This essay analyses Lady Elizabeth Webster's journal, in which she chronicled her travels across Europe in the 1790s. Her journal suggests that there was an English community in Naples, whose codes of conduct were modelled on those that regulated elite society in England. Elite women who transgressed the rules could face consequences: Naples was not a place where women could hide from gossip and scrutiny. The journals also provide a fascinating insight into an elite woman's approach to sexual mores and demonstrate that, while attitudes towards sexual behaviour were highly internalised, how individuals put codes into practice was far more complex and open to discrepancies.

Between c.1796 and 1809, Lady Harriet Ponsonby, Countess Bessborough and Lord Granville Leveson Gower were embroiled in a passionate affair. Their liaison created tensions in aristocratic society because they belonged to rival political parties, the Whigs and the Tories respectively. In the early years of their relationship, Leveson Gower was emerging on the political scene, while the countess was already well‐versed in the complexities of party politics. Leveson Gower thus solicited her advice and support and Bessborough duly shared her knowledge and insight into the political world, which created an unusual dynamic that scholars have yet to explore. This article examines several letters that Bessborough wrote to Leveson Gower to analyse how she supported her lover's fledgling parliamentary career and how she navigated their political differences. I argue that Bessborough adapted a rhetoric of affection, deference, duty, and loyalty, that was typically used by aristocratic wives, to justify her interest in her lover's career and her passion for parliamentary politics. This article contributes to scholarship that explores aristocratic women's political participation by examining the strategies a political mistress could employ to exert influence over men. It also illustrates the value of using methodologies from the history of emotions to investigate the drives and passions that shaped interactions in the late 18th‐century political sphere.

No abstract

No abstract

This study focuses on the implications of blended learning for taught postgraduate education. It takes as its focus the pilot year of the MA History at the University of Northampton, which had been redesigned to blend online and face-to-face delivery. By employing a student researcher to canvass students' views, the project evaluates the implications of the delivery mode for the specific skills associated with the discipline of History. As well as evaluating this particular programme, the project uses it as a case study to develop a transferable framework for blended learning. The article argues that both online and classroom delivery can develop the key skills associated with postgraduate study in History, but in significantly different ways, so combining them in an effective blend can offer a pedagogical enhancement.