Welsh Journals

This old Austrian empire is indeed an intractable subject, but the author here makes it still more difficult by the apparent casualness with which he shuffles his cards and plays his hand. For example, if there is a concern with the 'formation, consolidation and expansion' of the empire between 1526 and 1739, and if the core of this empire always remained Austria, Bohemia and Hungary (p. 2), amazingly little is said about the Austrian duchies during this period, their population, resources and government: Transylvania gets more attention. It is also strange that the conquests in Italy, and particularly the government of Lombardy, are treated merely as part of the Habsburg relationship with foreign powers, never as a new dominion where the characteristics of rule under Charles VI or Maria Theresa deserve study. In the same way the author turns a resolutely blind eye to the importance of the Holy Roman Empire for the Habsburgs. Not only do the Breisgau and other Vorlande disappear (incorrectly) from the maps for 1714 and 1774, but the significant place of German and Imperial interests in the viewpoint of Habsburg statesmen is overlooked. The role of princes and politicians migrating to the court of Vienna from Germany, the German commanders and troops in the Habsburg army, the economic links between German towns and Habsburg lands, all have a strong claim to be brought into the account. If the Bukovina, Lusatia and Istria on the periphery deserve attention, which they get here, so do the regions due north and south of the Alps. Otherwise the growth of the Habsburg empire in modern Europe will remain mysterious. JOHN STOYE Magdalen College, Oxford STUART ENGLAND. By J. P. Kenyon. Penguin Books Ltd., 1978. Pp. 384. £ 1.25. Professor Kenyon's book is the first replacement volume in the Pelican History of England. There is certainly a need for an up-to-date and scholarly textbook on the whole of the Stuart period, since the best recent works, such as those by G. E. Aylmer, Robert Ashton, and J. R. Jones, cover only parts of the era, and the older ones have been overtaken by the torrent of modern scholarship. Kenyon's account has many of the virtues required in such a series. His narrative is clear and highly readable. The tone of the work is very much his own: pungent and iconoclastic judgments constantly challenge traditional views. James I is praised for his sensible attitude to English politics, for he accepted that royal power must be regulated by the laws, even perhaps by an implied contract. Parliament, by contrast, was disorderly, inept and often ill-led: its survival was a matter of luck rather than achievement. Oliver Cromwell, the hero of most seven- teenth-century historians, is here denounced for an 'increasing authori- tarianism and unbalanced violence', which destroyed the chances of a permanent and peaceful settlement. Yet these unconventional pronouncements ride in harness with a largely traditional approach to the period. Especially in treating the years from