A B S T R A C T. Recent scholarship on the ideological origins of the British Empire has emphasized the importance of John Dee's imperial writings in justifying the Elizabethan exploitation of English Atlantic discoveries. Yet a closer reading of these writings in the context of European politics, Elizabethan Court intrigues, and Dee's occult natural philosophy and magical imperialism reveals their covert purpose of recovering a lost British Empire in Europe. Dee wrote initially to address both the chronic and acute problems facing the regime in 1576, but rather than being an autonomous authority whose ideas commanded attention because of their intrinsic power, he was subordinate to the Court patronage system. Consequently his writings only gained attention when revised to align with the policies of powerful courtiers such as the earl of Leicester, and even then influential Catholic courtiers could exploit contingent political circumstances to counter his influence. Dee's writings remained problematic not only because restoring the British Empire in Europe would entail confronting Spain, but also because in their hidden centre they proposed the creation of an apocalyptic empire by magical means, particularly the philosopher's stone. In the end the contingent events that made Dee's writings briefly influential ensured their ultimate irrelevance to Elizabethan policy-making.

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Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotlande and Irelande are an impressive monument to the fruitful co-operation of sixteenth-century scholars. This paper explores part of the creation of the Chronicles and examines some of the complex evidence about the involvement of William Harrison, author of the informative and entertaining Description of Britain published in the Chronicles. For the discovery of a manuscript of Harrison's ‘Great English chronology’ allows a fuller appreciation of his role in the Holinshed group, and reveals tensions within the intellectual milieu from which the Chronicles emerged. The ‘Chronology’ demonstrates that Harrison's Description, written to a commission in 1576, was a deviation from the main thrust of his own work, and together with his other contributions was a late and complicating development in the genesis of the Chronicles. The ‘Chronology’ also shows that some of Harrison's work was censored by Holinshed where it offended his sense of legitimate historical discussion. Before the second edition of the Chronicles in 1587, there was further disagreement about the value of Harrison's contribution.

invited by reception staff to leave the clinic until they were sent another text when they were due to be seen. Patients in possession of a Smartphone could refresh a link to check their place in the queue at any time. IR1s and patient feedback were assessed before and after implementation Results Average no of symptomatic patients seen over a weekend was 70 with an average wait time of 89 min. In the 4 month period prior to the software implementation there were 6 IR1 forms received from staff about patient aggression. In the 4 month period after its introduction there were none. Two months post its introduction the average number of patient complaints about waiting times received was 1 from an average of 4 prior to its use. Conclusion The introduction of the queuing software has been an inexpensive and effective method of reducing complaints about patient waiting times and improving patient satisfaction with the service.

This article brings together scattered, but important, new evidence about foreign policy debates in and around the reconvened parliament of early 1576. It demonstrates that co‐operative parliamentary management did not exclude principled political differences from the Commons, but nor were members of the Commons trying to ‘seize the initiative’ when they initiated foreign policy discussion. The queen and her privy council, for a variety of reasons, had initially sought parliamentary support for a foreign policy guided by religious solidarity rather than dynastic legitimacy, but when they belatedly abandoned this plan they underestimated the strength of the expectations they had raised. Some zealous protestant members of the Commons felt encouraged to believe that parliament would act as the great council of the realm, to be consulted over important matters of state, and especially whether Elizabeth should accept the recently‐offered sovereignty of Holland and Zealand. The retreat from this position began with the arrival of Champagney, envoy of the Spanish viceroy in the Netherlands, Requesens. Champagney exploited the gap between Elizabeth's position and the committed protestants on her council, and especially Burghley's internal debate between his protestant idealism and his economic and strategic realism. Burghley's eventual withdrawal from the proposed arrangement to enlist virulently anti‐catholic Commons' members in support of the ambitious foreign policy bitterly disappointed large sections of popular protestant opinion in the ‘public sphere’, who virulently attacked both Burghley and Elizabeth. This enabled conservatives to mount increasingly effective responses against both radical protestantism and its dangerous propensity for foreign entanglements.