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This chapter assesses three noblemen who formed part of the core of Richard II's personal support in the years of his tyranny. John Montagu inherited the earldom of Salisbury, and had expectations that Richard II would support him in a long-running legal dispute with the Mortimer dynasty dating back to the events of the reigns of Edward II and Edward III. The chapter shows that although Montagu remained loyal to Richard, he did not gain all that he sought. Thomas Despenser, the son and heir of a wealthy lord with great land holdings in Wales, became Richard's chosen man in Gloucestershire and West Oxfordshire, and was raised to the title earl of Gloucester. The oldest of three men, William Lescrope, was an experienced military commander and heir to a Yorkshire baron. Lescrope was especially trusted by Richard II, as he received massive delegated authority in Ireland, Wales, and Chester. All three of these men benefited from Richard II's rule and died in the events of 1399-1400.

This chapter begins by discussing the reasons for the prevailing historiographical neglect of rural politics. It clarifies several points regarding the relationship between the rural voters and the Liberal party, and the differences between the semi-official political culture of the late Victorian Liberal party and the more informal, but no less strongly ingrained, political culture of the radical rural electorate. It also focuses the discussion on case studies in North Essex, South Oxfordshire, and the Holmfirth division of the West Riding of Yorkshire by taking a look at their economic, political, demographic, and religious conditions. It notes that this study relied heavily on sources such as rural press; the private papers of three Liberal politicians: Herbert Samuel, Joseph Albert Pease, and Henry Joseph Wilson; and the sparse official party records on rural Liberalism.

Marchamont Nedham is the serial turncoat of the Puritan Revolution. The civil wars, which shaped his life, broke out in the month, August 1642, of his twenty-second birthday. Nedham—or often Needham (his surname should be pronounced so as virtually to rhyme with ‘freedom’)—came from a family of moderate substance in Burford in Oxfordshire. After a period at All Souls College, Oxford, he was appointed usher and assistant teacher at Merchant Taylors' School, an experience that would leave him with a long-standing interest in education and a long-lasting awareness of its low levels of pay. In 1641 he found other employment, as a clerk at Gray's Inn. Then, in 1643, the growth of civil war journalism gave him his chance to expand his career. He wrote for parliament in the first civil war; for the king in the second; and for the successive Puritan regimes.

This chapter explores the problem that confronted an Oxfordshire village in 1631 when the corpse of an excommunicated recusant gentlewoman, Mrs Elizabeth Horseman, was illicitly and secretly buried inside the parish church. At issue was the sanctity of consecrated ground, the flexibility of ecclesiastical discipline, and the clash between neighbourliness and law. ‘God's’ blessing on them that buried the dead, it is fit the dead should be buried’, remarked a sympathetic observer. Still, it took the bishop of Oxford several months of frustrating inquiry before he could guess who had performed the deed. The problem in Oxfordshire stemmed from a lack of consensus about how to deal with the legal and social consequences of excommunication.

Government is central to the activity of planning. Here the basic functioning of planning in England in central and local government is summarised. The place of planning as a part of public bureaucracies is analysed. It is argued that bureaucracy is a vital and valuable aspect of government, which can help to promote fair treatment and prevent corruption. However, planning is only in part a bureaucratic activity, as much of its work demands specific and creative responses to local circumstances. Analysis is then given of the operation of planning at the local level, identifying the role of local politicians and the formation of local political and ideological planning contexts. Case studies draw on Oxfordshire and Hampshire experience in recent decades. A final section analyses the ideological and political framing of the neighbourhood planning instituted in England in the last decade, identifying the weaknesses that this suffers from, as well as some potential for learning.

This chapter examines the economic problems and social unrest that in 1549 erupted into riot and rebellion during Edward VI's reign. Copies of the new Prayer Book were distributed, and the new liturgy was performed in place of the Latin mass on Whitsunday even in remote rural parishes. One of these was Sampford Courtenay, a small village in mid-Devon. The chapter first describes the events that led to the Sampford Courtenay rebellion, along with similar uprisings in Cornwall and in Norfolk. It then considers the Oxfordshire rebellion, a short but bloody civil war portrayed by many as a conflict between forces of Christ and Antichrist. It also discusses the sequence of events that led to the removal from power of Edward's uncle, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. Finally, it analyses the assertion by evangelicals that radicals and Romanists both distorted the Word of God.

Patrick Keiller’s film Robinson in Ruins was shot on location in and around the Cherwell Valley in rural Oxfordshire. Keiller offers insights into his filmmaking practice–in particular his technical choices when it came to filming the landscape. He also explains how far the film was prompted by what appeared to him to be a discrepancy between, on one hand, the cultural and critical attention devoted to experience of mobility and displacement and, on the other, a tacit but seemingly widespread tendency to hold on to formulations of dwelling that derive from a more settled, agricultural past.

Personality is a difficult concept to define: it is ex­tremely hard to encapsulate what makes a person ‘who they are’ in general terms. Personality is typically thought of as the set of characteristics which make us think, feel, and act in our own unique way. Personality is pervasive; people tend to behave in similar ways throughout life and across differing social and inter­personal contexts. The characteristics of personality, called traits, are a set of common features which are observed in variable degrees in different people. Traits provide a useful structure in which to describe a per­sonality: Box 31.1 shows some common personality traits. Some traits may be perceived as an asset to the individual, while others are more of a nuisance. We all have a little more or a little less of any given trait. The word ‘temperament’ rather than personality is used to describe the behavioural characteristics dis­played by young children. This is because our person­ality takes time to develop; it is shaped by a multitude of environmental, biological, and factors which interact throughout early life. By our late teens or early twenties, the majority of individuals have the set of traits which define the personality we will have for the rest of our lives. Having an understanding of an individual’s per­sonality helps clinicians to predict their patients’ re­sponse to illness and its treatment. The majority of us have some less favourable aspects to our personality, but we work around them and/ or have more prominent favourable traits that allow us to get on with our lives. For a minority of people, their less favourable traits are so prominent that they cause problems for themselves or for those around them. It is these people who we think of as having a personality disorder. It is extremely difficult to draw a line between normal personality and personality disorder, so this simple pragmatic approach is helpful in clinical practice. People with a personality disorder may: … ● have difficulties with social situations and relationships; ● have difficulties controlling their feelings and/ or behaviour; ● react in unusual ways to illness or to treatment; ● behave in unusual ways when mentally ill; ● have more extreme or unusual reactions to stressful events; ● behave in ways that are detrimental to themselves or others ● be more prone to developing other types of mental disorder.

In 1937 John Piper’s article ‘Prehistory from the Air’ was published in the final volume of the modernist art journal Axis. In it, Piper compares the landscapes of southern England, seen from above, with the modernist works of Miró and Picasso (Fig. 4.1). His interest in the aerial view is not, however, confined to its Formalist-aesthetic aspect; Piper also points out how flying and aerial photography have accelerated archaeological theory and practice. Aerial photographs, he writes, ‘have elucidated known sites of earthworks and have shown the sites of many that were previously unknown’. They are also, he continues, ‘among the most beautiful photographs ever taken’. The aerial view, it seems, could be both investigative and aesthetic. The use of aerial photography by archaeologists, known as ‘aerial archaeology’, began in earnest in Britain in the decade in which Piper was writing, although its possibilities were beginning to be suspected in the 1920s, after the use of aerial photography for reconnaissance purposes in the First World War. In the interwar period it was British archaeologists who pioneered the new methods of aerial archaeology. In his book on aerial archaeology, Leo Deuel notes that until the 1950s ‘no other European country had made any comparable effort to tap the almost limitless store of information consecutive cultures had imprinted on its soil’. As many commentators pointed out, the British landscape offered plenty of such ‘information’: the series of invasions, settlements, clearances, and developments that constitute British history have made the landscape a veritable palimpsest, the layers of which can potentially be revealed in an aerial view. Archaeologists became expert in deciphering aerial views of this palimpsest, as we shall see. But such views of Britain exercised an appeal beyond archaeological circles. Aerial photography showed Britain as it had never before been seen; it revealed aspects of the landscape hitherto unknown, or at least never before visualized in such concrete form. The aerial view ‘made strange’ long-familiar features: hills seemed to disappear, towns and cities might appear tiny, rivers and roads ran through the two-dimensional scene like veins.

This introductory chapter outlines the history of the Wytham Woods in Oxfordshire. It provides a historical account of major events that helped shape the Woods into its current state. It explains the history and development of the woodlands across Britain beginning with the last glaciation period to its transition into semi-natural woodland. It briefly describes the history of ownership of the Woods and highlights the University of Oxford's acquisition of the land from Raymond ffennell. It examines the Woods' management today by enumerating the University's objectives in maintaining conservation and to help in understanding human activity interaction with natural processes.

This chapter examines the role of Wytham Woods in the field of ecological research. It describes the area's role in helping to understand how ecology works at the medium to large landscape scale. It emphasizes on how the Wytham landscape provides a test bed for researchers in finding out how would species might thrive in a changing environment. It briefly looks first into the woodland distribution in Oxfordshire, and explains the basis of retaining and managing ‘ancient’ woodlands. It describes the biological diversity of the woodlands, and studies the grasslands and fens located in Wytham. It also highlights the numerous species' movement between patches within the Wytham Woods and the changes in the relationship between Wytham and its surroundings.

This chapter examines the ethical principles behind just allocation of health care resources in the UK, with particular emphasis on the National Health Service (NHS). These ethical considerations include equality of outcome and equality of persons or equity; the latter can be considered through the principles of fair process, need, and rescue. The chapter analyzes how these ethical principles work in practice on the national, regional, and local levels. The national level is governed by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, and uses the principles of cost effectiveness and equity in order to make fiscal and clinical recommendations to the lower levels. The chapter also looks at the Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust and how it uses the South Central Ethical Framework to make decisions about why an individual patient should receive a treatment that is not usually covered by the NHS. Finally, it discusses the issue of rescue and Individual Funding Request (IFR) panels.