Continuity and Anachronism

I. The Presuppositions of Whig Historical Writing.- A. The ‘pre-Namier’ period and the growing criticism of the features of Whig historical interpretation: anachronism, finalism and historical continuity.- B. The Relativization of Constitutional History.- 1. An attempted breakthrough: Seeley’s approach and Gardiner’s.- 2. The Rise of Economic History: W. Cunningham and G. Unwin.- 3. The Rise of Record-History: J.H. Round and G.W. Prothero.- II. Whig Historiography in the Nineteenth Century. A. Myth about a Myth?.- A. Medieval studies in the first half of the nineteenth century: F. Palgrave, J. Allen and H. Hallam.- B. The Glorious Revolution and George III; Cromwell and the Civil War.- 1. Macaulay and the Glorious Revolution.- 2. The 19th-century topicality of George III.- 3. Cromwell and the Civil War.- C. Medieval studies in the second half of the nineteenth century: The Oxford School: W. Stubbs, E.A. Freeman and J.R. Green.- 1. Stubbs, an unwanted editor, a wanted professor.- 2. Stubbs’s synthesis of medieval constitutional development.- 3. Stubbs’s parliamentary thesis.- 4. Background of Stubbs’s views.- 5. E.A. Freeman and J.R. Green.- III. Tradition Discredited.- A. The Crisis within the House of Commons.- B. Old liberalism as conservative realism.- C. Whiggery versus Gladstonian liberalism.- D. The New Liberalism: idealism and realism. Efficiency used as an ideology against tradition.- 1. Positive Liberty and Citizenship.- 2. Power and Efficiency.- 3. Efficiency and Empire.- 4. Efficiency and administrative professionalism.- IV. Law and History: F. W. Maitland.- A. Maitland’s road to History.- B. Law and History incompatible?.- C. Maitland versus anachronisms.- V. A Liberal Revaluation of the Tudor Monarchy: A.F. Pollard.- A. A.F. Pollard and English historiography.- B. A Liberal Revaluation of the New Monarchy: English Freedom and its Fettered Birth.- 1. Somerset and Henry VIII.- 2. Pollard’s liberalism and Tudor efficiency.- C. Parliament’s unparliamentary origin and evolution.- 1. In the steps of F.W. Maitland.- 2. Pollard’s confusing abundance.- 3. Pollard and his critics.- D. Tollardism’: The Reformation Parliament.- VI. Administrative History: T.F. Tout.- A. Administrative history as a reaction to Whig historiography.- B. Administrative history: a mirror of the times.- C. T.F. Tout and the French Histoire Événementielle.- D. T.F. Tout and his Administrative History.- E. The Reaction: the limits of administrative history and the illusions of specialization.- Bibliography of A.F. Pollard’s Writings.- Sources and literature.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.