"To some extent the interpretation of the story of parliamentary reform in this period has been modified since Veitch's day in consequence of the displacements in eighteenth-century historical studies arising out of the work of Sir Lewis Namier. Namier's studies have deepened our understanding of the way in which the old representative system, despite its illogical absurdities, had an effective functional role in a society in which politics was the virtually unchallenged preserve of a landed oligarchy. The continuance of such a system depended upon the maintenance of a stable and homogeneous society, homogeneous in the sense that people were for the most part conscious of the direct or not very direct connection of their fortunes with the "landed interest" and were, despite diversities of rank and fortune, on the whole satisfied with their niches in society."