England and France in the Sixteenth Century

This article summarises the main developments in Anglo-French relations in the context of Tudor foreign policy. It reviews the historiography of the subject, highlighting the main developments in twentieth century research. It argues that this research demonstrates that it was in the sixteenth century, under the later Valois monarchs and the first Bourbon king of France that Franco-English relations changed significantly. From being openly hostile they became more ambivalent in the true meaning of the word. Under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I the two nations began to create a still-difficult but sometimes more productive relationship with each other. This set the broad pattern for relations up to and beyond the Entente-Cordiale of 1904

`Death to Tyrants': The political philosophy of tyrannicide - Part I

This paper examines the conceptual development of the philosophical justifications for tyrannicide. It posits that the political philosophy of tyrannicide can be categorised into three distinct periods or models, the classical, medieval, and liberal, respectively. It argues that each model contained unique themes and principles that justified tyrannicide in that period; the classical, through the importance attached to public life and the functional role of leadership; the medieval, through natural law doctrine; and the liberal, through the postulates of social contract theory. Subsequent analysis of these different models however, reveals that these historical models are unable to provide a sufficient philosophical basis for a contemporary justification of tyrannicide. In Part II, it will be contended that a reinvigorated conception of self-defence, a theme common to all three models, when coupled with the modern notion of universal human rights, may provide the foundation for a contemporary theory of tyrannicide