The single most intriguing problem posed by the history of the Reformation in Ireland is the failure of the state-sponsored religion to take root in any section of the indigenous population. Perhaps because this outcome has been taken so much for granted a satisfactory explanation of it has yet to be offered. Historians are now coming to recognize that the central question cannot be properly discussed without a prolegomenon ranging over the political, social and intellectual history of the period. What follows is intended as a contribution to such a series of preliminary studies. It investigates the sources of tension within reforming circles in sixteenth-century Ireland and considers the implications of this aspect of its internal history for the external history of the movement.

During the past ten years, historians of early modern Europe in Britain, France and the United States have shown an increasing interest in the history of education. Doubtless encouraged by the contemporary formulation of an educational sociology, they in turn have begun to investigate the form and function of education in pre-industrial societies. For the most part, however, research has been limited to the study of elementary education with the purpose of understanding the effect of its expansion on literacy and popular attitudes. Less attention has been paid to the social history of higher education, particularly to the role of the universities. The one exception is the case of Oxford and Cambridge for which studies abound through the efforts of Professor Stone and his pupils. But outside England, apart from Kagan's work on the Spanish universities, studies have been few and limited to accounts of patterns of attendance over relatively short periods of time that give little indication of the general picture. Indeed, information about the history of attendance at most universities in the early modern period has still to be gleaned from nineteenth- and early twentieth-century studies – useful as sources of administrative history, but seldom revealing on questions that interest the present-day historian. Apparendy, too, there is little chance of the position improving in the future. With the exception of a project envisaged by the French early modernists, Chartier, Frijhoff and Julia, interest in the social history of universities seems to be diminishing.

Contemporary reactions to the 1832 Reform Act were diverse. Concomitant with the feeling of relief that a revolution had been avoided was a fear even among some of the Bill's most earnest advocates that the whigs had perhaps gone too far. The long period of political agitation by extra-parliamentary associations suggested that a radical House of Commons might emerge from the forthcoming elections. In fact, the expected radical onslaught never really materialized. Although they were returned to the Commons in strength by the election of December, the radicals failed to find common ground for action and the whigs successfully defended the pact given royal assent the previous summer. That sentence of failure is not unreasonable. Radicalism in the early nineteenth century was by its very nature the province of the individualist whose imagination often ranged beyond the bounds of practicality and who found compromise irksome. Membership of the House of Commons was to prove a chastening experience for men accustomed to the adulation of the common people. Rules of procedure and the traditional circle of agenda so circumscribed these enthusiasts that energy became sapped and their sense of mission vitiated. Woodward's suggestion, too, that the radicals floundered because they ‘defended the interests of a class to which they did not belong’ may contain a measure of truth. But apart from the odd chapter in the occasional biography, there has been a marked lack of interest in proceeding beyond these general conclusions; failure is too often equated with justified obscurity.

From the standpoint of the late Victorian and Edwardian governing classes, the most disturbing feature of the ‘social problem’ was the breakdown of British industrial relations. The long ideological and political truce observed by organized labour more or less since the 18405 had ended. A new and more militant trade unionism had emerged which condemned the consensus policy of the craft unions and challenged both the prerogatives of management and the conventional criteria of wage determination. Not only did it endanger social stability, it was also regarded in government circles as a major obstacle to British economic growth. Industrial unrest would, it was feared, disrupt production, intensify resistance to technical innovation, and weaken Britain's cost competitiveness in world markets. In the establishment press, in the parliamentary reports, and in the political memoirs and diaries of the period, one therefore finds a growing concern to secure industrial peace; a concern reflected in the growth of state intervention in industrial relations.

The five years 1917–21 are commonly regarded as a period of unusual turmoil in Britain when fears of revolution reached an intensity unknown in more than three generations. In explaining this unrest, historians have naturally concentrated upon the organized Labour movement; upon the complex dialectics of a conservative rank-and-file marshalled behind creative revolutionary leaders in the engineering trades; and, in the trades unions and Labour party, upon the genesis and meaning of Clause IV. In all such studies the state's most powerful servants have, however, commanded relatively little attention. Other than as an instrument of public order intruding into industrial disputes, historians of the working class have shown scant interest in the serviceman who remains very much the ‘candy man’ in uniform. This article, by way of redress, is concerned to examine the character of unrest in the armed forces, to compare and contrast disaffection in the army and navy, and to review Labour's response to both veteran and serviceman.

The victory of the Allied powers in November 1918 gave the French a unique opportunity to establish a secure frontier on the Rhine. Throughout the peace conference that followed, the politicians, generals and intellectuals of the right who perceived this opportunity most clearly conducted a vigorous campaign to achieve France's ‘natural frontier.’ The separation of the Rhineland from Germany had three incontestable advantages for France. It would diminish Germany's superiority in population; it would establish a buffer zone between the two countries, and it would render impossible a German concentration of troops west of the Rhine itself. Such a ‘paix française’, however, would have been insensitive to the main consideration of post-war diplomacy: the creation of a lasting European peace that satisfied the conflicting foreign policies of the major allies. Chiefly to preserve the victorious alliance, Clemenceau, who at first had favoured the demands of the right, was forced to abandon the proposed separation and to accept a compromise. The French generals like Foch and Mangin who had worked to ‘deprussify’ the Rhineland did not realize their dream. The disputed territory, though occupied by a temporary, inter-allied force, remained German.

On 27 February 1919, while Britain and most of Europe were gripped by serious industrial unrest, 600 trade unionists and 300 employers met leading cabinet ministers and civil servants at a National Industrial Conference in London. After a morning's debate, the trade unionists and employers separated, each to select thirty representatives to form a ‘provisional joint committee’ (P.J.C.) which might translate the morning's general good humour into hard practical proposals for mutual cooperation and reform. Within five weeks the committee had drawn up a report embracing twenty-six reforms, which was duly confirmed by the reconvened conference on 4 April and approved in principle by Lloyd George (with impeccable timing) on 1 May. The report was a major initiative in domestic policy. Although pledged at the 1918 election to build a ‘land fit for heroes’, the government – fully absorbed in the immediate problems of European settlement, demobilization and decontrol – had had little time to consider its practical implementation. With the report, both sides of industry had provided it with an agreed programme of reform which enabled it, in the industrial sphere at least, to commence the fulfilment of its election promises.