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David Lloyd George (Hulton/Archive)

peace conference. While he was considered successful in his efforts there, the conditions of postwar politics were unsettled: the electoral reform of 1918 and other measures for EDUCATION and housing were offset by problems in demobilization, violence in IRELAND, and scandals over the sale of knighthoods and other honors. When the CONSERVATIVE PARTY withdrew its support for him in 1922, his reign was ended.

Locke, John (1632–1704) philosopher

Locke was born in Wrington, Somerset, where his father was an attorney who owned a small amount of land. A student and then teacher at Christ Church, OXFORD UNIVERSITY, he was in the household of Lord Ashley Cooper, later first earl SHAFTESBURY, whom he followed into exile in the

1670s. On his return in 1689, much of the work which Locke had written earlier was published. He wrote a Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), which argued for individual religious liberty and toleration (except for Catholics and atheists). His

Two Treatises of Government (1690), some of which was composed around 1680, argued against divine right and in favor of the government resting on consent of the governed (or at least those who owned property). His main philosophical work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

(1690), extolled the role of experience in finding truth. He also wrote Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) and The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), which together with his earlier works reorganized the field of discussion of politics, society, and religion for the 18th century.

Lollards

A nickname for the followers of John WYCLIFFE, they held the heretical belief that the bread and wine of the eucharist did not become (by transubstantiation) the body and blood of Christ. Lollards also criticized the worldliness of the clergy, and they believed that the scriptures should be available to all, hence they used English for preaching and in their translation of scripture. At first they enjoyed at least tacit support from some of the ruling classes. But in the turbulence of the early 15th century, the church and the government reacted sharply to this challenge, enacting laws condemning heretics (1401) and banning their BIBLE (1407). After an abortive revolt (1413–14), the Lollards lost support, and some went underground. There is a theory that they influenced the early stages of the REFORMATION in the 16th century, but there is no conclusive proof for this.

See also DE HERETICO COMBURENDO.

London

The capital of ENGLAND and later GREAT BRITAIN and then the UNITED KINGDOM, London was a center of importance from Anglo-Saxon times.

Its location on the river Thames, its protected anchorage, and its access to the interior were all factors in its favor. Its size and wealth acted like a magnet for all of the British Isles, and the medieval City of London became the core of an enlarging metropolis. Around 100,000 in the 14th century, the population grew to 600,000 by 1700 and to 1 million by 1800. By the middle of the 20th century the population had peaked at 9 million, and it began to decline due to suburban migration.

The government of London was complicated. Early royal charters acknowledged the rights and customs of the city. A mayor and aldermen were in evidence from the late 12th century, but the old city was soon outgrown by surrounding BOROUGHs, and the royal precincts of Westminster, the estates of great noblemen, and church PARISHES with overlapping boundaries defied any simple form of government. Further growth of area and population led to the formation of new boroughs, and by the late 19th century, metropolitan forms of government were created. A London County Council was established in 1889, and a new Greater London Council in 1965. This body was abolished in 1985, because of resistance to the Conservative government by the radical Council chairman Ken Livingstone. The resurrection of the city government in 1998 found Livingstone running for office, now opposed by the LABOUR PARTY’s official candidate, and winning the newly created post of mayor.

Long Parliament

In 1640 CHARLES I was forced to summon a PAR- LIAMENT to meet the costs of fielding an ARMY to face the Scots. His first attempt in April only produced wrangling over the demands of the members for attention to their grievances. The parliament was dissolved after three weeks, but the king’s financial necessity did not go away. In November he summoned another parliament, this one destined to remain in existence, in some form or other, until 1660. Hence the two were known as the SHORT PARLIAMENT and the Long Parliament.

The latter was able to wring some concessions from the king but ultimately waged a CIVIL WAR against him (1642–50). It was reduced to a radical

RUMP PARLIAMENT in PRIDE’S PURGE of 1648, and

that remnant was terminated by Oliver CROMWELL in 1653. The surviving members were recalled in 1659, and they voted to dissolve the body and call an election to form a CONVENTION Parliament, which brought CHARLES II to the throne in 1660.

lord advocate

The chief legal officer for SCOTLAND; senior public prosecutor and political adviser. During the abeyance of the office of SECRETARY OF STATE for Scotland (1746–1885), the lord advocate was the principal manager of Scottish administrative affairs as well.

lord chancellor

This officer was the king’s secretary, the custodian of the GREAT SEAL, and eventually the judge of the Court of CHANCERY as well. Until the 16th century the post was usually held by a clergyman. The chancellor presides in the HOUSE OF LORDS, and he is the president of the judicial committee sitting for the house as the final court of appeal. As the chief legal officer, the lord chancellor is a member of the CABINET.

lord chief justice

The senior judge in the English system, this title was informally given to the chief justice of the Court of KING’S BENCH. With the reorganization of the courts in 1873, the title was formally given to the chief justice of the Queen’s Bench division (as it was known under Queen VICTO-

RIA) of the new HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE. This posi-

tion is strictly professional and not political.

lord lieutenant

County officers appointed first during the reign of EDWARD VI to command the militia and assist

the Crown in maintaining order. The office was retained and strengthened in the reign of ELIZA- BETH I, and it became a pivotal office in local government. The lieutenants advised the LORD

CHANCELLOR on appointments of JUSTICES OF THE

PEACE, and they retained their military function until 1871. Soon after, the functions of county government were vested in elected county COUNCILs, and now the post has become a ceremonial one.

In IRELAND the lord lieutenant was the king’s chief representative and a member of the British CABINET. Usually a peer, he was the VICEROY, the ceremonial head of the administration. His deputy in charge of actual government operations was the chief secretary, whose duties were

like those of the SECRETARY OF STATE in GREAT BRITAIN.

lords of the congregation

The Scottish Protestant noblemen who constituted themselves as a ruling COUNCIL in the early days of the REFORMATION. The lords of the congregation signed a bond to oppose the REGENCY of MARY OF GUISE in 1557, and they invited John KNOX to return from exile. They formed an army, signed the Treaty of Berwick with Queen ELIZA- BETH I, and forced the French to leave SCOTLAND. They then summoned the PARLIAMENT of 1560 and forced the enactment of Scottish church reforms.

lorry

The name for flatbed wagons used on early rail and tramways, now a common name for freightcarrying motor vehicles.

Lovett, William (1800–1877)

Chartist

Raised in Cornwall, Lovett moved to LONDON and worked as a cabinet maker. He took part in

the early COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT, and after

Robert OWEN’s attempt to form a national trade

union failed, he founded the London Working Mens’ Association in 1836. This became the nucleus of the CHARTIST MOVEMENT. A principal author of the People’s Charter, he was among the moderate “moral force” faction, which encouraged cooperation with middle-class radicals like Francis PLACE. Lovett clashed with Feargus O’CONNOR, the Irish leader of the more militant “physical force” faction, and Lovett’s role in the movement declined after 1842.

Luddites

Workers who protested against the introduction of machinery, especially handloom weavers and framework knitters. Luddites raided shops and destroyed machines, sometimes leaving a note signed by “General Ned Ludd,” a legendary figure. The disturbances turned to rioting in some cases, and in 1813 some 17 men were executed at York. Historians have disputed whether these were late examples of an old tradition of communal violence or an early sign of organized working-class protest against industrialization.

Ludlow, Edmund (1617–1692) soldier

A leader in the ARMY seizure of power in 1648 and signer of CHARLES I’s death warrant, he was opposed to Oliver CROMWELL as lord protector. He returned to PARLIAMENT in 1659, but had to flee to the continent at the RESTORATION. He tried to return in 1689, but had to flee again. His memoir, A Voyce from the Watch Tower, was published in 1698.

Lugard, Frederick John Dealtry Lugard, first baron (1858–1945)

colonial administrator

Lugard served in Afghanistan, The SUDAN, and BURMA in the 1880s. In 1890 he led a force into UGANDA to intervene in religious wars there. The British PROTECTORATE was established in 1894.

Later Lugard became British commissioner in northern NIGERIA, where he developed his ideas of “indirect rule,” a system designed to govern native peoples according to their own principles rather than those of the British colonists. He

wrote an explanatory work, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (1922), and he was a member of the LEAGUE OF NATIONS Permanent Mandates Commission (1922–36).

Macadam, John (1756–1836) road engineer

Born in Ayr, SCOTLAND, Macadam grew up in America and made a fortune there. Returning to ENGLAND, he worked at the ADMIRALTY and traveled extensively. He bought an estate in Scotland and became a MAGISTRATE and a road trustee in Ayrshire, where he experimented in building ROADS. In 1811 he presented some of his ideas to PARLIAMENT. He was made surveyor of roads in Bristol in 1815, and his methods of compacting layers of small stones over the subsoil produced water-resistant, smoother surfaces. His success led to further appointments, and his roads were an important element of improvement in TRANS-

PORTATION.

Macaulay, Thomas Babington

(1800–1859) politician, historian

The son of Zachary Macaulay, one of the leading EVANGELICALs, Thomas Babington Macaulay was a prodigy. Educated at CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY, he passed the bar and made valuable contributions to the Edinburgh Review. Elected to PARLIAMENT, he became a brilliant orator, but his major work was done outside the HOUSE OF COMMONS. In the 1830s he worked in INDIA and drafted a new penal code. He published his major poetic work, Lays of Ancient Rome, in 1842. His most durable work was a History of England, intended to provide an uplifting account of the English past from 1688 to 1820. It only reached the year 1702 in the first five volumes (published 1849–61). The work was very popular, and it reestablished the

school of WHIG historiography, which approach was dominant well into the 20th century.

MacDonald, Flora (1722–1790)

MacDonald helped “Bonnie Prince Charlie” escape after the Battle of CULLODEN (1746). She obtained a passport for herself and her servants, Charles STUART being disguised as an Irish girl. When this became known, she was arrested and briefly detained in the TOWER OF LONDON. Her story was later the source of romantic legend.

MacDonald, (James) Ramsay

(1866–1937)

prime minister, 1924, 1929–1935

The illegitimate son of a Scottish servant girl and a farm laborer, Ramsay MacDonald was a journalist in London, secretary to a Liberal MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, and then became active

in the INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY in the 1890s.

As secretary of the Labour Representation Committee (1900–05) he managed the coordination of electoral campaigns which produced the LA- BOUR PARTY breakthrough in 1906. He himself was elected that year and became party leader in 1911. His opposition to WORLD WAR I meant the loss of that post, but he regained it in 1922. In 1924 MacDonald became the first Labour PRIME MINISTER (and also foreign secretary). Though only in office for nine months, he proved to contemporaries that Labour was capable of running the government. He returned to power with a majority in 1929, but immediately encountered the Great DEPRESSION. His party

Ramsay MacDonald (Hulton Archive)

rejected his decision to reduce unemployment benefits to balance the BUDGET. When he formed the national government in 1931, he was expelled by the party but remained as prime minister until 1935. He was succeeded by Stanley BALDWIN, and he retired in 1937.

MacDonald, Sir John (1815–1891) prime minister of Canada, 1867–1873, 1878–1891

Born in Glasgow, MacDonald grew up in CANADA, where he became a BARRISTER and a

leader of the movement for a Canadian federal government. He had served in the colonial assembly, and he became the first PRIME MINIS- TER under the DOMINION created by the British North America Act of 1867.

Mackenzie, Sir George, of Rosehaugh

(1636–1691) lawyer, author

A lawyer and king’s advocate, Mackenzie persecuted COVENANTERS. The English government dispatched CHARLES II’s brother, James, duke of York (later JAMES VII AND II), to conduct raids on the dissidents, who called this period “the killing time.” Mackenzie’s aggressive tactics, including torture and vigorous prosecution, were widely despised, earning him the nickname “Bloody Mackenzie” (1679–86). He is also remembered as the founder of the library of the Faculty of Advocates (1689) and author of Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal (1674) and the much shorter Institutions of the Laws of Scotland, a valued text for many years. In addition to other legal works, Mackenzie wrote Aretina, or the Serious Romance (1661), possibly the first novel writ-

ten in SCOTLAND.

Mackenzie, William Lyon (1795–1861) journalist

Mackenzie migrated to CANADA from his native SCOTLAND in 1820. He published a journal called the Colonial Advocate, in Toronto, became a member of the legislative assembly, and was the first mayor of Toronto in 1834. He led a failed insurrection in 1837. After a short imprisonment he was pardoned in 1849, and he sat in the legislature of the united provinces, 1850–58.

Mackintosh, Charles Rennie

(1868–1928) architect

Born and educated in Glasgow, Mackintosh created the winning design for the Glasgow

School of Art competition in 1894. His work in furniture and interior design was exhibited widely in Europe, where he was more influential than in Britain, as a leader in the art nouveau school. In his later life he was a watercolor painter.

Mackintosh, Sir James (1765–1832) lawyer, politician, writer

Educated at Aberdeen and EDINBURGH (in medicine), Mackintosh moved to LONDON and wrote for literary journals. His Vindiciae Gallicae (1791) was a reply to Edmund BURKE’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. In 1795 he became a

BARRISTER, and he went to INDIA as recorder of Bombay. After his return, he was elected to PAR- LIAMENT in 1813, and in 1818 he became a professor at Haileybury, the school for future Indian civil servants. Among his written works were

Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy (1830), The History of England (1830), and History of the Revolution in England in 1688 (1834).

Macmillan, Harold (1894–1986) prime minister, 1957–1963

Member of the publishing family, Macmillan was educated at Eton and OXFORD UNIVERSITY. He was injured in WORLD WAR I, and he entered politics in the 1920s as a progressive TORY. Macmillan was against APPEASEMENT and in favor of social reform. In 1938 he published his views in The Middle Way, which anticipated the active government intervention of the next decade. He held several important posts in the 1950s, and he assumed the CONSERVATIVE PARTY leadership after Anthony EDEN’s resignation in 1957. He rebuilt the party’s strength enough to win the election of 1959, but his health forced him to resign in 1963, even as a mounting list of foreign and domestic problems confronted him. His successor was Alec DOUGLAS-HOME.

mad cow disease See B.S.E.

magistrate

A lower court judge. Stipendiary (paid) magistrates were appointed, first in SCOTLAND (1747), then in IRELAND (1822), and finally ENGLAND (1839). They were departures from the unpaid

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE and a move toward mod-

ern, salaried officials. But the earlier form has persisted in England, even after the BOROUGH and COUNTY councils took over the administrative work of JPs in the 1880s. The judicial function of the unpaid magistrate is still carried on in today’s magistrate’s courts. Normally there are two lay justices, and they have petty jurisdiction in civil cases as well as criminal jurisdiction in summary (i.e. non-jury) proceedings.

Magna Carta (1215)

Although composed centuries ago, the Magna Carta has had a resonance through all of later British history. King John (1199–1216) had lost Normandy and most of the continental holdings of the Crown, and he was regarded as a rapacious and unreliable ruler. In the great crisis of his reign, the clergy, the nobility, and the citizens of LONDON all rebelled against him. His reply was to issue charters of liberties, or statements of the customary rights which he formally recognized. The most famous of these was the Great Charter (Magna Carta) of 1215, which John sealed in the presence of his barons at Runnymede, near WINDSOR. In it he promised to honor the practices of the feudal order. The 63 articles also contained more general promises, i.e., that “no free man shall be taken or imprisoned . . . except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land” (article 39); or “to no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice” (article 40). But John immediately appealed to his overlord, the pope, to annul this grant, given under duress, and that was done later in the year. Nevertheless, the charter was a precedent, and there were many reissues, in one form or another, over the next few centuries. These acts created a tradition of royal accountability and general liberty. This tradition was what the 17th-

century PARLIAMENT leaders Edward COKE, John HAMPDEN, and John PYM relied on (even if they exaggerated it). The charter has ever since been seen as a symbol or a source of English constitutional government.

Maitland, Frederic William

(1850–1906) historian

Maitland was a leading historian of medieval ENGLAND, particularly through his examination of LAW and legal records. After a short career in the law, he found his vocation in editing medieval plea rolls and parliamentary records. He and others founded the Selden Society in 1886 for the purpose of editing major texts and records of English legal history. He became Downing Professor of the Laws of England at

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY in 1888. His main work

was The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I (2 vols., 1895), coauthored with Frederick Pollock, though Maitland wrote the majority of the work. He also wrote numerous works of legal history, including Justice and Police

(1885), Domesday Book and Beyond (1897), and Roman Canon Law in the Church of England (1898). His lectures on the Constitutional History of England, and Equity, and The Forms of Action were also published, both separately and in later collected editions.

Maitland, John Maitland, baron

(1545–1595) royal councillor

Brother of William MAITLAND and keeper of the privy seal in SCOTLAND (1567), Baron Maitland had been an ardent supporter of MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, and he was out of favor during the 1570s. In 1583 he was made a privy councillor, and he became one of the most influential advisers to JAMES VI in the early years of his reign. A friend of the PRESBYTERIANS, he was responsible for the “Golden Act” of 1592, which established the kirk on a Presbyterian basis.

Maitland, John, duke of Lauderdale

See LAUDERDALE, JOHN MAITLAND, DUKE OF.

Maitland, William (1528–1573) royal adviser, ambassador

Brother of John MAITLAND and secretary to MARY OF GUISE in 1558, Maitland switched his allegiance to the English in 1559, and his negotiation with ELIZABETH I led to the Treaty of Berwick and French withdrawal from SCOT- LAND. He was retained as ambassador in order to present MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS’ claim to be Elizabeth’s successor. He continued to be a close adviser to the Scottish queen, even holding EDINBURGH Castle for her until 1573. He died in prison.

Major, John (1943– ) prime minister, 1990–1997

Major served as foreign secretary in 1989 and

then CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER in 1989–90,

during which time GREAT BRITAIN joined the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) of the EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY (EEC). He won election as the CONSERVATIVE PARTY leader after the resignation of Margaret THATCHER. The difficult issues around the EEC, the POLL TAX, and the NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE were overcome in his successful bid for election in 1992. But these issues and internal wrangling within the party weakened his grip. He lost the next election, in 1997, to Tony BLAIR.

major generals, the rule of the

After a royalist uprising in 1655, Oliver

CROMWELL divided ENGLAND and WALES into 11

districts, each commanded by a major general. The military nature of the government was perhaps less annoying to the GENTRY—the natural rulers of society—than their demotion. The new PARLIAMENT of 1657 refused to supply the funds for this scheme, and a new constitution had to be written.