenics in securing the acceptance of family planning between the two world wars. Similarly in England the endorsement of contraception as a method of “race improvement” by eugenists in the scientific, medical, academic and ecclesiastical communities greatly enhanced the credence and respectability of the birth control movement. In the anti-racist, genetically more sophisticated climate since the Second World War it is often forgotten how pervasive eugenic assumptions about human inheritance were in learned and socially elevated circles in the early twentieth century. Belief in the inheritability of myriad physical, psychological and behavioral characteristics, identifiable, even quantifiable, in particular ethnic groups and social classes was reinforced by expert scientific testimony, and, perhaps equally important, middle and upper class prejudices.

Birth control leaders, whose respectability was always in some doubt, were for the most part no exception and readily mingled with the estimable worthies who adorned the ranks of the elitist Eugenics Education Society founded in 1907. Several officers of the old Malthusian League, including its last president, Charles Vickery Drysdale, and his wife, Bessie, were early if troublesome recruits to the Society, while Marie Stopes, the most dynamic promoter of birth control in England in the inter-war years, joined in 1912, and eventually became a Life Fellow who left the organization a financial legacy, her famous clinic and much of her library, upon her death in 1958.