The work of J. Murstfield and H. E. Sell hns directed the attention of historians to the importance of the English court of wards and liveries, both as an instrument of fiscal policy and as a welfare organisation for the children and widows of the king's tenants. In the Public Record Office, Lonclon, a great mass of material remains to throw light on every aspect of the court's activity. More recently Dr H. F. Kearney has published a uselul and suggestive paper on the Irish court of wards which was principally concerned with the reign of Charles I. A more detailed appraisal of the earlier period is not easy since the records of the Irish court of wards have, like those of other departments of state, suffered wholesale loss or destruction. It seems unlikely that the wards papers were ever placed in public archives: they apparently never reached the old Public Record Office in Dublin to be consumed in the holocaust of 1922. Consequently, the student has to work from public and private papers scattered throughout these islands in libraries, record ofices and private collections.

Since the work of Beer, or at least since the studies of Andrews and Harper, no serious historian has failed to recognize that the British mercantile system did not bear too heavily upon the American colonies before 1763. In the first place, some regulations either directly and intentionally, or indirectly and unintentionally, fostered colonial development. In the second place, enforcement was often so lax and evasion so common that a number of regulations Lvere practically inoperative. Yet though the beneficent effects of ‘salutary neglect’ upon the American colonies have long been accepted, writers on Irish history have continued to assume that the mercantile system was applied to Ireland with devastating effectiveness. Was this indeed true? Or was British mercantilism in Ireland mitigated in the same ways as in the overseas colonies —by compensating advantages and by evasion? The present article concerns itself only with the latter point, the question of enforcement and evasion of British restrictions on Irish trade.

The years 1885–6 were years of political confusion in Great Britain and Ireland. No less than four governments were in office from the spring of 1885 to the summer of 1886. Gladstone's government, beset by ministerial quarrels, fell on 9 June 1885, and was succeeded by the caretaker government of Lord Salisbury. The general election of December prolonged this political instability. The liberals were returned but with a majority of only two over the other parties. Salisbury remained in power until 27 January 1886 when he was defeated in the house. Gladstone, already a convert to some form of home rule for Ireland, formed a cabinet and drew up two bills, the Government of Ireland Bill and the Land Purchase (Ireland) Bill. The former was introduced on 8 April and exactly two months later was defeated owing to the desertion of ninety-three liberal members. In the subsequent general election the conservatives and liberal unionists routed the Gladstonian forces.

The act of 1704 ‘to prevent the further gronth of popery’ was, in Lecky's words, the most notorious of the penal laws. It was also the most comprehensive. It covered changes of religion, the purchase and inheritance of land, education, guardianship, employment, voting and pilgrimages. It was from the first regarded as an important and highly controversial measure. There was a great deal of argument about it, and its form changed remarkably during the protracted proceedings that took place before it passed into law. Catholics opposed it strenuously at various points in the legislative process. The introduction, at a late stage, of the sacramental test hit dissenters and produced further controversv. There were a number of unusual features in the treatment of the bill which repay investigation of the considerable volume of material relating to it. There are also gaps in the evidence which make it difficult to be certain about such questions as the attitude of the English government of the day to penal legislation in Ireland. It is particularly hard to determine why, and by whom, the sacramental test was introduced into the bill.

The fall of Charles Stewart Parnell as a result of the O'Shea divorce case in late 1890 is a dramatic episode of lasting human interest and an event of the first importance in the history of Ireland and of British politics. The story of the crisis has often been told, usually from the perspectives of the two Homeric protagonists, Parnell and Gladstone. While it is generally agreed that the English nonconformists played a decisive part in the dethronement of ‘the uncrowned king of Ireland’, their catalytic role has never been clearly, accurately, or fully explained. The problem is of special interest because it was during this controversy that ‘the nonconformist conscience’ entered the English language as a popular phrase as it had long before entered English politics as a potent reality. It is the purpose of this article to study the Parnell affair from the vantage point of English nonconformity and, in so doing, to re-examine the origin of the famous phrase and to throw light on the relationship of nonconformity and the liberal party in a critical phase of the home rule movement.