Where does our conscience come from, and how reliable is it? Exploring its deep historical roots, Paul Strohm considers what conscience has meant to successive generations. Using examples from popular culture and contemporary politics he demonstrates that conscience is as important today as it has ever been.

Throughout the turbulent early years of the fifteenth century, English magnates were having more than usual difficulty gaining access to, or remaining in, their own graves. Like Hitchcock's Harry, they kept being moved around. One of Henry IV's first acts upon acceding to the throne was to move Thomas, duke of Gloucester, to a better location in Westminster Abbey. After defeating Henry Hotspur at Shrewsbury, Henry IV first permitted his burial but then disinterred him and displayed his body suspended between (...) two millstones to prove he was really dead. Consumed with a sense of his own sinfulness, Henry IV eschewed the Westminster burial dictated for him by tradition and chose to lie in Canterbury instead. And of course the remains of Henry IV's victim, Richard II, lay out of place for thirteen years at Langley abbey before the new king, Henry V, arranged his reburial in his previously commissioned sepulchre in the Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster. (shrink)