STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY ® B.c.')4-A.D. US') m 5fcm ^ork I'tate QJallcge of J^gtituUuw ^t (Siatnell IninErBitH atljata, N. ?5. SItbtarg BRITON ROMAN. I^^^H Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014023406 DA 32 8 BS'"^" """"^'*y Library Sfories from British history (B.C. 54-A. 3 1924 014 023 406 CASWAI.LON, THE BRITISH CHIEF, TREATING FOR PEACE WITH JULIUS C^SAR 3tories from British J-Jistory (B.C. 54— A.D. 1485) SAXON WARRIOR RELEASING A LADY TAKEN CAPTIVE BY THE DANES. CONTENTS 1. How Uther saw many Ships . . .5 2. The Battle at the Stream . . . ]0 3. A Great Queen wars against the Romans . .14 4. Another Sort of Folk come to Britain . . 20 5. How the " Ber-sarks " fought at Anderida . . 24 6. The Pirate turned Farmer ... 28 7. A Peep at a Saxon Settlement — Part I . .33 8. ,, „ ,, Part II . 39 9. „ „ „ Part III . . 42 10. The Heathen Men .... 45 11. The First King of the English . . .50 12. A Great King .... 55 13. A King who was not Great . . .61 14. "The Last of the English "—Part I . . 66 15. „ „ „ Part II . .71 16. The Conqueror — Part I . . .75 17. „ Part II . . . .77 18. Dark Days in England ... 81 19. The Scourging of a King . . . .86 20. The King Comes Home . . . 91 21. The Merry Greenwood . . . .96 22. Sir Guy of Gisborne and Little John . . 100 23. Out of Evil comes Good . . . .106 24. Three Good Men and a Worthless King . Ill 25. A Great Lawgiver . . . .116 26. King Edward's Wars (1283-1307) . . 123 27. A Wonderful Victory . . . .129 28. Brave Father and Brave Son . . . 134 29. A Peep into the Past— Part I . . .140 30. ,, ,, ,, Part II . . 145 31. " Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears a Crown " . 150 32. Truth and Fable . . .153 33. A Fight against Fearful Odds . . .158 34. A Wonderful Maid . . . .163 35. The Red Rose and the White . . .168 36. A Glimpse Backwards — Part I . . 176 37. „ „ Part II . . . 181 38. „ „ Part III . . 189 39. „ ,, Part IV . . . 194 Historical Summary. . . . 198 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Saxon Warrior releasing a Lady taken captive by the Danes Ancient British Mortar .... Coin of Ancient Briiish Chief " On the Prow of the Galley stood a stem-faced Man ' In the British Camp Ancient British Um found in a Chief's Grave Part of Ancient British Bracelet Early Roman Coin with Figure of Britannia " A Harper came forward and began to Chant a War Song Saxon Drinking Horn The Pirate turned Farmer . Brooch of the Anglo-Saxon Period Cissa meets the Swineherd Interior of a Saxon House The5 Danes carrying off Captives Comb of the Danish Type Coin of King Alfred. English Chieftain of the Days of King Alfred King Alfred at the Launch of a Warship Coin of King Canute .... King Canute rebuilding a Monastery . EngUsh Baker of the Time of Edward the Confessor Duke William at the Battle of Hastings Old Cover of Domesday Book Domesday Book .... Cooking in Norman Times Handmill for Grinding Corn . Signs Worn by Canterbury Pilgrims A Monk at work in the Monastery King Richard's Return from the Crusade . " Robin watches for a Moment " King John overtaken by the Tide in the Wash Our First Great Naval Battle Edward I on Progress with two Judges Edward I and the Claimants to the Scottish Throne The Advance of the English at Bannockbum . Queen Philippa and the Burgesses of Calais Chaucer at the Court of Edward III . Harvesting the Lord of the Manor's Com. Badges worn by Retainers Wilham de Melton at the Gate of the Town Gold Coin of Richard II Henry IV ... . The English on the Field of Agincourt before the Batt Joan of Arc taken Prisoner Jack Cade in London "Master Whistler laid his hand on his son's shoulder Old Charing Cross . Dickon on the way to Uxbridge . A Company of Pilgrims COLORED PLATES Caswallon treating for Terms of Peace with Cssar Frontispiece Queen Boadicea at the Walls of Verulam ... 17 A Trial before a Saxon King . . . . ' . 51 The Landing of the Normans . . . . ' . " 70 Robin Hood and S^r Guy of Gisbome . ' . ' 103 Edward 1 giving his Last Message to his Son, the Prince of Wales. ' 122 Henry of Monmouth leading liii Men to Battle . . 155 The Knighting of Prince Henry of Lancaster . . " 174 Stories from British History. I.— HOW UTHER SAW MANY SHIPS. WO _ thousand years ago ; and a young, skin-clad savage lay along the grassy top of a white cliff, and gazed across a heaving stretch of sea. Beside him were bow and sheaf of arrows ; and when his eyes grew dazzled with the glitter of the hot May sun, he cut in the turf with a bronze knife the rude outline of a horse. The breeze tossed his red hair about his neck and blew cool over his heated skin. This skin was fair, but traced with curious circular patterns in blue, with, here and there, the grin- ning face of some fearful beast or the coiling figure of a snake. The lad was long of limb and muscular, blue-eyed and red-haired ; and he was patient, for he watched the strip of tossing sea for many hours. 2. His watch had commenced with the dawn, before that time which we know as " five-o'clock in the morning," and it was long past our school hour of nine when he sat suddenly up, thrust his knife deeply into the turf, and gave his longest and keenest look seaward. Right away on the 6 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. southern sky-line was a black dot ; soon there was another, and yet another, and at last a straggling, moving Une of tiny, black objects. " Modred was right," muttered the boy, " here come the ships from Gaul." 3. The young savage watched the dots grow larger and more numerous, then gathered up his weapons and ran inland to the belt of green woods that lay back from the sea. Threading many a twisting path, he arrived at length at a group of circular wooden huts. Here some hun- ters were seen skinning deer they had shot in the woods, women were busy baking oaten cakes in ovens of clay, men were using stone mortars for grinding, and a smith was sharpening some curved bronze blades to arazor-Uke edge. All looked up as the youth came panting in, and their eyes asked questions, although their lips were silent. 4. On a mound under a mighty oak tree sat a half-score of warriors, and to these the runner went. "Thy news, Uther ? " they asked. ANCIENT BRITISH MORTAR. [British Museum.) HOW UTHER SAW MANY SHIPS. 7 " The ships are in sight," he rephed. " How many ? " The lad held up the fingers of both hands about a dozen times. " As many as that/' he said. 5. The warriors looked at one another. One, whose name was Modred, stood up. " These men of Rome are come in number like the fishes of the sea. Let runners go and gather all our tribes ; we will send messengers also to Caswallon, the great chief, so that he may summon the tribes from far and near. r\\y jj , We beat these Romans back once, iv'^i'/vii and we shall beat them back again ! " \ cA , ■ 6. From the forest camp in all directions went the swift-footed /"'J^J^X runners. They came to villages east ».*I^1^J and west and north. From the ''V;i'>:c'l%^;. cleared tops of hills, that raised their •"^ ' _ COIN OF ANCIENT heads above the waving ocean of British chikf. trees, columns of dense smoke rose skyward, and before the sun set, a score of tribes knew that the mighty soldiers of Rome were come from Gaul to attack them. 7. Uther went back to his place on the top of the cHff. Almost every minute of the afternoon warriors came running or riding to the sea-shore, to watch the ships that moved slowly but surely northwards. What a brave sight the galleys made with their sails spread to the breeze, their great oars 8 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. sweeping to and fro in the waters, and the sun flashing back from the hnes of brazen shields that topped the bulwarks ! But all this show and glitter brought no fear to the hearts of the Britons. Had they not beaten back these Romans ? Could they not beat them back again ? 8. About half-a-mile from the shore the rowers ceased their rowing. One galley came closer in, and carefully noted the josthng, shouting array of warriors that packed the white chffs and covered the yellow sands. Their fierce cries rang in their ears, and arrows flew through the air, striking the waters with a sharp, hissing sound ! 9. The fleet went northwards on the tide, the Britons following along the shore until night swallowed up both. But the next morning showed the Roman galleys drawn up just beyond bow-shot of the land. 10. Into the sea rushed the red-haired islanders, shooting arrows, hurling spears, some even clam- bering up the sides of the galleys, and chopping with their axes at the men behind the wall of shields. The Romans hesitated. How fierce were these skin-clad warriors of Britain ! 11. On the prow of one galley stood a stern- faced, keen-eyed man watching all. He whispered to a standard-bearer who stood beside him. The brave fellow smiled proudly, sprang into the water and waded towards the shore. With a yell the ON THE PROW OF THE GALLEY STOOD A STERN -FACED, KEEN-EYED MAN WATCHING ALL. iO STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. Britons dashed towards him. He cried aloud to his comrades, and with an answering shout they sprang into the waves after him. 12. The yellow water soon ran with red. Little by little the trained Romans pushed back the savage foe. Thousands were fighting and strug- gling waist high in the sea. The Roman line moved on and on. The firm sand was gained. The Britons broke and fled ; and that night the enemy camped and slept on their shore. Gaul — France. Caswallon — Chief of the Cassii ; his capital was Verulam (St. Albans). Cassio, hamlet in Hertfordshire, still preserves this British name. Galley — a ship rowed by oars. Prow — forepart. 2.— THE BATTLE BY THE STREAM. JIGHT was falling ; darkness had come and gone many times since Uther fought the Roman warriors in the sea, striving, like the gallant lad he was, to do his little to keep a hated foe from gaining a footing in his island home. Now he limped wearily and painfully along the lower slopes of a hill. The deerskin shoes were torn from his feet; he was covered with mud, and his legs were streaked red where the briars had scratched them. 2. The stern-faced warrior that had stood in the prow of the Roman galley was none other than Julius Caesar, the greatest general that ever fought for mighty Rome. Back through their TH6 fiATTtE BY THE STREAM. 11 forests, over their rolling hills had he driven the brave Britons. Village after village had fallen into his hands; yet they still withstood him, waylaid his men in the woods and cut them off in the marshes ; and all the while the tribes were gathering under the great CaswaUon, resolved to stay the conqueror's march. 3. Uther toiled on. Not far off was the camp of his king, and he carried news of the enemy. Above him now were the twinkling stars ; before him the gleaming of a hundred fires. The hum of a crowd was in his ears, and presently he was pushing his way through throngs of men. He went to the council fire, told his tidings, and then, too tired to eat, curled himself up on the grass and feU asleep. 4. Morning came, and with the first flush of yellow in the east, bodies of men went southwards, scattered like flights of hornets to sting the foe and do him mischief. Uther bathed in the river, roasted some boar's flesh at a fire, and prepared himself for the work that lay before him. Around him were tens of thousands of stout warriors ; and sturdy little horses were being harnessed to low chariots, to whose wheels were fixed long curved knives that would mow down warriors as scythes reap corn. 5. Outposts began to fall back to the river bank ; messengers galloped in. The foe was 12 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. IN THE BRITISH CAMP. The Britons getting their chariots ready for battle. The long curved knife, fixed to the wheel, is shown on the right. approaching, and bodies of his horsemen could be seen moving swiftly along the plain. The great Caswallon came along in his chariot. A mighty man was he, huge of limb and strong of face, and from thousands of throats his name rang out. He spoke bravely, confidently ; the proud Romans should be driven before his army like dead leaves before the wind. 6. The battle began. The Roman horsemen charged, but their attack was stoutly met. Then the British chariots spread out, the drivers THE BATTLE BY THE STREAM. 13 shouting, the horses neighing shrilly. Surely the Roman footmen would never withstand their onslaught ! 7. But what are these huge beasts that the warriors of Rome are driving before them ? They appear like moving hillocks, and from their huge heads dart a long, snake-like thing that utters a scream no British ears had heard before. The chariot horses are smitten with terror. They heed not the voices of the charioteers, and neither whip nor spear can urge them on. In their mad fright they wheel around, and dash into the masses of the archers and spearmen behind them, the terrible blades on the wheels cutting them down. 8. On come the Roman horsemen ; and the footmen, their shields a brazen wall before them, move forward at a run. The brave Britons are in hopeless confusion. They fight fiercely for a while, but their valour is vain. The day is lost, and the great Caswallon rides for his life. Uther is wounded and falls into the Romans' hands. Months afterwards he walks, a captive, through the streets of Rome, thousands of eyes turned curiously upon him, and his ears dinned with shouts and cries in a strange tongue. 9. After the battle, a short rest, and then the march of Caesar's legions begins anew. There are fights and skirmishes, but no great battle ; 14 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. and at last they reach the hill upon which stands the walled town which is Caswallon's capital. This surrenders. A treaty is made ; hostages are given, tribute is paid, and the eagle-banner of Rome is planted in the heart of the green island of Britain. 10. The great Caswallon still reigns in Verulam, but he must now bow the knee to a power greater than his own. The stern-faced Caesar goes back to his galleys, back to Gaul and southwards to sunny Rome ; but the Britons have felt the might of an arm that shall rule their land for hundreds of years. Hornets — a large species of wasp. The river — the Stour in Kent. Huge beasts — elephants. Legion — 4,000 to 6,000 men. Hostages — persons given up to a conqueror as pledges that agreements with him shall be kept faithfully. 3.— A GREAT QUEEN WARS AGAINST THE ROMANS. PNCE the time when Uther saw the Roman galleys, one hundred and fif- teen years have passed away. The ashes of the great Caswallon are buried, it may be, in an urn beneath a cairn. In Verulam — once his capital— his name is almost forgotten, and the place itself is so changed that the barbarian chieftain would hardly recognise his own city. A GREAT QUEEN WARS AGAINST THE ROMANS. 15 A deep ditch still runs round it, and it still stands on a hill. But its boundaries are greatly enlarged. Gone are the earthen walls and palisade, vanished are its groups of conical huts, thatched with reeds from the little river below. Fine houses and temples line the streets, which are well-planned, and a mighty wall of stone surrounds all. 2. The streets are thronged with people, who are no longer clad in the skins of the beasts that roam in the forests around them. Men and women alike are dressed in cloth or linen garments, loose and flowing and of many bright colours. The roadways are gay as flower-beds, but there is a wind stirring the flowers. The citizens of Verulam are restless and troubled. Men gather in groups and whisper together, and women drag their children into the shelter of their arms. ANCIENT BRITISH URN FOUND IN A chief's GRAVE. [British Museum.) 16 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 3. Some of the chief inhabitants are on the walls above the gate that looks towards Lon- dinium. They have watched since early dawn, and many a messenger has come, heated and dusty, and many another has gone forth. 4. About an hour before noon the watchers espy a Roman soldier riding hard for their walls. Before he can reach the gate, other soldiers, plying whips with might and main, and casting looks of fear behind them, come into view. Some have children before them on the horses, and there is one woman riding in the company, which does not number two score in all. The gate stands open, and they ride in. 5. " News ? News ? " cry the watchers. " The barbarians are close upon us," is the answering cry. " Legions of them, under the Queen Boadicea, have pulled down Londinium to the very ground. They are marching hither- wards eager as wolves. Unless your walls are strong and your soldiers many, we counsel you to fly to the woods, for the barbarians cover up the face of the country, and will spare neither old nor young." 6. Now the garrison is weak, for the Roman governor has marched a great army to the moun- tains of the north-west to crush the Britons that dwell among them. But, after taking counsel, the men of Verulam resolve to trust to the strength z < m w > o H o 2: w w ^ O V !° •--, ^ (U (J rt c 11! -= £ .^ o 2f o ^ in f Q Oj a: ^ QJ W 1- — ^ b^ 3 j: o.S '5 H ^^ +-t s '5 = ^ D s '-' +3 i^ 'C z D ■«i. u "K - 2 .< 1° S fc CC i]> '-, ■s ^r£ < c ■3-^ K &t ■_ Ss ■o.H o tl ■HI [Z4 :3 cd C X 2 ■u J= •^ QJ < 5^ S.!2 o Eg. ci ^1 «1' a K ^ ^ ^ -s' -M Cd H 1? s: E o o o :£ '^« ,K ^<: O '~ c z; 1 .2 -M o CQ 50 tr. HH fl-> ■" P "5 |£ CQ ^ CO '^ 0.5 A,'^ o ^ d 5f s « A GREAT QUEEN WARS AGAINST THE ROMANS. 19 of their mighty walls. The cattle are driven in, and preparations made for defence. 7. The people flock to the temples to pray to the gods of Rome for help against the foe. Then shouts come from the walls, and the worshippers rush out. The roar of a multitude is heard. The rebel Britons are in sight, and foremost, in a chariot drawn by horses, rides a tall woman, her golden hair streaming in the wind. She is Boadicea, the proud queen whom the Romans whipped and insulted. She is wild for revenge, and tens of thousands of warriors are surging and shouting behind her. 8. A terrible fight follows. Verulam's walls are useless against such a mighty host. The gates are broken. The tribesmen pour in, and put every one to the sword. Then they set the city on fire. Only a strong hand can save the Roman power in Britain. 9. The strong hand comes, many weeks after. The governor has defeated the Britons in the north-west, and slain their bards and priests that urged them to battle. He marches south. The queen goes forth to meet him. Her men are brave, and she has the heart of a lioness. But the Romans are brave also, and they have better weapons and are splendidly drilled. They gain a great victory, and Boadicea poisons herself, because she will not be taken a captive to Rome 20 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. for people to stare at her, and, maybe, mock her also. After the death of the brave queen, the Romans sent better governors to Britain. Caim-a large heap of stones. Palisade-a high wooden fence. Londinium-London. Bards-singers, poets. PART OF ANCIENT BRITISH JET BRACELET. {British Museum.) 4.— ANOTHER SORT OF FOLK COME TO BRITAIN. ROM the time of which we shall tell in this lesson back to that May morning when Uther, a painted savage, watched the galleys of Csesar, is a long stretch of five hun- dred and forty-five years. That is a long, long time. If we ourselves could go back five hundred and forty-five years from to-day we should find ourselves in the reign of Edward the Third ; we should be shouting "Hurrahs" for the valiant ANOTHER SORT OF FOLK COME TO BRITAIN. 21 Black Prince and the brave archers who fought for him at Crecy, and we should see an England wholly unlike the England of to-day. It is possible that, if the Black Prince spoke to us, we should not understand a word of what he said. 2. So, too, from the time of the painted, skin- clad Uther, fifty-four years before Christ was born in Bethlehem, to the year four hundred and ninety-one Anno Domini, there were vast changes ^^^^ • EARLY ROMAN COIN WITH THE FIGURE OF BRITANNIA. in Britain. The country was still largely forest, and there were wide marshes where nothing dwelt except fish and wild-fowl. But there were also smiling fields and leafy orchards and vineyards. The mud hut of the Briton was gone, and beautiful Roman villas were to be seen in the green valleys. 3. The winding path through forest and marsh was widened and straightened into a broad, paved road. The villages of barbarians had 22 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. become the towns of a well-educated, prosperous, civilised folk. In short, the Romans had turned the Briton from a savage into a hardworking, peaceable farmer or trader. And he had also become a Christian. 4. But the good time, the happy time, was going, and days of sorrow had dawned. The Romans no longer governed the island of Britain, and were fighting hard for their home lands. Armies of dark-skinned, ill-looking savages from Asia were sweeping westward, conquering and destroying. And a race of tall, fair-skinned warriors from the north were also seizing the Roman lands. These latter were known as Goths. 5. Britain was attacked in her turn. From the north of the island the Picts and Scots came fighting and burning ; and frorn across the North Sea, from the shores of the Baltic, came a daring race of sailors and warriors to kill and rob along our eastern coasts. These men were known as Saxons, and they had caused the Roman soldiers plenty of trouble before their Emperor called them away for his own protection. 6. A British king, named Vortigern, who ruled in Kent, made friends with some of the fierce robbers from the Baltic, and paid them to come and help him against the Picts and Scots. Eager for gain and plunder, they came wiUingly enough, and fought bravely for him. But they and their ANOTHER SORT OF FOLK COME TO BRITAIN. 23 friends saw that fair and fertile Britain was a better dwelling-place than their own flat and chilly home ; so they settled among the Britons. 7. The new settlers soon found that the Britons had lost much of their skill in fighting, and were not able to withstand them ; so they determined to seize all the country for themselves. But the Britons were brave, and a war that lasted hundreds of years began. In the end the Saxons and their relations, the Angles and Jutes, conquered most of the island from the Forth to the English Channel. 8. Amongst the highlands of Scotland and the mountains of Wales only did the old inhabitants keep their independence. The rest of the land became Angle-land or England, but for a long time it was not one kingdom, as each chieftain set himself up as king in the portion he conquered. 9. The Saxons were heathens, and they hated the Britons because they were Christians. As conquerors they were often very cruel, refusing to spare the lives of their beaten foes. In the next lesson we shall see how they captured a fortress called Anderida, which the Romans had built in Britain. The little town of Pevensey, on the Sussex coast, now stands where Anderida once stood. Black Prince — see Lesson 28. Anno Domini — in the year of the Lord. Villa — a gentleman's house. 24 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 5.— HOW THE "BER-SARKS" FOUGHT AT ANDERIDA. STIFLING July day drew to a close. The night, hot and windless, crept over sea and land. The sentinel on the great round tower of Anderida looked to the north, and found that he could no longer distinguish the long line of hills against the sky. South of him the waves rolled gently on the beach, and he could just see their white crests as they curled and broke. Away in the west the summer lightning was flashing a pale blue in the bank of clouds. The great fortress was still, but a murmuring as though from a nest of giant bees came up from the land outside. 2. Presently there was an echo of footsteps, and two men with helmets and breastplates of brass stood on the battlements. The younger one, dark-haired, dark-eyed, hook-nosed, showed that he had had Roman forefathers. He spoke to the sentinel. " What news ? " " The foe are busy, and they light no cooking-fires, O Captain ! " 3. The young chief turned to his companion, "Didst hear that answer, Pendragon ? " " I heard, Marcus. The Saxon can fast for once, seeing how full-fed he hath been with our cattle these many years. Four summers have HOW THE BER-SARKS FOUGHT AT ANDERIDA. 25 gone since we first saw his galleys in the harbour, and fought him on yonder sands." 4. " And to-night we shall fight him again." " Ay, Marcus, and for the last time ! " " I will not think so," replied Marcus, hotly ; " our walls are unbroken, our gates strong. Why should we fail to beat him back ? " 5. " Because our time is come. Think, my friend, and look around. We hold nothing except these walls. Go east along the shore to the very edge of Britain, the Saxons have it all. The forests and hills behind us are theirs also ; our homes are theirs, our cattle are theirs, our men are dead and their wives and children slaves. The chief, Ella, has sworn an oath to Odin, his god, that he will sleep to-night on thy couch." 6. " He hath boasted before." " I know ; but to-night he will make his boast good. Our garrison, with death, wounds and sickness is shrunk to six-score men, and these are half-starved. The Saxons are ten times our number, and their strength has increased every hour of to-day. Anderida must fall, to-night." 7. " Thou art not grown fearful, Pendragon ? " " Thou shalt see me fight to-night, Marcus, as I never fought before. My body is weak with fasting, but my last fight shall be my best. I go to my post at the gate." 8. Marcus sighed. He kissed his friend, then A HARPER CAME FORWARD AND BEGAN TO CHANT A WAR SONG. HOW THE " BER-SARKS " FOUGHT AT ANDERIDA. 27 leaned over the wall to \\atch the dim scene below him. The noise grew ; one could plainly hear the rattle of M^eapons. Presently a light flashed out. A faggot of brushwood was kindled; beside it stood the huge figure of the chieftain, Ella, and behind him was a mass of fierce faces. He held up a spear for silence, then spoke a few hot words that came clearly up to the listening Britons. 9. The Saxons answered their chief \\ith a \\ild shout. A warrior sprang forward, pulled off his steel- winged cap and threw it at Ella's feet ; in another moment his corselet lay beside it, and his breast was bare to the hnen shirt. Scores of others, yeUing fiercely, followed his example, some of the 3'ounger warriors stripping oft" shirt also, and standing naked from the waist upwards. The heart of Marcus sunk. " They mean death or \dctor3' to-night," he muttered, " and scorn to protect their bodies." 10. A harper came forward and commenced to chant a war-song. The warriors turned and ran up to the fortress. A shower of arrows met them. By scores the}' plunged into the moat. Some SN\am for the bridge, swarmed up the chains hke cats, hacked away at the fastenings, and brought it down \\ith a crash. Instantly their axes were into the gates. From the towers spears and arrows rained upon them, but they hewed on. 28 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 11. A band of young men, each carrying a bundle of spears, swam for the walls, which were of earth faced with stone. Into the cracks between the stones they thrust their spears and clambered up, hand over hand. The Britons, men, women and children, spread along the top. They thrust them back with poles, shot them down, hurled stones upon them, threw blazing torches in their faces ; but up they came, up, up, ever up. Nothing could stay them. 12. The mighty axes sphntered the great gate into pieces. The Ber-sarks poured in like wolves into a sheep-fold. Step by step the desperate Britons were forced back. But, as the brave Pendragon had said, their time was come, and Ella slept that night as he had boasted. Sentinel — watchman. Distinguish — see. Battlements — the top of the walls where the garrison fought. Ella — the first king of the South Saxons (Sussex), Corselet — shirt of steel. Moat — ditcji round a fort. Ber-sarks — that is, " Bare-shirts." 6.— THE PIRATE TURNED FARMER. JOU have read how the fair-haired Ber- sarks came to Britain when the Romans went away ; and you have also seen how the Saxon chieftain, Ella, fought at Anderida, and got himself a kingdom. Now these fair- haired warriors were the forefathers of most of us ; they gave us and our country the names THE PIRATE TURNED FARMER. 29 we still bear, and we speak the language of the fierce war-songs that they sang as they went into battle. We wiU pause for a moment or two, and try to understand more clearly who they were, and whence they came. 2. A glance at the map of Europe near to the Baltic Sea will show you a Uttle country called Denmark, or Danes-land. The northern portion is still known as Jut-land, that is the land of the Jutes. The men who helped Vortigern, the king of Kent, against the Picts and Scots were Jutes, and came from the little peninsula that still bears their name. 3. Below Denmark is a part of Germany. Hence, long time ago, came the Angles, or English, to conquer a part of Britain and make it their home. Thousands of them sailed over the North Sea in their carved galleys, or row-boats, and they brought with them their wives and their children, their flocks and their herds. 4. Now look at the stretch of flat, sandy coast from the river Elbe to the river Oder. Along this, shut in by great forests of pine trees, dwelt the Saxons. They were cousins to the Angles and the Jutes, and spoke much the same language; and we have seen one of their chiefs, EUa, flghting against the Britons in Anderida. 5. All these tribes of folk dwelt by the sea on low, cold, wind-swept lands. They were big 30 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. fellows, splendid sailors, terrible fighters and out-and-out robbers. They were well known as daring pirates centuries before Ella brought his Ber-sarks to conquer our beautiful green island. SAXON DRINKING HORN. {British Museum.) 6. Every summer they swarmed out from their harbours, clad in winged helmets and shirts of steel rings, grasping great battle-axes and long spears, heedless of storm and tempest, and greedy for plunder. The civilised, busy people, who lived on the coasts and along the great rivers of Britain, France and Spain, knew them and dreaded them. 7. They were heathens, worshipping chiefly a god of the air, called " Thor " or " Thunder," and an All-Father god whom they named " Odin," or " Woden." They worshipped also the Sun THE PIRATE TURNED FARMER. 31 and the Moon ; and the days of our week, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, still remind us of this. 8. Coming at first merely to rob, burn, and slay, and then sail away again, the Saxons grew to like the smiling land that was so much better than their own sandy flats, and at last they came to conquer and to keep. Centuries of Roman rule had made the Britons an industrious and peaceable people, who hated war. But they fought well in defence of their homes. The Romans had built strong forts and great cities ; the Britons had good arms and armour, and soon learned to use them again. Long, weary years went by ere they were driven back into the mountains of Cumberland, Wales, Devon and Cornwall. 9. The heathens from the Baltic were utter barbarians, and destroyed all the beautiful stone- built houses and churches that were scattered through the land. They seized upon the Briton's orchards and fields, but they burnt his stately home, building instead their rude huts of logs and thatch. They destroyed, too, the Briton's reU- gion and learning ; and, where they spared his hfe, they made him a slave and as great a savage as themselves. He gave up his faith in Christ, and bowed down to the wooden image of Woden. 10. But the Saxon kept up the tillage of the THE PIRATE TURNED FARMER. Saxons pulling down k Roman villa to bfiild a homestead. A PEEP AT A SAXON SETTLEMENT. I. 33 land, and multiplied his flocks and herds. He became a good farmer, and settled down to some- thing like an orderly life. He went no more to sea ; his ships rotted on the beach, and he forgot how to build fresh ones and sail them. The time came when a good bishop had to teach him all over again how to catch fish. Of course, these changes only came about in the time of the Ber-sarks' grandsons and great-grandsons. 11. Another thing happened in time to the Saxon. Good men came from Wales, Ireland, Scotland and the continent of Europe, and taught him that Thor and Woden were no gods, and so he became a Christian and built rough, wooden churches. His sons were taught to read and write, and year by year he became less and less a savage. Tiw, Frea and Saetere — other gods of the Saxons gave their names to Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. Industrious — hardworking. Note. — Our Saxon forefathers beUeved in fairies, elves, dwarfs and witches. Such trees as the oak, ash and thorn were sacred, as were also the horse, the wolf and the snake. Sometimes they offered human sacrifices to Woden. 7.— A PEEP AT A SAXON SETTLEMENT. PART I. URING all these centuries of time it must be remembered that the surface of our island was utterly unhke what it is to-day. There were no miles of green fields shut in by 34 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. trimmed hedges, and no network of roads along which men might ride. The Romans had cut a few highways, about half a dozen in all, to connect London with such cities as Lincoln, York, Chester, Gloucester and Bath, but where we now have thousands of roads and lanes, leading hither and thither, our forefathers had a few badly-marked paths through forest and marsh. 2. From Kent, through the south of England, to the mountains and bogs of Devon, stretched a vast forest infested with wolves and wild boars. North to south along the Pennines, and spread- ing over the Midlands, was another wide tract of woodland, broken only by the courses of the rivers ; and the basins of the Witham, Welland, Nen and Great Ouse formed a huge swamp or fen. Not one acre in twenty was cleared or drained for cultivation, 3. Here and there in the forest were little clearings, and in the clearing a Saxon village, inhabited by a family, or number of families, having the same name. The village was fenced in by ditch and new wooden railings, and such "shut-in" places were called "tons," "folds," "burghs," "worths," and "hams" (that is homes). Thus the " Paddings " lived in " Pad- dington," the " Kensings " in " Kensington," the " Mannings " in " Manningham " and so on. 4. There are still hundreds of place-names in A PEEP AT A SAXON SETTLEMENT. I. 35 England that remind us of the old Saxon families that first settled there. Then, where there were fords, or passages across a river, a little settle- ment would spring up, and thus we have " Oxford," " Bedford," " Hereford," and scores of such names aU over the country. BROOCH OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD. ( British Museum. ) 5. Now, if I close my eyes and let my mind go a long journey back into the past, I can see Cissa (Kissa), the son of Cynric (Kinric or Kenric), riding off from the monastery school for a few weeks of home life, and to help his father to gather in the harvest. I will tell you exactly what it is that I can see, and you must try to get the picture before your own eyes. 6. There is a low hill covered with dark green 3-(783) 36 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. woodsj and from the foot of the hill stretches a strip of level ground that reaches to the bank of a quiet river. The tiny plain is golden with waving corn ; there is not such another piece within a dozen leagues. Right on the river bank is a jumble of wooden buildings — one large and many small — all surrounded by a fence about ten feet high ; the large building is the church of a monastery^ and a Uttle bell in a wooden turret rings out that it is noon. 7. Beyond the monastery buildings, and still along the margin of the river, are three enclosures. The first is a vineyard, the second an orchard, and the third a well- tilled garden. The monks are busy in all, and the pious brothers are excellent gardeners. Cissa comes out at the gate near the main building, and the bridle of a pony is looped over his arm. 8. He is a yellow-haired, blue-eyed laddie, and has a round cap and a short cloak to match the colour of his eyes. The cloak is fastened with a silver brooch. Underneath he has a tunic of white linen girt with a yellow belt ; white trousers, that are cross-gartered from ankle to knee, cover his legs, and his shoes are of deerskin. In his belt is a long hunting-knife, and a sheaf, con- taining half a dozen short spears, hangs from the horn of his saddle. With him walks the aged monk who is his schoolmaster. A PEEP AT A SAXON SETTLEMENT. I. 37 9. The lad uncovers his head, and goes down on one knee before his teacher. A thin hand is laid upon the yellow curls. " God bless thee ! my son, and bring thee to thy father's house in safety. Commend me to thy gentle mother, and forget not, when they kiss thee at Acton, that there are some here that love thee also." 10. Cissa springs into the saddle, raises himself in the stirrups to wave a hand to some that stand within the gate, then rides happily off, the old monk shading his eyes from the sun, and watching him until he disappears round the bend of the stream. 1 1 . The young scholar has a ride of five leagues before him, fifteen miles of faintly-marked track over hill and through forest, and not one foot of dusty roadway. The sun rides almost directly overhead, and the shade of the thick woods is very welcome. 12. The cleared land around the monastery is quickly crossed, and the unshod hoofs of the pony are soon sounding softly on the springy turf of the woodland path. Oaks that have stood for a thousand years cast dancing shadows on the grass. Birds are twittering amongst the leaves, sleepy with the heat ; rabbits pop in and out and prick up their long ears, and a startled doe calls her fawn into the bracken. CISSA MEETS THE SWINEHERD. A PEEP AT A SAXON SETTLEMENT. II. 39 13. Presently there is a loud grunting. A herd of swine are crunching the acorns that are just beginning to fall. A barefooted swineherd, with ragged red hair, comes out of a thicket of brambles. Cissa knows him, for he is a freed slave that serves the monastery from which he has come. " Give ye good-day ! " cried the lad. " Give ye good-day, young master," replied the man, " the swine are getting good feeding to-day." " They should be fat ere I see them again," laughed Cissa. He forced his way through the grunting herd and rode on. Connect — join, link up. Turret — tower. "Ton," "fold," "burgh," "bury," "worth" — all mean fenced or protected enclosures. " C " in Saxon names is pronounced as " K." Monastery — a religious house inhabited by " monks " ; the head of a monastery is an " abbot." In ancient times the monasteries were the schools, hospitals, inns, and workshops of the nation. Cross-gartered — wound about with crossing strips of leather, thus binding the loose trousers to the leg. Bracken — ferns. 8.— A PEEP AT A SAXON SETTLEMENT. PART II. HE forest grew denser and denser, and the path wound up the hillside. The little pony, born in the forest, found its way easily enough through all the pitfalls of the track. Cissa came out to open sky again on the summit of the hill. He rested his steed, and then turned 40 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. down the slope to a second valley, which was narrower than the one in which the monastery stood. 2. Along the bottom of this valley a stream oozed rather than flowed, and the ground was treacherous and boggy. A stranger would have seen no path through the green moss and between the dark pools, but the lad put his pony's head towards a clump of rushes on the further side, and got across with dry hoofs. 3. For more than half-an-hour Cissa went slowly along the valley ; then he rounded the hiU and came to a stretch of open moorland. Here he went at a gallop, sending the deer scurrying before him. On the further edge of the moor was the village of the Belsings. The lad turned aside, and left Belsington far away to his right. Travellers kept away from settlements in those early days, and strangers were never welcome. 4. It was hot on the open moor, and the rider was glad when the forest began again. He gave his pony a drink at a pool, and then disappeared into the cool woodlands, whistling cheerfully. 5. Presently it appeared to him that there was an echo in the forest that he had never noticed before. He stopped whistling and listened. There was no answering sound. He whistled again the old ballad tune that had awakened the echo. Ah ! there was the answer. But it was no echo, A PEEP AT A SAXON SETTLEMENT. II. 41 for the tune went merrily on, and the whistle came from stronger lips than a boy's. 6. Cissa turned his pony towards a hollow, from whence the whistling came. He was nearing his home, and thought that some villager had ridden out so far a-hunting. The trees thinned, and he could see the smoke curling up from the little dell. There was a fire, but the figures that stooped over it sent a pang of fear through the boy's heart. He shrank back out of sight. "The heathen men ! " he cried, and galloped off as fast as his pony could travel. He did not draw rein until Acton was in sight. 7. In a break of the dense woodlands lay the little village, surrounded by a broad ring of tree- less ground. Patches of this were yellow with corn, other patches were green and dotted with sheep and cows belonging to the villagers. As Cissa came out from the belt of trees, he blew a blast on his horn to let all know that some one was approaching. 8. In those dangerous days no man dared cross the belt of cultivated ground, which sur- rounded the houses of a settlement, without giving the villagers warning. If he attempted to do so, any man might shoot him as an enemy. So Cissa, although the place was his home, blew his horn that all might know that someone was riding in. 42 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY, 9.— A PEEP AT A SAXON SETTLEMENT. PART III. |S soon as the horn blew, heads popped up from amongst the corn, children stopped their play for a moment, and some of the women looked out at the gate in the high wooden fence. The lad was recognised, and some ran forward to welcome him. He crossed the deep ditch and entered the gate. 2. Before him was a group of about forty wooden huts, built of rough-hewn timber from the neighbouring forest. These clustered round a large wooden house, many times bigger than the biggest of themselves, and to this house Cissa went. It was the dweUing-place of his father Cynric, a thane, or lord, who held much of the land round about. 3. A serf, or slave, with a brass collar round his neck, came forward, and took his young master's horse. Dogs came tumbling out to bark a wel- come, and three little maidens followed on their heels to give their brother a kiss. 4. Cissa gave each one a hug, and then went indoors. How dark it was after the bright sun- shine ! There were no large windows, only a few small holes high up in the wooden walls, and these wdre crossed with stout bars of lattice work. The door was large enough, when fully opened, for a horse and wagon to enter. INTERIOR OF A SAXON HOUSE. ' Cissa went down on his knees before his mother." 44" STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 5. The floor was of clay covered with rushes and bracken ; skins and rough woollen blankets were hung along the walls, and up the middle of the great room was a long table on trestles. There was a platform at the upper end, and on this was seated Cissa's mother and her maidens, all busy with spinning-wheel or needle. Just below them there was a pit in the earthen floor, and in this pit smouldered a fire. 6. Cissa went down on his knee before his mother, then rose up and kissed her very lovingly. She told him how well he looked, and he gave her the message from his teacher. The thane was out a-hunting, but would soon be home, as the afternoon was almost gone. 7. Cissa was very anxious to see his father, and his cheek went pale when he thought of the men who had whistled his ballad from the hoUow in the forest. No sooner did he hear the thane's horn than he ran to meet him. 8. Cynric, a big, brave-looking man, listened to his son's story. His face grew grave. " Art sure of their dress ? " he asked. " Quite sure, my father. Their helmets had hawks' wings on either side, their cloaks were red, and I saw the sun flash on their tunics of steel." 9. " They were Danes," said the thane. " I did not know that any had got so near to us. We must keep strict watch and ward, and house the THE HEATHEN MEN. 45 cattle at night. To-morrow I will try to seize them before they spy out this place, and carry the tidings to their fellows. Say nothing to thy mother and sisters." 10. " Why did they whistle in answer to my ballad ? " asked Cissa. " Thou wert whistUng an old song of our heathen forefathers, and the Danes know it as well as they did." 11. At sunset the men of the village of Acton gathered under the great oak behind the thane's house, heard the story that Cissa had brought, and held council as to what they should do to get rid of the terrible foes who had found their way so far over the hills. Ac-ton — the enclosure round the oak (ac = oak). The Saxons held their councils in the open air, usually under some tree on rising ground. The meeting was called the " moot." 10.— THE HEATHEN MEN. JHEN the lad Cissa saw the two strangers in the hollow of the forest, he cried out " The Heathen men ! " and fled away. His father called them " Danes." Now, who were these fellows in caps with wings, and wearing jackets of steel ? And why should the whisper of their name cause such a stir in the village of Acton ? 46 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 2. Do you remember the " Bare-shirts " that we saw fighting against the old Britons in the Roman fortress of Anderida ? They, too, wore winged caps and corselets of steel. But all that happened centuries before Cissa rode home from school for the harvest hohdays ; and the " Bare- shirts " were the lad's own forefathers, singing the war-songs that the Danes now sang, marching and fighting to the tunes that Cissa whistled. 3. When the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes left their homes on the Baltic, there were some tribes of their relations that did not make the journey westwards over the North Sea, but occu- pied the lands left empty by those who sailed away. In the course of time, these tribes in- creased so largely in numbers that they spread oyer what is now Germany, Holland, Denmark and Norway. They were big, bold fellows, wonderful sailors and hard fighters ; they were also heathen, as the Saxons had been, and worshipped Odin and Thor. 4. The day came when these men were no longer satisfied with their old homes. They learned that there were fairer and more fertile lands to the west. Like the Saxons, they launched their long ships, carved to look like dragons, and sailed away in search of adventure and plunder. They found plenty of both. 5. England was very near to them, and the THE DANES CARRYING OFF CAPTIVES. 48 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. English owned snug farms, with plenty of crops and cattle ; they had also built fine towns and handsome churches, filling the latter with many precious things. The Danes, or were greedy of all this, and whatever they could. 6. At first they came in a few ships only, and robbed along the coast and the river-mouths. But they soon grew stronger and bolder, and " Heathen Men," resolved to get COMB OF THE DANISH TYPE. {British Museum.) marched inland. The first came— so an old, old book tells us — in the year 787 a.d., and they never ceased coming until, two hundred and thirty years afterwards, the king of the Danes conquered England, and ruled it as his own. 7. It is not to be thought that the Danes, right from the first, intended to conquer England. The men in the ships went home to the bays and rivers of the Baltic each winter, carrying with them their spoils and captives. They left the THE HEATHEN MEN. 49 English to till the farms, hoping to pounce upon them the next autumn, and carry away the harvest. 8. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were not then joined together as one strong nation. There were many kings in England, and the stronger were always fighting the weaker, and trying to take their lands from them. Sometimes the Danes would make a friend of one of these English kings, and help him to fight against the others. 9. Gradually the Danes got farther and farther inland, until no place was safe from their attacks. Their boats were flat-bottomed, like the barges we see on our canals, and as they were rowed by oars, they could get them up the rivers where the sea-going ships of to-day could never venture. 10. The heathen Danes chiefly attacked the churches and monasteries. This they did not only for the gold and silver to be found there, but because they hated Christianity, and those who taught it. They called the English " nithings " or " nothings," that is, " not men," because they had forsaken the worship of Odin and Thor, and bowed their heads to the meek and loving Christ. And so we find them burning the churches and monasteries, and kilhng the priests and monks. 11. The east and south-east of England were most open to the Danish attacks, and these parts first submitted to them. The people of Wessex 50 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. (West Saxons) under a great king, named Egbert, defeated them again and again. But, as we shall see, the day came when even Wessex had to sub- mit to these fierce warriors, who fought under the banner of the " Raven." 12. Cissa's father knew that the Danes would show his village no mercy, if once they found it j so he took counsel under the oak tree, and stole out that night with a band of men, and seized the two heathens whilst they slept. Dragons — snaky monsters with wings. Egbert — he was the first king who held authority over the whole of England. Our King, Edward VII, is descended from Egbert. II.— THE FIRST KING OF THE ENGLISH. N the last lesson we wrote of England as being divided amongst many kings, who were often fighting with one another. Our country was thus split up for more than four hundred years after the Saxons first came to settle in the land then called " Britain." It is easy to see the reason for all this. :, 2. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes had been'| quarrelsome " cousins " in their old homes along the shores of the Baltic. They came westward^ at various times under many different leaders, and they landed at those places that seemed easiest of conquest or most to their liking. 3. When they had obtained a strip of country A IKIAL BEFORE A SAXON KING EGBERT TAKING LEAVE OF THE KING OF THE FRENCH THE FIRST KING OF THE ENGLISH. 53 for themselves, they were usually separated from the next Enghsh settlement by thick forests, lofty hills or wide marshes. Men who had been " chiefs " in Germany became " kings " in their new home. The long struggle with the Britons caused many smaller bands to combine under one chief, and thus some famous warriors became very powerful. 4. As time went on and the people multiplied and grew, there was a struggle for the best lands or streams. The weaker folk were beaten, and the strong grew ever stronger, until at last there were seven chief kings and kingdoms. Of these, the four kingdoms of Kent, Mercia (Middle England), Northumbria and Wessex came in turn to have the chief power, compelling the other kings to pay them homage and tribute. The last to gain this power was Egbert, and he and his descendants have ever since maintained it. 5. Egbert was a clever man and a notable war- rior. When very young he had been driven out of England. The French king gave him shelter, and the young prince learned many things abroad. He came back to England as soon as his friends had made his return safe, and from the first he set himself to be master over the whole land. 6. His kingdom bordered on Wales, the Bristol Channel and Cornwall (then quite Welsh), and his earliest struggles were against this hill-dwelling 4-{783) 54 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. people. Sometimes the Danes joined hands with the Welsh, but Egbert beat down all his foes. He fought the Mercians, East Anglians, North- umbrians, Scots and the men of Kent, and every- where he was victorious. He called himself " King of the English," and his claim to the title was a good one. 7. But the time for the English to be really one great nation was not then come. King Egbert was strong enough to hold the other kings in check, but the son he left behind him was not able to do so. And it was just at that time that the Danes gave up their habit of sailing home each autumn, and remained in our island over the winter. They built strong camps, and were ready to start their warfare and robbery as soon as the cold weather was gone. 8. Egbert's son was always fighting with these cruel foes, and when he died two of his sons divided the kingdom between them, thus making the nation weaker, rather than stronger. These brothers died, and a third brother succeeded, because the sons of the dead kings were too young to reign when the country was swarming with invaders. 9. The new king was Ethelred, and he was a good and valiant man. The Danes came over in greater numbers than ever. The men of East AngUa submitted to them and joined their army. A GREAT KING. 55 Ethelred fought as many as seven fierce battles in one year, and he died worn out with grief and wounds. 10. The people chose yet another brother, one who had been tried in the wars and found to be a wise and brave leader. The name of this prince was Alfred, and he proved to be the greatest king of all the Saxon line. Even to this day we benefit by the good and great things that Alfred did. He reigned for thirty years, having come to the throne in the year 871 a.d. Combine — join. Seven Kingdoms — called the " Heptarchy." Homage — obedience. Tribute — money paid to a higher king. 12.— A GREAT KING. N reading the histories of nations we cannot help noticing how, when a people is in trouble, some great man arises to help them. They may be in the hands of a foreign foe or oppressed by a tyrant king ; when lo ! a deliverer comes. 2. In the year 871 England was in a sad plight. The brave king Ethelred, after a year of almost continuous fighting, died wounded and broken- hearted. Hardly anything remained to him except Wessex. The Danes were everywhere. Their armies covered the country, and fresh forces 56 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. were always pouring in from Denmark. The English were dispirited, and numbers fled over the seas to France. 3. The new king, Alfred, was but twenty-two years of age. He is the only one, amongst all our kings, from Egbert to Edward VII, who has the title of " Great." Few people will deny that he thoroughly deserves this honour. He was a great warrior, a great law- giver, a good scholar, and a most loving and lovable man. He hardly lived one moment in idleness, and he was always doing something for his people. Few better kings have reigned on this earth. 4. When he came to the throne there was but little of England left for him to govern. His people were poor through war, and army after army had been destroyed by the Danes, so that he could hardly make a stand against them. But he met them bravely, and withstood them for a long while. At last his followers grew so few and his foes so many that he was obliged to flee and hide himself. 5. With his wife and a few devoted followers, he fled into the marshes of Somerset, where it was difficult for the Danes to pursue him. On an island, formed where the rivers Parret and Tone vN^>;^/ COIN OF KING ALFRED. A GREAT KING. 57 meet^ he made a camp. For months he lived there, often with but httle to eat ; and many stories are told of his adventures and sufferings. So long and so closely was he hidden that his people gave him up for lost. 6. But Alfred was biding his time. Meanwhile the Danes overran all the land, making slaves of the people and even forcing them to forsake Christ and worship Woden once more. Freedom and religion alike seemed lost ; dark, indeed, was it in England. Yet the sun broke through the clouds. The men of Devonshire met Hubba, one of the fiercest of the Danes, defeated him, slew eight hundred of his men, and captured the famous Danish flag, the " Raven." 7. Whilst the Earl of Devon watched the coast to prevent the Danes from landing, Alfred gathered the men of Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire and attacked the Danish king, Guth- rum, at Ethandune in Wiltshire. He gained a complete victory and followed it up by capturing the Danish camp and army. King Guthrum and many of his chiefs were baptized, and they took oath never to come south of the Thames again. 8. The Danes, as a rule, did not keep their promise, but for some time Guthrum kept his, and lived quietly in East Angha, which was almost entirely peopled by his followers. Other chieftains, 58 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY, like Hubba and his brothers, and a terrible pirate named Hastings, made raids at times; but Alfred had now brought the Saxons back to the seafaring ways of their forefathers. He had built ships that were longer and swifter than those of the Danes, and he met the robbers on the sea and defeated them time after time. 9. Then the Danes visited France and Spain, and even Italy and Africa, burn- ing and slaying. In the north of France a long- legged chieftain, named Rollo, set up a kingdom, and married the French king's daughter. His followers lost their heathen ways and speech, and became almost hke Frenchmen. Under the name of the " Normans " we shall learn much more about them. It was during the early years of ENGLISH CHIEFTAIN OF THE DAYS OF KING ALFRED. A GREAT KING. 59 Alfred's reign that RoUo overran North France, and he reigned there for fifty years. 10. No sooner was England rescued from daily dread of the Danes than Alfred set himself to the task of improving the condition of his people. He gathered together the best of the old laws of Wessex, and with the help of his " Witan," or Parliament, framed new ones. He built churches, monasteries and schools ; he invited learned men from Wales and the Continent to come over and teach him and his people ; and he, the busy king, already a good scholar, set an example to his people, for he went to school himself again in order to learn more. 11. Alfred also translated books out of foreign tongues into English, so that his people might read them. And all this while he travelled about the land, judging his folk, drilling his soldiers and sailors, building forts and towns, and now and again fighting the Danes. 12. This truly " Great " king did the work of many men rather than the work of one, and when we read of his mighty labours as ruler, general, judge and scholar, we are apt to think of him as a big, strong man. Well, he was not at all a giant, and he often was very, very ill. 13. All his hfe he suffered from a strange disease that caused him the keenest pain, and for days together he would be as helpless as a baby ; A KING WHO WAS NOT GREAT. 61 yet no sooner were the awful pain and weakness gone than he would be at work again. He was one of the world's greatest heroes, kindly, brave, just, unselfish and God-fearing. Let us all honour his memory ! 14. Perhaps the wisest thing that Alfred did was to build warships, and teach his people once again to fight upon the sea. He saw, what our king and his ministers see to-day, that England's bulwark is her navy. We have the most power- ful navy in the world, and for centuries no foreign foe has set foot on English soil. 15. Alfred reigned for thirty years. His son Edward and his grandson Athelstan carried on the good work he had begun. Oppressed — harshly treated. Devoted — loving, faithful. " Raven ' ' — the Saxon flag was a " horse," afterwards a " dragon." Rollo — Rolf the "Ganger" — or "goer" : he was too tall to sit comfortably on the backs of the small, northern horses. 13.— A KING WHO WAS NOT GREAT. E wiU now dip into our old, old history book just one hundred years after King Alfred's death. During those hundred years no less than eight kings came to the throne. Most of them were brave and able men, who ruled wisely and fought valiantly, teaching the enemies of England to respect her power. But the eighth king was a weak man, the son of a bad mother, 62 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. who caused the seventh king to be stabbed at her own doors in order that her son might reign. Our country suffered heavily because of that wicked deed. 2. This weak king was named " Ethelred," which means in old EngUsh " noble and wise " ; but his people nicknamed him " The foolish one." He began to reign in 978, and the enemies of England soon found out what sort of man he was. 3. The Danes came back as they had done in the old days, and instead of lighting them he foohshly bribed them to go away. Of course they always came back again, and wanted more money. Now let us read what the old writers put in their records in A.D. 1001, the twenty-third year of Ethelred' s reign. 4. " A.D. 1001. They (the Danes) went through the land and did all as was their wont : destroyed and burnt. They met the people of Devon and Somerset and made great slaughter. Thence they went into the Isle of Wight, and there they roved about, even as they would, and nothing withstood them ; nor any fleet by sea durst meet them, nor land force either. Then it was in every wise a heavy time, because they never ceased from their evil doings." 5. " A.D. 1002. In this year the King decreed, and his Witan, that tribute sl^ould be paid and A King who was not GREAt. 63 peace made with them, on condition that they should cease from their evil doings. And they were paid twenty-four thousand pounds. "And in this year the King ordered all the Danish men that were in England to be slain. This was done on St. Brice's day." 6. Now this slaying on St. Brice's day was not fighting, but massacre. You must understand that in many parts of England there were thousands of men descended ^.,\}^c!>^j' from the Danes who were peaceably .^"V^l^/ )^^. settled on the land, and doing ^Vx n"?''^ nothing to aid the robber hosts who came in from across the sea. These were the men who were murdered by King Ethelred's soldiers, and hundreds of women and children perished, too. Amongst them was coin of . r r^ TT- KING CANUTE. the sister of Sweyn, the Kmg of Denmark ; she was married to an English nobleman. 7. The King of Denmark vowed he would take a terrible revenge. He came over at once. Let us go again to the old writings, and read what the men of that day wrote down concerning Sweyn' s revenge. 8. " Sweyn came to Norwich and burned the town." " The army (of the Danes) went wheresoever KING CANUTE REBUILDING A MONASTERY. A KING WHO WAS NOT GREAT. 65 it would, and did every kind of harm to the inhabitants. And the dread of them became so great that no man could think or discover how they could be driven out of the land : for they had every shire in Wessex sadly marked by plundering and burning." " Then the King commanded the whole nation to be called out, but lo ! nevertheless they marched as they pleased." 9. FooUsh King Ethelred paid them money again and again, but they continued the fighting until they drove him across the Channel into Normandy, and Sweyn made himself king of England. 10. King Sweyn died, and his son Canute succeeded him. And his coming to the throne was a great good that arose out of a great evil. Not only was he king of England but of Norway, Sweden and Denmark also. 11. He was the greatest monarch of his time, and the best. All the plundering was stopped, and he took the poor Enghsh as a father might take naughty children after he has chastised them. He rebuilt the churches and monasteries that had been destroyed, called wise and good men to his court, settled the laws and gave strict justice to all. 12. England was happier than it had been for nearly a hundred years. Next to King Alfred, 66 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. Canute the Dane was the best king that England had in those old days. He became a very religious and God-fearing man, and four nations feared and loved him. Valiantly — bravely. Decreed — made it a law. 14.— "THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH." PART I. ING CANUTE died, and two of his sons came to the throne after him. Sad to say, they were not like their father, and it was well for England that their reigns were short. Their names were Harold and Hardicanute. 2. The Witan and the nobles looked around for a new king, and they decided that a son of Ethelred the Foolish should sit on the throne. His name was Edward, and he was called "The Confessor." He had spent much of his life as an exile. 3. By nature he was a qui^t, religious man ; he would have made an excellent monk, but he was a poor king. His name, however, will never be forgotten in England, for he was the founder of our greatest church, Westminster Abbey. 4. Edward was duly crowned. By this time the old Saxon kingdoms, such as Wessex and Mercia, were called " Earldoms," and their chief " THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH." I. 67 officers were known as " Earls." These earls had very great power, and were almost kings within the borders of their earldoms. Under a weak king, like Edward the Confessor, they naturally took matters pretty much into their own hands. 5. The greatest of all these earls was Godwin, or Goodwin, earl of Kent ; and he had four famous sons, Harold, Tostig, Gurth and Leofwine. Earl Godwin really had more power than his king. Let us see how this was. 6. Edward had spent most of his life in Normandy, at the court of the Duke. He was really, in his ways, his likes and dislikes, more Norman than English. And the people of Eng- land did not Uke the Normans, many of whom came to this country with Edward. Earl Godwin and his sons were the champions of the English against these foreigners, and so they had the goodwill of the people. 7. Godwin died, and his son Harold became earl of Kent and Wessex. This Harold was a very wise and brave man, and he practically ruled England for his king. He drove back the Welsh, and the land was so quiet and prosperous under his rule that, when Edward was dying, in 1066, he named his powerful subject as his successor in the kingdom. 8. The Witan — who had the power to choose 68 STORIES FROM BRITISH HIStORY. whom they Uked as king — ^immediately called Earl Harold to the throne. It was a wise choice, for Godwin's son was certainly the best and bravest Englishman of his day. 9. But another great man claimed the throne. ENGLISH BAKER OF THE TIME OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. This was none other than WiUiam, duke of Normandy. He declared that Edward had pro- mised him the kingdom, and that Earl Harold had sworn an oath to help him to obtain it. 10. All this may have been very true, but it gave the duke no real claim to England's crown. THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH THE LANDING OF THE NORMANS AT I'EVENSEY " THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH." IL 71 The choice of the king lay with the Witan, and they had always exercised their choice. They now elected Harold, and so, by the laws of the land, no man in the world could gainsay it. Exile — one driven from his native land. Earl Godwin's name is still preserved in the " Goodwin Sands." The Witan chose the king. Note that Kings Ethelbert, Ethelred, Alfred, Edmund, Edred, Edwy, Edgar, Ethelred II and Hardi- canute all succeeded brothers or uncles, as the sons of the previous king were too young to rule. IS.— "THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH." PART IL fiLLIAM OF NORMANDY refused to let the choice of king rest with the Witan. He was of Danish blood, as fierce and cruel a fighter as any of his heathen forefathers, and he wanted the kingdom across the channel. He was a giant of a man, of enor- mous strength and fiery temper ; but he was also crafty, skilful and a good ruler of men. 2. Probably he was the most dangerous man in all Europe. When he heard that Harold had accepted the crown and meant to keep it, his fury was terrible. Yet he went very coolly and craftily to work. 3. First of all he sent to the Pope of Rome, and told him that Harold had seized the crown in a wicked manner, and had broken a sacred 5-(783) 72 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. oath. This flattered the Pope, and he sent William his blessing, also a holy banner, and called upon all good soldiers to help the duke against his perjured foe. 4. WiUiam next sent out messengers through France, promising that all who helped him to conquer England should have a share of the country for themselves. This brought thousands to his sacred banner. 5. Harold prepared to defend his kingdom, and but for one thing he would have succeeded. His brother Tostig had been earl of Northumbria, but he was a bad ruler, and Harold agreed that the people should turn him out. Tostig and the king of Norway now invaded England, and King Harold marched north and defeated them. Three days after this battle Duke William landed in Sussex with sixty thousand men. There was no fleet to fight him on the sea. 6. Harold was at York. He= at once marched south, and reached Hastings. Of course his army was not as strong as it might have been, and his brothers advised him to wait for more men before risking a battle. But Harold felt confident of victory; he had fought many battles and never lost one. He prepared for battle, and placed his men on the top of a little hill near Hastings. 7. On the morning of the 14th October, 1066, DUKE WILLIAM AT THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. The cry went round thai he was killed, but he galloped about shouting that he was still alive. 74 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. the fight began by the Norman horsemen charging up the slope, but they were driven back. They came again and again, but were beaten each time. On one occasion the duke was thrown from his horse and the cry went round that he was killed. He got another horse and galloped about shouting that ,he was still alive. 8. Evening came, and the Saxons still held out bravely. William now ordered his horsemen to pretend to fly. They did so, and thousands of Saxons rushed pell-mell down the hill after them. The horsemen turned, and cut the ragged array to pieces. But the battle was not won, for Harold and his brothers and a strong body of warriors still held the hill top. 9. The Norman archers were now ordered to shoot into the air and let their arrows fall upon the faces of the English. This brought victory, for an arrow pierced King Harold's eye, and the Saxons then broke away in the darkness. 10. The king's brothers were slain, and there was no one to make a further stand against the Normans. William was therefore crowned king on Christmas Day. A man whose forefathers were Danes sat on the throne, and his descendants have sat there ever since. Perjury — to lie upon oath, to break an oath. THE CONQUEROR. I. 75 1 6.— THE CONQUEROR. PART I. HE victory of the Normans at Hastings brought about very great changes in England. The EngUsh had had a foreign king before, but King Canute turned himself into an Englishman, and altered nothing in the laws of the land or the lives of the people. With WilUam the Norman, changes began which made England almost like another country. 2. The Conqueror did not win England in one battle. He reigned as king for twenty years, and was fighting nearly all the time. The Saxons either would not submit, or again and again broke their promises of obedience and rebelled. They called in the kings of Scotland and Norway to help them, and King Harold's sons found friends amongst the Irish and Welsh. It was this con- tinual war that largely helped to bring about the great changes. 3. WiUiam, when he was crowned, promised to rule according to the old Saxon laws, and it is quite possible that he meant to do so. We know that he tried to learn English, the language of his new subjects. But the great earls of Mercia and Northumbria, who did not fight at Hastings with Harold, withstood the Conqueror. The old kings of England had left descendants, and these rose also against the Normans. 76 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 4. William had to put down rebellions in all parts of England. Sometimes he forgave the rebels, and gave them places of honour at his court ; but they usually rebelled again, so he was brought to deal harshly with them and seize their lands. 5. The greatest of them was Hereward the Wake or, " Watchful," who held out in the Fens for years. Little by little the old Saxon nobles lost their lands, and the king hiimself seized upon the "folk-land," or " common-land " that belonged to the people and was their plough-ground, grazing-ground, or forest land for wood and fuel. 6. With much of this land he rewarded those who had fought for him at Hastings. These men were not always satisfied with what the king gave them, so they sometimes rebelled against him, either in England or in Normandy, and the Con- queror drilled the English and made them fight for him. He was always needing soldiers and needing money. 7. Now, this need for troops and money, together with the fear of constant rebellions, caused the Conqueror to bring in some new customs. He gave men lands because they fought for him ; but he had to take great care that they did not use their wealth and power against him. So he made them swear to be his men and fight for him always against all his foes ; and he made THE CONQUEROR. II. 77 the servants of these great men swear to serve him before all others, before even the knight or baron whom they called their master. 8. In return for this oath of service and obedi- ence, Wilham allowed the great nobles to have their lands without money payment or rent ; and the great nobles let lands to lesser men on similar conditions. This system, or plan of letting land, was called the " Feudal System." 17.— THE CONQUEROR. PART II. ILLIAM always wanted money for his wars in France, for, although many men were obliged to serve him for their lands without other payment, yet wars cost money and soldiers could be hired. The English were taxed very heavily. They paid all their old taxes and many new ones. 2. In order that he might know exactly how much land, how many cattle and how many men each lord possessed on his " manors " or estates, he caused men to go through the land and make a list of everything, counting the people, the houses, the cattle and the acres. Wilham taxed the people according to these hsts, which were bound up in a great book called the Domesday Book, and thus carefully kept. 78 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 3. In order to keep his Norman lords and English subjects in fear of him William built great stone castles in many places ; and when his lords defied him, they built such castles also. We shall read more about these castles in the next lesson. 4. The Nor- mans settled in every part of England, taking the Norman tongue with them, and fol- lowing Norman customs and laws. The Eng- lish language they despised, and the English they enslaved. They were such strong and bold men, these Nor- mans ; and only a strong king, at all obedient, and joined the Photo W. S. Camplell OLD COVER OF DOMESDAY BOOK. like William, could make them The North rebelled so often, Northmen and Scots, that at last he laid aU York- shire waste, and for a century the land lay unfilled and unpeopled. THE CONQUEROR. II. 79 5. Let us see what the writer in an old book says of Norman William ; he hved when WiUiam was king and saw him many times. This is what he wrote : — " This King William, of whom we are speaking, was a very wise and great man, and more honoured than any king that had gone before him. So also was he a very stern and wrathful man, so that none durst do anything against his will, and he kept in prison those earls that acted against his pleasure, and spared not his own brother. 6. " Amongst other things the good order that William established is not to be forgotten ; it was such that a man might travel over the king- dom with his bosom full of gold and get no hurt ; and no man durst kill another, however great the injury he might have received from him. He caused castles to be built, and oppressed the poor. He was given to hoarding money and greedily loved gain. 7. "He made large forests for the deer, and made a law that whoever killed hart or hind should be blinded ; he loved the tall stags as though he were their father. The rich complained and the poor murmured, but he was so sturdy that he paid no heed to them ; they must will all that the king willed, if they would live. Alas ! that any man should so exalt himself to carry himself in his pride over all." ' T :nm%W^li}W^^'*f^f' mM M 1 O n O n O >< < c 11 m W 3 8 o !? u 5? •a DARK DAYS IN ENGLAND. 81 8. Such a man as William could not be loved. His own sons fought against him ; his nobles rebelled and strove to check his power. He let no man rob the Saxons or kill them, when they were obedient to him, but he oppressed them himself. There was but one master in England in his day. He died at Caen, in Normandy, and his servants plundered his body. King William's Forests — William laid waste many villages in Hamp- shire and turned 90,000 acres (140 square miles) into a hunting ground ; part still remains as " the New Forest." Read Kingsley's " Hereward the Wake." 1 8.— DARK DAYS IN ENGLAND. HE Conqueror left three sons — Robert, William and Henry, and, according to ^ the custom of the time, he divided his land and wealth among them. To Robert, the eldest son, he left his duchy of Normandy ; William, the " Red," got England ; and Henry, the youngest, had much of the money that his father had hoarded up. 2. Now the Conqueror had been a harsh parent, and his sons had been brought up very roughly. They quarrelled at once over their father's lands and money, and the quarrel led to war. The people of Normandy wished their duke to be king of England, as his father had been ; so they willingly fought for him against WiUiam. The 82 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. COOKING IN NORMAN TIMES. latter forced the English to fight on his side, and many of the Norman lords living in England fought for him also. Henry decided to help William. 3. The war between the brothers had most unhappy results, especially for the poor EngHsh. Their king not only forced them into his armies, but he also laid heavy taxes upon them, in order that he might have money to hire more men, and bribe some of the nobles to be on his side. After some years of fighting a peace was made, whereby William was to be king as long as he lived ; Robert then went off to the Holy Land to fight against DARK DAYS IN ENGLAND. 83 the Turks. Many knights and nobles went with him, thinking such warfare a duty they owed to God and Christ. 4. William, left at home in England, went on doing evil, robbing the Church and oppressing the people. He was much hated, and when he was shot in the New Forest no one mourned him. His body was left lying on the ground, until a charcoal-burner found it and carried it away in his cart. It is generally beheved that the Red King was murdered. 5. Robert was away fighting in the Crusades, or Holy Wars ; so the Enghsh Witan, or Pariia- ment, met once more and chose a king, as it had often done in happier times. Their choice feU upon Henry, who married an English princess, and was very popular because of his pleasant, kindly ways. 6. Robert came home and immediately claimed the crown. Henry refused to give it up, and so another war began. This time the English fought so well over in Normandy that Duke Robert was defeated and captured. For the remaining twenty-eight years of his life he was kept a close prisoner, and died in Cardiff Castle, while Henry reigned untroubled. 7. But the trouble concerning the succession to the crown was not over. Henry's only son was drowned at sea, and more than one person 84 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY, began to cast eyes on England's throne. The king, hoping to keep the kingdom in the hands of his own family, got the nobles and people to take oath that his daughter Matilda should come after him as queen. Many took the oath, but few meant to keep it. The times were rough and warlike, and men did not like the idea of being governed by a woman. 8. Henry died, and at once the people turned from the Princess Matilda, and chose her cousin Stephen, a handsome, dashing young soldier as king. But Matilda was not without some power- ful friends, and war began again. Sometimes Stephen was king ; sometimes Matilda was queen, just as victory in battle was theirs or not. 9. But the people suffered terribly. In order to win the favour of the barons, Stephen let them do as they liked in the land. They built castles, robbed and slew the people, and laid waste the towns and the farms. One might walk a whole day and never see a man at work in the fields. With the lands lying unfilled, there was no corn to grind, and food became scarce. The poor perished of hunger, and workmen fled from the towns. 10. It was the blackest time that England ever saw. The rich were robbers, and the poor were slaves. At last Stephen died, and Henry, the son DARK DAYS IN ENGLAND. 85 of Matilda, became king. He was a strong man, who meant to be ruler in his own lands. At once he pulled down hundreds of castles and punished the wicked men who lived in them. Of course, the robber-nobles and their followers resisted. 11. For a long time this able king had a great man to help him in his good work. His name was Thomas a Becket, and he was the king's chancellor. Now kings in those days often had trouble with the abbots, the bishops and the priests, who claimed that kings had no right to judge them. Henry was resolved that monks and priests should obey his laws just as other men did, and so he made his friend Becket head of the EngUsh Church; that is, he made him Archbishop of Canterbury. 12. Of course, he expected that Becket would make the priests submit to the king's law. But HANDMILL FOR GRINDING CORN. 86 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. the^ archbishop refused to do anything of the kind. The friends quarrelled bitterly ; so bitterly, indeed, that some men slew the archbishop in his own church, hoping thereby to win Henry's favour. Men were horror-struck at so evil a deed. In the next lesson we shall see what the king was forced to do because of it. Hoarded — saved up. Crusades — wars to recover Jerusalem from the Turks, who were not Christians. 19.— THE SCOURGING OF A KING. I HE year was 1174, and the month was July, with the morning sun peeping over the hill-tops four hours after the midnight bell had tolled from the cathedral. Young Roger the shepherd had tossed about on his straw pallet in the barn all the stifling night, and as soon as the birds began to " cheep " in the thatch of his sleeping-place, he yawned, stretched himself and went into the open air. The bits of straw stuck out from his mop of uncombed hair, so wool-like and colourless that men and maids alike called him Whitehead, which name his descendants bear to this day. 2. There was a mist over the landscape, and the grass was as wet as the rushes in a marsh. Roger plucked a handful, and rubbed his face with them. He was washed for the day. He THE SCOURGING OF A KING. 87 looked eastwards towards Canterbury, but the mist hid the walls and towers of the city. He passed out into the road on his way to the sheep- fold under the hill. It was barely dawn. An early rabbit sat up and watched him, then turned its long ears quickly as though to catch some sounds from the west. Roger Ustened ; bunny scuttled away. 3. The lad's sense of hear- ing was almost as keen as the rabbit's. He caught the steady rhythm of horses coming along at a hand- gaUop. " 'Tis no monks' mules," he said, " but some troops of heavy riders. Who can it be that comes so early and so fast ? " The mist rose steadily and cleared the length of dusty highway. "A score, at least, come hither," muttered Roger. He leaned on his shepherd's staff, and settled himself to watch. Many folk rode by to Canterbury, but few rode before daylight. 4. The horsemen came. Roger's guess of a score was about correct. A glance at the 6— (7S3) SIGNS WORN BY CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. (i) St. George and the Dragon. (2) Canterbury Bell, 88 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY, foremost horseman caused him to spring back into the ditch, for the man wore the royal livery. The company swept by ; all werq fully armed ; all wore crests that showed them to be of noble birth. Yet not one spoke to the other, and the foam and dust showed that the horses had been ridden hard all night. Here was a mystery ! Four years before, men had ridden thus into the city and murdered the archbishop. Since then most wonderful miracles had been worked at the martyr's tomb. What did this mean ? Why rode these nobles thus in the dawn ? 5. Roger forgot his sheep. He pulled his belt tighter about him, gripped his staff more firmly, and set out at a trot for Canterbury. He knew short cuts across the woods and meadows, and he reached the city gate in time to see the last horse- man ride through. The sentinels stared, half- frightened. " Who be they ? " panted Roger. " The king, new come from Normandy," was the reply. 6. After his run the young shepherd was hungry ; he hadn't a penny in his pocket, but he had a bold tongue and soon begged a piece of bread and a drink of milk from a good-natured housewife. By the time he had breakfasted, all Canterbury knew that the king was come and that some great matter was afoot. Crowds formed round the abbey and men's tongues began to wag. Said THE SCOURGING OF A KING. 89 one : " The king was as pale as a man that had seen a ghost. 'Tis known that he hath had no rest since holy St. Thomas was done to death." 7. " A foul deed, neighbour/' added another, " and evil will come of it yet. Here is our king, a masterful man, look you, and one that rules with a strong hand. With such a king there should be peace. What peace are we Hke to have ? The king's sons, the Prince Henry, the mighty Richard and the warlike Geoffrey, are all in arms against him and crying out that he should share his lands in England and France between them. 8. "The King of Scots, so I hear, is burning and slaying in the north, and the great barons of Yorkshire are joining him and forsaking their proper king. 'Twas a foul thing to murder so holy a man as St. Thomas. We have wars, and I will believe also that famine and plague will come upon us, unless penance be done for the crime." 9. " Amen ! " murmured the crowd ; and then a fellow cried, "Hush ! here cometh his grace the archbishop." Silence fell. Roger wriggled far- ther and farther to the front. The archbishop and his monks and priests were going into the cathedral. After them came a train of knights, and lastly, the ^ king himself, bareheaded, and in sackcloth, and with a taper in his hand. 10. The procession passed slowly into the cathedral, the monks droning a solemn chant the 90 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. while. A lean-faced priest came out again, and looked keenly at the crowd. He called upon some score of them of all sorts and conditions to come to him. Roger was amongst these, and he held back in fear. But the priest made him step forward into the sacred building. There, he and those that were called with him, saw, indeed, a strange sight. n. Before the tomb of the mur- dered archbishop knelt the king, bare to his waist. On the floor was a bundle of rods. Eighty church- men, bishops and monks, filed in, and each man stooped and took up a rod. Then they walked past the king in the order of their proper dignity. Each bishop paused, and gave the king live strokes on his bare back ; each monk gave three. Those called in to witness this royal penance for wrong-doing stood quaking. Roger noticed that some of the scourgers touched A MONK AT WORK IN THE MONASTERY. THE KING COMES HOME. 91 the royal flesh but Ughtly, whilst others put some vigour into their blows. And all the while the king prayed and mourned the death of his old friend and servant. 12. The penance over, the king was led into the dark vaults beneath the great church. Here he was to spend the rest of the day and the following night with nothing but a cup of water to stay his thirst. 13. Roger slipped away from the cathedral, and ran homewards. He knew that a sound flogging awaited him for his neglect of his morn- ing's work. But he had seen a strange thing. His king had been scourged before the eyes of some of the meanest of his subjects. What a power the Church had over sinners ! Penance — punishment showing sorrow for sin. 20.— THE KING COMES HOME. WENTY years have gone by since King Henry was whipped for his sins before the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury. Roger Whitehead stands once more in the city streets, but no longer is he an unwashed, un- combed serf, toihng for a master who may flog him at his pleasure. Like many another peasant he fled away into the city, worked in secret there for a twelvemonth and a day, and then claimed 92 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. his freedom as a citizen. He is now clad in good russet cloth, and has a feather in his cap. A cleanly looking lad holds on to Roger's belt ; the lad is Roger's eldest son, and he is already a promising scholar in the cathedral school. 2. The streets are full of folk from far and near, and the 'prentice lads keep holiday. Another king is walking barefoot alonrg the road from Sandwich to St. Thomas's tomb. And he is the most famotis monarch in Christendom. All the world rings with the story of his bravery as a soldier of the Cross in the Holy Land ; and there is another story that the good men of Canterbury are telling. Their king comes to them from four- teen months of close imprisonment, and Roger is telling a neighbour that the kings of France and Austria are vile traitors and that Prince John, the king's brother, is a knave anti rascal. 3. The hum of the crowd grows to a roar ; a mighty shout is heard from the southern gate, and the cry goes up that the king is come. Roger hoists his son upon his shoulders. " I see him, now ! " cries the lad. Through the narrow street and between dense lines of his shouting subjects stalks the Lion-hearted king. 4. What a mighty man he looks ! How hand- some, with his fair hair, ruddy face and bright blue eyes ! How he swings along on his bare feet ! His head is not bowed : he is not come as a KING RICHARD S RETURN FROM THE CRUSAPB- 94 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. penitent. Why should he ? Has he not fought under the banner of the Cross as never king or knight fought before ? Do not mothers in a far Eastern land, even at the moment when he swings so boldly into Canterbury, frighten their children with the whisper of his name ? 5. He is come home, having passed through the perils of war, shipwreck and prison. Like a good knight, he is walking barefoot to the holiest spot in England, at which place he will thank God for a merciful deliverance. Behind him come many of the brave knights and barons who fought with him sinder the burning sun of Palestine. They go barefoot out of compliment to their king ; and now a company of barefoot priests meets them. They salute the king, and then turnabout to lead the procession. 6. The crowd is instantly silenced. Every head is bared ; every knee bent. The monks chant a litany, and the procession moves forward along the street to the great door of the cathedral. There the archbishop in his robes blesses the king, and leads the way to the shrine of the martyr. Lion-Heart's pilgrimage is at an end. ^He kneels and prays. Arising, he lays a handful of jewels on the martyr's tomb as a thank-offering. The archbishop blesses all ; the king disappears in charge of the monks, and the crowd goes home. THE KING COMES HOME. 95 7. Roger finds his boy at the door and walks away. He is joined by a fellow-craftsman. "We have gotten our king again," says Roger. " Ay/' says his friend, " and a pretty penny he hath cost us. One fourth of every man's gold and goods gone for his ransom ! " 8. " He's the bravest knight in the world," cried Roger. " Ay, and the most careless king," rephed the other. "Dost think he will stay at home now, and put the realm in order, and rid us of the knaves that rob and oppress us ? I warrant thee 'twill soon be 'taxes, taxes' to hire soldiers to pay off his scores against the king of France. It would be better if our king were less of a fighter and more of a lawgiver." 9. Roger shrugged his great shoulders. He was proud of his gallant king. So he walked along homewards, telling his son of the great deeds the Lion-Heart had done against the Emperor Saladin and his hosts. As the lad listened, his cheeks glowed and his eyes sparkled. Already he prac- tised archery with a tiny bow and blunt arrows. Some day he would go to the wars and show the French how an Englishman could fight. Litany — prayers sung or said in procession. Note. — Richard the Lion-Heart was king from 1189 to 1199. Out of these ten years he spent but a few months in England, being away in France and the Holy Land fighting. He was the strongest and bravest man of his time, and many stories are told of his valour. The " Talisman," by Sir Walter Scott, tells the story of his fighting in the Crusade. 96 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 21.— THE MERRY GREENWOOD. OME, listen all you gentlemen That be of free-born blood : I shall you tell of a good yeoman Whose name was Robin Hood. " Robin was a proud outlaw, Whiles he walked on ground : So courteous an outlaw as he, Was ne'er another found/' (Old Ballad.) 2. " Robin Hood and AUan-a-dale, They both are gone to the fair, oh ! And we will go to the merry greenwood, To see what they do there, oh I " (Country Song.) 3. Now try to picture to yourself one of those vast forests that covered so great a part of Merrie England in the days of long ago. You must imagine a forest so great that, if you stood on the top of a high hill, nothing but trees would be seen. Trees everywhere ; oak, beech and chestnut stretching away, mile after mile, over hill and through dale. Here and the^e dense thickets of thorn and bush ; here and there open, sunny glades, and little green ribbons of turf running beside the cool streams. THE MERRY GREENWOOD. 97 4. In the thickets hirk foxes ; all the wolves are gone. Deer browse by the stream and in the open glades ; except where the trees are too thick and close, the birds are singing merrily ; the grass is carpeted blue and gold with the bluebell and the primrose, and wild geese cackle in the reeds that lie in the marshy hollows. 5. Roads run along the margins of the woods, and men ride in strong companies and well-armed, for robbers lurk amongst the trees ; not single footpads, but bands that may number many scores. Here we are in Sherwood Forest, a tract of woodland that stretches long miles through Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. 6. Walk softly and listen carefully for any rustling in the bushes ; it may be that something more dangerous than a wild pig will dash into the path. Hark ! that is no piping from a blackbird's throat ; we shall not see master " yellow-bill " fly before us from yonder bush. 7 There comes the mellow whistle in answer to the one we have just heard. And yonder are the songsters : two tall fellows in Lincoln green, with long bows slung across their shoulders. The elder and taller one is Robin Hood, the most famous outlaw that ever roamed in our EngUsh woods, and his companion is young AUan-a-dale. 8. Allan has brought news, and he talks KOBIN WATCHES FOR A MOMENT THE MERRY GREENWOOD. 99 earnestly with his chieftain. Bold Robin's face grows grave ; there is trouble somewhere. Let us dive into the clump of bracken, and wait until the two robbers part company again. 9. Ah ! there goes young Allan, running quickly along the way by which he had come. Robin watches him for a moment, and then hastens onward along a main path that will take him to the town of Nottingham. Coming to a hiUock, he chmbs nimbly into an oak-tree and looks ahead. Almost due north of him are curUng wreaths of smoke and the outline of a castle perched on a rock. He watches the path. 10. Presently his eyes show him the figure of a big, well-armed man squatting on the roots of a giant beech. The stranger appears to be waiting and watching for someone. A smile curls Robin's hps. He comes down quickly from his perch and goes leisurely forward, whistling the tune of a woodland song. 11. Who the stranger is, and what happens between him and Robin Hood we will teU in the words of a ballad, which minstrels sang in castle and inn hundreds of years ago. Dale — valley. Glade — opening in a, wood. Browse — feed. Footpad — highway robber. Lincoln green — green cloth. 100 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 22.— SIR GUY OF GISBORNE AND LITTLE JOHN. JOBIN goes up to the stranger. " Good-morrow, good fellow/' said Robin so fair, " Good-morrow, good fellow," said he, " Methinks by this bow thou dost bear in thy hand A good archer thou should'st be." 2. "I seek an outlaw," the stranger said ; " Men call him Robin Hood ; Rather I'd meet with that proud outlaw Than forty pounds so good." 3. " Now come with me, thou gallant yeoman, And Robin Hood thou shalt see. But first let us some pastime find Under the greenwood tree." 4. Robin challenges the stranger to an archery match. He takes two willow wands ; peels them and sets them up sixty rods apart. The outlaw shoots first and misses the wand by an inch. Then the stranger grazes it with his arrow. Robin shoots again and cuts it in two. His opponent is greatly surprised. 5. " A blessing upon thy heart," he said ; " Good fellow, thy shooting is good ; And if thy heart be as good as thy hand, Thou art better than Robin Hood. SIR GUY OF GISBORNE AND LITTLE JOHN. 101 Now tell me thy name, good fellow," said he " Under the leaves of lyne." " Nay, by my faith," quoth bold Robin, " Till thou hast told me thine." 6. " I dwell by dale and down," quoth he, " And Robin to take I'm sworn ; And when I am called by my right name I am Guy of good Gisborne." " My dwelling," says Robin, " is in this wood. And thee I do fear nought ; I'm Robin Hood of Barnesdale, Whom thou so long hast sought." 7. Immediately they draw swords, and for two hours they fight. At the end of that time Robin trips over the tree roots and falls. Sir Guy springs forward, hoping to kill him, but Robin leaps up, and with a backward thrust of his sword lays him low and cuts off his head. 8. The news that AUan-a-dale brought to his captain concerned Little John, the best known member of Robin's band. The sheriff of Notting- ham, hunting the outlaws with seven score men- at-arms, had come upon Little John and captured him. At sunset he was to be hanged. Robin resolved to set him free. This is how he set about doing it. 9. First of all, he changes clothes with the dead Sir Guy, and takes also the latter' s sword, bow. 102 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. arrows and hunting horn. Sir Guy had told the sheriff that if he blew his horn that day it would be as a signal that he had slain the famous outlaw. 10. Robin blows a blast. " Hearken, hearken," said the sheriff, " I hear now tidings good, For yonder I hear Sir Guy's horn blown, And he hath slain Robin Hood." 11. Robin comes in sight. The sheriff cries out : — " Come hither, come hither, thou good Sir Guy, Ask what thou wilt of me." " No gold," says Robin, " will I have. Nor will I none of thy fee." 12. Robin (in character of Sir Guy) asks that he may finish his good work of that day by killing Little John. The sheriff tells him that he is foolish not to ask a big reward, but says he may go and kill Little John, who is tied to the tree whereon he must soon be hanged. Robin loosens his knife, runs forward, cuts his man's bonds, and thrusts a bow and arrows into his hand. 13. Then John he took Guy's bow in his hand, His bolts and arrows each one : When the sheriff saw Little John bend his bow, He hastened him to be gone. ROBIN HOOD AND SIR GUY OF GISBORNE ROBIN LOOSENS HIS KNIFE, RUNS FORWARD AND CUTS HIS man's BONDS. SIR GUY OF GISBORNE AND LITTLE JOHN. 105 Towards his house in Nottingham town He fled full fast away ; And so did all his company, Not one behind would stay. But he could neither run so fast, Nor away so fast could ride, / But Little John with an arrow so broad He shot him hard in the side. 14. Thus ends the adventure. Scores of such stories of daring and cunning are told of Robin Hood and his merry men. They robbed the rich, but spared the poor. The simple country folk loved them and made heroes of Robin, Little John, Will Scarlet, Much the Miller's son, and Allan-a-dale. 15. This is the epitaph which was once to be read on the outlaw's grave at Kirklees, in Yorkshire : — " Underneath this little stone Lies Robert, earl of Huntingdon ; No archer was as he so good. And people called him ' Robin Hood.' Such outlaws as he and his men, Will England never see again." Opponent — the one that was against him. Note. — Sir Walter Scott's " Ivanhoe " tells us much of Robin Hood, of Richard the Lion-Heart and his wicked brother John. 7— {783) 106 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 23.— OUT OF EVIL COMES GOOD. HEN King Richard died in 1199, he was succeeded by his brother John. The chief men of England chose him for their king, but the Normans and Frenchmen over whom the English monarchs had to rule, were not at all willing that John should reign over them. They said -that Arthur, duke of Britanny, the son of John's elder brother Geoffrey, ought to have the crown. Many of them decided to fight for this young prince. 2. None of the sons of Henry II were either wise or good men. The " Lion-Heart " was the best of them. All had been badly brought up, and all had fought against their own father. But John was far worse than any of the others. He was the most wicked king that ever ruled in our land. He had some skill a,s a soldier ; but he was cunning, cruel, treacherous, and a coward at heart. Yet his very wickedness brought good to England. We shall see presently how this was. 3. The EngHsh were soon sorry that they had chosen John as king. At once he began to oppress the common people ; and the barons found that they had a tyrant to reign over them. The merchants were robbed, the clergy insulted, and the nobles and their families shamefully abused. 4. Very soon men were plotting secretly against OUT OF EVIL COMES GOOD. 107 him. The king of France took the side of Prince Arthur, and John marched an army into his land. He captured his nephew, and all men behaved that he murdered him with his own hand. Many who had supported him, now turned against him, and he lost all the rich provinces that our kings had held in France. You will remember that John's father ruled over the fairest parts of that land. 5. Then John quarrelled with the Pope and the Church. A wise and good Englishman, named Stephen Langton, had been appointed arch- bishop of Canterbury. John refused to have him and forbade him to set foot in the kingdom. The quarrel grew so bitter, and John did so many evil deeds, that at last the Pope put a great punishment upon him and his land. 6. All churches were closed ; no services were held, no sermons preached, no children christened, and no folk married or buried by the ministers of God. And the Christian kings of Europe were called upon to put so wicked a monarch off his throne. 7. The people grew terrified, and thought their land would be forsaken by Christ and overrun by evil spirits. John was forced to give way and do as the Pope wished. And what he did shamed every Englishman. He gave up crown and king- dom to the bishop of Rome, and only received 108 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. them back again when he had sworn to be the Pope's man and servant, and pay him a yearly rent. The Pope was to be the real lord of England. 8. Men nO longer plotted in secret. They met openly, nobles, bishops and the common folk talking and planning together. They were resolved that John should rule justly or not rule at all. Guided by Stephen Langton, they drew up a charter, in which they demanded justice and freedom for all, for the baron in his castle, the bishop in his church, the merchant in his shop, and the peasant who worked in the fields. They laid it before the king and demanded that he should put his seal to it, and so make it the law of the land. He arranged to meet them on a little island called Runnymede, that lies in the Thames near to Windsor. 9. John meant to refuse, but the barons came to the meeting armed and ready to fight. He looked around and saw that there was scarcely anybody on his side; so, like the cunning man he was, he smiled and spoke fairly and sealed the Great Charter (Magna Charta) of English liberty. 10. Then he rode off to his castle at Windsor to plan how he might get his wicked way after all. He tortured the Jews and made them give him large sums of money. Then he sent to foreign lands and hired soldiers to come and fight for him. KING JOHN OVERTAKEN BY THE TIDE IN THE WASH. 110 STORIES FROM BRITISH ftjSTORY. These men made war and plunder their trade, and they would fight for any man who paid them well, whether his cause was good or bad. 11. .When John had gathered an army of such together, he set out from London and marched through the land right up to Scotland. He knew that all his people were against him; so he told the soldiers that they might kill all who fell into their hands, and steal all they £ould find. They did so. What spoil they could not take with them they burnt, and the king showed them the example, for each morning he set fire to the house in which he had slept the previous night. 12. In despair the barons sent to the son of the French king, and asked him to come to their aid, promising him the kingdom if he could only defeat and drive out John. The French prince came. Happily, soon after this, John died ; and all good and honest men in England were thankful that his days were ended. 13. When John died, the French prince was in England with his army, and London was in his hands. He expected that the barons who had called him into the country would now make him king ; but they did nothing of the sort. The Frenchman had been long enough in the land for Englishmen to see that he would not make them a good king ; so they resolved to support Henry, the nine-year old son of John. The king's THREE GOOD MEN AND A WORTHLESS KING. Ill crown was lost in the Wash, when John tried to hurry across the sands and was overtaken by the tide ; so a plain gold band was placed on Henry's head at Gloucester. 14. The good that came out of John's evil deeds was twofold. Ever since the Conquest, about one hundred and fifty years before, the Norman nobles, the bishops and abbots (many of them foreigners) and the common Saxon people had been three distinct bodies, often hating one another. But the king's wickedness caused them all to combine for their common good, and the Normans grew proud of their name as " English- men." The new bond of friendship between these three bodies got for the nation the great charter of freedom and justice, which is the source of all the liberties we Englishmen enjoy to-day. Abused — ill-treated. Note. — The actual Magna Charta, as drawn up by Langton and the barons and sealed by King John (the king's seal is still on it), is preserved in the British Museum. It is the most notable document in our history, and one of the most important in the history of the world. It is now nearly seven hundred years old. 24.— THREE GOOD MEN AND A WORTHLESS KING. ORTUNATELY there were good and strong men in England at this time. Archbishop Stephen Langton took up the young king's cause, and the people loved the 112 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. brave archbishop and followed his counsel. Then there was another man, Hubert de Burgh, who had been a servant of King John. Hubert was a good man, although he had served a bad master. He fought bravely against the French both on land and on sea. One battle of his deserves to be remembered. 2. The French king sent a strong fleet of eighty ships to the aid of his son. Hubert de Burgh could only collect forty small vessels ; yet he boldly attacked the French fleet and utterly defeated it. Before he went into the fight, he said to an officer whom he left behind in charge of Dover Castle : " The enemy are stronger than we, and it may be that we shall be beaten, and I shall fall into their hands. Do not give up this castle. Should they hold me as prisoner, and threaten to hang me at the mast-head if you do not surrender, I command you that you let me hang. Do not give up the Keys of England." 3. Hubert was not taken prisoner, and so the French could not threaten to hang him. The French prince had to go home. For many years the brave Hubert advised the young king, and helped to govern the land as its chief judge. He gave the people peace, and saw that the laws were kept by all. Evil men did not like him, and the day came when they poisoned the king's mind against his faithful servant. OUR FIRST GREAT NAVAL BATTLE. Hubert de Burgh fighting the French in the English Channel. 114 StORlES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 4. He was dismissed from hi^ high offices and put into prison. A blacksmith was brought to fasten the chains upon him, but the honest fellow refused. " Shall I put chains upon the man who set England free ? " he cried. Some time after- wards the king found out that he had done his great servant a wrong. He set him at liberty, but he never allowed him to rule England again. 5. By this time the great and good Stephen Langton was dead. The king was a fooUsh young man, and took the advice of men as young and foolish as himself, despising the counsel of the old and wise. Swarms of foreigners came over to the king's court, and he made much of them and gave them rich lands. But with these foreigners came one who proved a good friend to the English. This man's name was Simon de Montfort. Most of the young foreigners who came despised the English and their laws, but Simon did nothing of the kind. 6. He married the king's sister, and became Earl of Leicester. Very quickly he saw how fooUsh the king was, and he tried to get him to amend his ways. Henry would promise, but his promises were never kept. His barons met him, and tried to force him to behave more wisely, but the silly, worthless king would not heed them, and allowed his foreign favourites to have all the power in the country. THREE GOOD MEN AND A WORTHLESS KING. 115 7. Then it was that Simon de Montfort gathered the best of the barons together, and prepared to fight for law and justice. The king gathered an army also, and a battle was fought at Lewes, in Sussex. De Montfort gained the victory, and the king, the king's brother and the young prince, Edward, were taken prisoners. Henry was allowed to go free, but Earl Simon was to be the real ruler of England. 8. Immediately he took steps to give the people a share in the making of the laws by which they were governed. Hitherto only the bishops and barons had been called to the king's council, but Simon called up men from the shires and great towns who were not nobles at all, but just plain folk or commoners. This was the first real House of Parliament that England had. The King was there, and the Lords and the Commons. They all sat together in one room ; nowadays the Lords sit in one place and the Commons in another. We owe a lot to the wise and good Earl Simon. 9. But he did not have his own way for long. Prince Edward escaped from captivity, and many men who were jealous of Montfort' s power joined him. A battle was fought at Evesham, and Simon and his son were both slain. The common folk grieved over his death, and spoke of him as " Sir Simon the Righteous." 10. King Henry reigned for another seven years. 116 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. dying in 1272. He had been king for fifty-six yearSj and history has very little that is good to tell of him during aU that time. It was fortunate for our land that three such brave and worthy men as Stephen Langton, Hubert de Burgh and Simon de Montfort lived during part of his long reign. Notes. — In Shakespeare's play " King John,"_ much may be read about Hubert de Burgh and Prince Arthur. De Burgh's fight with the French ships was our first great naval battle with the folk across the Channel. Trafalgar was the last (1805). 25.— A GREAT LAWGIVER. E do not often find that a weak and foolish man, like Henry HI, leaves behind him a son so brave and strong and wise as the Prince Edward who defeated Simon de Montfort at the battle of Evesham. This prince, who became king as Edward I, proved to be one of the greatest rulers England ever had. 2. He was a fair-haired handsome prince, and so tall that men called him " Longshanks." When his father was restored to full power on the death of Earl Simon, young Edward went to the Holy Land to fight the Turks, just as King Richard had done. And he fought very bravely, indeed ; several pretty stories are told of him and his young and noble wife, the Princess Eleanor. 3. Henry died in 1272 ; but Edward was away EDWARD I ON PROGRESS WITH TWO JUDGES. 118 STORIES FROM BRITISH SiSTORY. fighting as a Crusader, and did not come home to be crowned for another twtj years. Thus he had plenty of time in which to think about his royal duties, and he came to the throne with his mind thoroughly made up as to what he ought to do for the benefit of his country and people. 4. Ever since a duke of Norrnandy had become king of England, some of the EngUsh kings had married the daughters of the dukes and princes of France. Half of the France on the maps of to-day was at one time or another in their hands, and they were often across the Channel fighting. John had lost all this, and his grandson Edward, although he had proved himself to be a great warrior, had no thought of trying to get these lands back again. 5. It seemed to him to be far wiser to try to bring all the island of Great Britain under one king, and make it a really strong kingdom. He did not succeed, and the thing was not accom- phshed until he had been dead for three hundred years, but his hopes and aims were those of a very wise and far-seeing man. 6. King Edward put his own house in order before he meddled with the houses of other people. He found that the laws of his kingdom were badly kept, and that other laws were needed if men were to have justice. Let us, for a moment, see what he did in these important matters. A GREAT LAWGIVER. 119 7. You have learned already that William of Normandy, when he had conquered England, gave the lands of the Saxons to his followers on condition that they paid him homage, and fought for him in his wars. The great lords let out lands to smaller men on similar conditions ; that is, the tenants had to follow their banner and the king's in war. There was in no case a yearly rent in money, but when the king needed funds — and that was very often — he had been in the habit of coming to his tenants and demanding money " aid " from them. 8. So often had some of the kings come for money, that the Great Charter laid it down as a law that money could only be demanded on three occasions ; these occasions were (1) to ransom the king if his foes took him captive ; (2) to make his eldest son a knight ; (3) to provide a dowry ■ — or wedding gift — for his eldest daughter. This did not prevent dissatisfaction, for the king was still allowed to fix the amount of money that he wanted. King Edward now had all this fixed and settled by the law of the land. 9. Then King Edward did something that pleased the common folk, and also made the Crown rich. Many of the great lords had stolen much land from the people under the bad rule of John and the weak rule of Henry. They were now made to restore this, either to the people or to 120 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. the king as the head of the people. More than a quarter of all the land in England belonged to the churches, abbeys and monasteries, and the bishops, abbots and monks paid no " aid " money to the king. Some of the lords and other land- owners, in order to escape payments in " aid," pretended to give their lands to the Church. The law now stepped in and stopped this. 10. Many other laws did Edward make to regulate the holding and selling of land, and most of his laws remain to this day. He also made laws for the proper defence of the country and the gathering of an army in time of need. We have pointed out again and again how England was covered with woods and thickets. Robbers lurked in these, and rushed out upon travellers as they rode and walked along the roads and lanes. To put a stop to this, King Edward ordered that all trees and hedges along roads between market towns should be cut down, so as to leave a clear space 200 feet wide. Thus a man was safe from an arrow, and could get warning of a robber's approach. 11. Edward also saw that proper judges were appointed. Two of these always went about with him as he journeyed throughout his kingdom, and two others abode at Westminster where the Parhament met ; so people always knew where to find them. This great king arranged to hold Photo IF. 5. Campbell WALTHAM CROSS Erected by Edward I in memory of his Queen Eleanor KING EDWARD I CHARGING HIS SON, THE PRINCE OF WALES, NOT TO REST TILL HE HAD CONQUERED SCOTLAND KING EDWARD'S WARS (1283-1307.) 123 Parliaments, just as we have them to-day. Of all our kings, he was the greatest lawgiver and law-maker. His motto was " keep troth/' that is " keep truth; " and we never had a monarch who was more true to his word. Crusader — one who fought for the Cross of Christ. Accomplished — done. Approach — coming. 26.— KING EDWARD'S WARS (1283-1307). JDWARD had been king for some years before he was ready to give all his time and thoughts to the work of making England, Wales and Scotland one united kingdom. He began with Wales. This country was smaller and weaker than Scotland and more open to invasion. The Severn, Wye and Dee formed much of the boundary line, and previous kings had built strong castles on the banks of these rivers. Thus King Edward had many doors through which he might pour troops into Wales. 2. There was a reasonable show of justice about his first action. Of course, the Welsh had never yet been really conquered by the English, else there would have been no need for Edward to set about doing so. But many English kings had fought this ancient people from time to time, and brought them into some sort of subjection. The princes of Wales were pledged to pay homage 8-(783) 124 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. to their more powerful neighbours, but they avoided doing so whenever they could. Kings Richard, John and Henry had been too busy or too weak to keep the Welsh princes as their vassals, and many years had passed since they had knelt at an Enghsh sovereign's feet. 3. Edward summoned Llewelyn, the Welsh prince, to come to London to pay him homage. Llewelyn refused. Edward had quite expected that he would say " No," and so was prepared to force him to come. He had an army ready, and marched at once into Wales. Llewelyn withdrew to the mountains. Edward followed with picked troops trained to mountain warfare, took the prince prisoner, and made him own the Enghsh monarchs as his overlords and masters. 4. Llewelyn went home again, but shortly afterwards he and his brother David rebelled. The prince was slain and his brother captured and beheaded. Edward now took the land as his own, but he behaved very wisely. He divided part of the land into counties, and gave the Welsh the same good laws as he had given the English. The chieftains begged that they might stiU have a Welshman to whom they could look as their head, and Edward promised them that they should have their desire. 5. A little son was born to him in Carnarvon KING EDWARD'S WARS (I283-I307.) 125 Castle, and this child he presented to them as their prince ; "a Welshman born who could not speak a word of English." He also promised that the baby should have Welsh nurses to bring him up, and Welsh servants to wait upon him. The chiefs were delighted, and paid homage to their little prince. This baby grew up to be Edward II of England ; and from that day to this the heir to England's throne has always borne the title of " Prince of Wales." 6. Edward had to wait some years longer before he got his chance with Scotland. At one time he hoped to unite the crowns by marrying his son Edward to a httle girl, " The Maid of Norway," who was heiress to the Scottish throne. But the princess died. The king's chance came again immediately after, by reason of the strife that arose between the nobles who claimed that Scotland's crown was now theirs. 7. It is necessary to understand that the English kings could claim homage from the kings of the Scots, because of certain lands that these monarchs held in England. Similarly, all our kings, from Wilham the Norman to Henry III, were vassals — or servants — of the king of France, because of the many French provinces which they held under him. 8. At one time the Scottish kings had owned the Enghsh kings as their " overlords " in all 126 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. things, but the " Lion-Heart " had sold this right when he wished to raise money to go on the crusade. These kings did not often pay homage one to another ; still, by law, they were supposed to do so. 9. Now, amongst the thirteen men who came forward to demand' the crown of Scotland, two only had very strong claims. These were John Balliol, Earl of Galloway, and Robert Bruce, the Lord of Annandale. Both were of Norman descent, and held lands in England also, and had paid homage for them to King Edward. They appealed to him to decide which had the juster claim, and when they had consented to own him as their sovereign lord, he said he would judge between them. 10. After a long examination of their claims he declared that John Balliol had the better right, and so he was crowned king. For a little while all went very well ; then, people who did not like King John began to make accusations against him to his " overlord." Edward bade him come to London to answer these charges. He came again and again, and was always treated in a very unkingly manner. His people laughed at him, and bade him behave as a royal person should. They called him " empty coat," and said he was just a bundle of rich clothing and no man at all. IDWARD I AND THE CLAIMANTS TO THE SCOTTISH THRONE. 128 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 11. Driven furious by all these jeers and harsh treatment, King John rebelled. King Edward had quarrelled with France, and the Scots joined the French against him. Edward went north, quickly took the strongest towns in the land, defeated BaUiol, and led him a prisoner to London, carrying away also the Scottish crown and sceptre, and the sacred stone upon which the kings sat to be crowned. This was in 1296, and thenceforth Edward tried to rule Scotland by means of his own servants. 12. But one man, a simple knight, whose name was William Wallace, withstood Edward's gover- nors. He raised an army of rough soldiers, defeated the Earl of Surrey and even invaded England. Edward himself went north, and defeated the brave Wallace at Falkirk and drove him over sea to France. 13. For some years the land was quiet ; but Edward grew old and feeble. Then a Robert Bruce, who was the grandson of the Bruce that had claimed the crown, rose in rebellion against the EngUsh. Edward was furious, gathered an immense army, and marched northwards, vowing he would ravage Scotland from one end to the other. But death stopped him. He died within sight of the land whither he would go. 14. Yet the hand of death did not cool his hot anger. He made his son swear a solemn oath A WONDERFUL VICTORY. 129 that he would neither bury his father's bones, nor be crowned as king of England, until he had brought the Scots humbly to his feet. The son made no attempt to keep his word. He loved pleasure, not fighting, and he hastened back to London to a life of gaiety and folly. Appealed — cried out, asked. Accusations — charges. Sacred stone — this is placed under the seat of the chair on which our kings sit to be crowned. 27.— A WONDERFUL VICTORY. T was the evening of June 23rd, 1314, and the river Forth was like a stream of blood in the rays of the setting sun. The red faded out of the west, and from the surface of the rippling waters, James Duncan, a bare- legged Scotch laddie, stole out from some bushes that filled the crevices of the great mass of rock upon which Stirling Castle stood, swam the stream, and went southwards towards Bannock brook. All day long he had lain hidden, watching the movements of the English in the castle above him, or gazing eagerly at the masses of men that moved about on the plain to the south-east. 2. Now he moved swiftly over the rough ground, a hundred gleaming watch-fires pointing his way, and the hum of hosts of warriors sounding in his ears. He flitted from bush to bush and 130 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. rock to rock, carefully avoiding ditch and pool, and came at last to the high bank that shut in the Bannock on the north. The watch-fires were now brighter, and the hum of men deepened into a dull roar. 3. King Edward II of England, after seven years of pleasure and folly, had remembered the oath that he swore to his great father, and was come north at last to measure his strength with King Robert the Bruce. A mighty army, the greatest Scotland had ever seen, was with him, and on the morrow the fate of the northern kingdom would be decided. Jamie Duncan had begged that he might take part in the great fight. His chief thought him too young, but he had followed his father and brothers, resolved to see the battle. 4. He climbed a wooded knoll and lay down. Behind him were river and castle ; before him the noisy brook and the hosts of men, the English facing the castle they had come to save. In the starhght Jamie could see bands of his countrymen moving to and fro just below him. Farther off, shouts and singing told that the English were making merry, confident of victory on the morrow. Did they not outnumber the Scots by three to one ? And King Robert's army was but poorly armed and half-drilled. 5. But Jamie saw that his king was not idle. The right of his army was posted on the rough. THE ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH AT BANNOCKBURN. 132 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. broken banks of the little burn^ and protected by clumps of wood. In front of his centre was a stretch of marsh and mud that would not bear the weight of horses and armed men. But on the left was good, firm ground. From this quarter would come danger. The lad's keen eyes showed him that hundreds of men were there, busy and silent as moles. 6. He slipped down to them, and soon had a shovel thrust into his hands. All over the ground men were digging, and Jamie digged with them. Deep pits were hollowed out everywhere, and into these other men dropped iron balls that bristled with sharp spikes. Loads of rough hurdles were brought up and placed across the pit-mouths and the turf put back. 7. At daylight there was little to be seen that would betray the work in the darkness. Jamie was back in his hillock again, the sun shining gloriously. And what a gleam and glitter there was from thousands of spears and tens of thou- sands of bright helmets ! The armour of the knights was Uke suits of silver. And trumpets were sounding and cheers echoing from hillock to hillock. 8. The Scots stood firm and silent. The Eng- lish host came on in such might that Jamie's heart failed him. Surely they would crush the Uttle army of Scots to dust !. What could withstand A WONDEfeFUL VICTORY. 133 those tens of thousands of shouting warriors, and thousands of mighty horsemen ? On they came, the gallant English ; arrows darken the air, and men begin to cry out with pain. The Scots await the charge. 9. But the mighty lines are breaking and straggling ; the woods and rocks break up the waves of shouting men. They cannot come on in a great body. The Scots pour in their arrows. The English come on and are entangled in the mud and reeds of the marsh. King Edward's footmen are in disorder, and the arrows come down on them like hail. 10. But there is a thunder of hoofs. Thou- sands of brave knights, the king with them, and ten thousand horsemen are sweeping round on the left of the Scots. They will surely trample down the little host, or scatter it like chaff before the wind ! But no ! Jamie springs up with a shout. The heavy horses are tumbling into the hidden pits. Screams fill the air. The cavalry dare not advance. They turn and ride wildly back. 11. Around the marsh and along the brook bands of men are fighting bravely. Thousands of the English cannot get near enough to strike a blow. They are disorganized, puzzled, furious, and King Robert's men are attacking them at an advantage. The day is not going to the strong. 134 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 12. Suddenly, on the top of a neighbouring hill, there is a flutter of banners. Crowds of shouting men are swarming down on the Enghsh. Another army is coming against them. Knights throw away their weapons and gallop from the field. King Edward is fighting manfully enough and the battle may yet be his. But the Earl of Pembroke, who fights beside him, has no hope of victory. He seizes the king's bridle and forces him to flee. The leaderless army flies also, the Scots pursuing. Thousands are slain or captured. Miles of baggage wagons fall into King Robert's hands. The spoils of the enemy make their poor land rich. Never did an English army suffer so disgraceful a defeat. 13. Jamie Duncan is amongst the spoils ; and the ragged army of servants and women that came over the hill, and frightened the Enghsh, is bending beneath the weight of the booty it gathers. It is a proud day for Scotland and its brave king, Robert the Bruce. Crevices — hollow places. Knoll — little hill (hillock). BRAVE FATHER AND BRAVE SON. jHE foolish, pleasure-loving Edward II Hved for thirteen years after the battle of Bannockburn, and during this time he managed to lose the goodwiU of his nobles and 136 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. people, and the affection of his wife and children. He did many weak and wicked things, but he paid dearly for all his misdoings. His queen was not a good woman. His nobles put him off his throne, and history tells how he was most cruelly murdered in a Gloucestershire castle at dead of night. 2. His son, Edward, succeeded him as Edward HI. At first he was too young to reign alone. However, while still a youth, he seized full power. As a lad he had been persuaded to treat his father harshly, and now he imprisoned his mother, who, without doubt, deserved some sort of punishment for the many evil things she had done. Edward's training had not been good, but he had brains and character, and proved to be one of our ablest kings. 3. He was greater as a soldier than as a ruler, and was one of the greatest warrior kings that ever sat upon England's throne. He waged long wars against Scotland and France, and for many years held the kings of both countries in London as his prisoners. He set up a claim to the crown of France and fought many battles. Although he did not win the crown, he gained large terri- tories, and became one of the most powerful monarchs in Europe. 4. These wars were a splendid training for English soldiers, and the peasant bowmen proved BRAVE FATHER AND BRAVE SON. 137 themselves to be more than a match for the best steel-clad horsemen of France. But the M^ars did our country good in another way. War is costly, and the king was always wanting money. Often he had to call Parliament together, and the members would not give him what he wished, unless he, on his part, gave his people more liberty and better laws. Parliament gradually grew more powerful than the king. 5. The English were proud of their warrior king and the glory he gained, but it was his eldest son who was their darling. This prince, known in history as the " Black Prince," was even braver than his father, and he was certainly more noble-hearted. His life is a bright page in the story of England. 6. When he was but sixteen years of age, he led the Enghsh army to battle at Cressy against a much more powerful French force. His father watched the fight from the top of a windmill, and saw his boy bravely win " the spurs " of knighthood. In the fight, a king of Bohemia, who was blind and served the king of France, fell with many of his knights. His device and motto, painted on his shield, were three ostrich feathers and the words " Ich Dien " (I serve). The gallant Black Prince took them for his own, and even to-day the Prince of Wales has them in his coat-of-arms. CHAUCER AT THE COURT OF EDWARD III. BRAVE FATHER AND BRAVE SON. 130 7. Ten years after this, the prince won a more famous fight, for, with a small army that was half fainting from lack of food, he fought a French army five times as great, and utterly defeated them and took their king prisoner. Again it was the EngHsh long-bow that beat England's foes. The Black Prince never came to the throne ; he died one year before his father. 8. It is to be remembered that at this time there lived some great poets, chief of whom was Chaucer, the writer of the " Canterbury Tales." He was for many years in the service of King Edward and Richard, the son of the Black Prince. 9. The reign of Edward III was not all glory and victory. There were bad harvests and lean years, and several times terrible plagues visited our land, sweeping away thousands of the inhabitants. In 1349 the " Black Death," as it was called, slew more than half the people of the land, and in some cities there were hardly enough living to bury the dead. Farms lay idle and unfilled, and cattle strayed into the woods and became vsdld. 10. These plagues were due to the dirty habits of the people and the filthy state of the houses and streets. In the next lesson we will try to show what England reaUy was hke in those old, old days. Device — painted figure. 9— (?83) 140 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 29.— A PEEP INTO THE PAST. PART I. |ILLIAM OF MELTON:, who owned all the broad lands that made up the manor of Melton, stood at the door of his low- roofed, rambUng house, booted and spurred, and awaiting the groom with his horse. The house was newly-built, with its lower parts of stone. Behind it were large barns, built partly of rough stones and partly of timber, and a high fence ran around all. 2. It stood on the slope of a wooded hill ; below it ran a noisy river ; and on the river was a mill to which every man for miles around was bound to bring his corn for grinding. This mill brought much gain to its owner, for he took for himself a goodly portion of all the corn he ground. 3. A tousehheaded, sheepish-looking fellow, in doublet and hosen of coarse grey, came round with the horse. There was k collar of brass round his neck ; it was well-pohshed, and was the brightest thing about him. One might have read on it, " HOB, SERF TO WILLIAM DE MELTON." The groom was coUared, named and owned very much as a dog is to-day. He helped his master into the saddle, and the latter rode slowly off to a town that stood some four miles down the .river. We shall A PEEP INTO THE PAST. I. 141 see and hear many things of interest if we follow him. 4. Though the day was near the end of Sep- tember, yet the fields were still yellow with the ungathered harvest. Sowing and reaping were later in those old times than they are to-day. In the valley many snug farms and knots of mud cottages were to be seen, and William de Melton's eyes shone with satisfaction as he gazed upon them. All were his. Some he farmed with his own " serfs " or " villeins " ; others were held by freemen paying rent. 5. There was another man abroad on horse- back, and he rode forward to meet the " lord of the manor " as soon as he saw him. He was " John the Scrivener " (Writer) and was man of law and steward to de Melton. The two went along, side by side. De Melton spoke. " Hast seen to the time and order of the reaping ? " he asked. " I have counted every pair of hands, and fixed the very minute when they shall put sickle into the harvest. Two days more of this sun and we begin." 6. The landowner looked at the blue sky ; there was no cloud in it. The steward spoke on, " There are some of the knaves who would begin at once upon their own corn-patch, declaring it to be fit, but I straitly forbade them to cut a sheaf ere their master's was safely garnered." A PEEP INTO THE PAST. I. 143 " Ha ! who be they ? " asked de Melton. The steward named four men. " They have stubborn stomachs/' cried his master ; " they feed too well." 7. " Robin Carter's lands be too well placed for the sun," added the steward; " his corn hath been ripe before any other's these last three seasons." " Then take it from him and give him some worser land. Look to it also that he reaps last. My dovecot is full ; let the birds fatten on the rogue's corn." '»:' BADGES WORN BY THE RETAINERS, OR SERVANTS OF GREAT LORDS. (I) Bear and. Ragged Staff. (2) Falcon. 8. Master Scrivener grinned. Truly, he would do Robin an ill turn and count it a pleasure. The fellow's crops were too good ; his spirit was grown proud ; he must be taught that he had a master. And he hinted that some more lowly rogues on the manor would be the better for a taste of the whip ; they were surly and showed anger when orders were given to them. De 144 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. Melton vowed their backs should smart. The country was going to the dogs ! Men must be kept under heel. 9. The great man rode off towards the town. Many a cot of mud and thatch he passed ; many a ragged, dirty urchin scuttled out of his way. Men looked up from their labour in the fields as he cantered by. Some gazed stupidly and without interest, for they looked upon blows, curses and hard labour as their proper portion in life; but there were others who scowled spitefully and longed to repay the wrongs they suffered. 10. Times were hard with them. Their lands were poor, for they dared npt till them too skilfully for fear of losing them. By way of rent this lord took the best of their cattle and of their crops, and whenever the weather was favourable in seed-time or in harvest, they were forced to leave their own fields and labour in his. Only here and there was there a tenant that could defy his lord and refuse to give him this slave labour. These Master Scrivener treated with due respect ; however much he might hate them, he could not harm them. Manor — England was divided into estates called manors ; most of them exist to-day. Note. — Few small farmers paid rent in money ; most of them, with their sons and their daughters, were bound to work so many days on the manor farm. The peasants worked also, and could not even leave their village without their lord's consent. " Serfs " were bought and sold with the land. Only the " lord of the manor " might keep a dove-cot and harbour pigeons. M A PEEP INTO THE PAST. II. 145 30.— A PEEP INTO THE PAST. PART II. LONG the grass-grown lane, deep with ruts from the wheels of clumsy wagons, rode de Melton. On his left hand the clear river wound in and out like a snake, and he could hear the music of the waters as they swirled round the stones. Near the gate of the town other lanes and pathways led into the one along which he had ridden ; the grass was here worn from the surface, and clouds of dust rose from beneath the heels of horse and ass and ox. 2. The town stood on an abrupt rise from the river ; it was shut in by walls, and a strong tower guarded the river bridge. In and out at the gate passed men and women afoot and on horseback ; ox-wagons creaked beneath the archways and jolted over the cobbled street, and ass and horse jogged along beneath the burden of laden baskets. The crowd was noisy and dirty, and de Melton pushed his way through, thrusting the wayfarers aside to right and left. They gave way before him, for his dress and bearing proclaimed him to be of better birth than the traders and laden country folk. 3. The street that led from the gate was steep and narrow, the houses so close together that WILLIAM DE MELTON AT THE GAtE OF THE TOWN. A PEEP INTO THE PAST. 11. 147 only a narrow ribbon of blue sky could be seen. A dozen smells greeted the country nose of de Melton. There were smells from the jostling crowd, smells from the dark doorways of the houses, smells from the gutters and from the heaps of refuse that lay about for folk to stumble over. 4. It was early morning, and housewives were busy. Pails of dirty water came swishing into the street ; a cry of " Look out below ! " gave warning that a dirty deluge of household slops was coming from an upper window. Dogs and pigs grubbed and nosed and fought for the offal that lay about. 5. " Pah ! " cried a dainty gentleman in scarlet to de Melton, " these townsfolk breed a hundred fevers ; the magistrates ought to be compelled to keep fires burning night and day at each street crossing." 6. De Melton shrugged his shoulders. " 'Tis well that winter comes and not the summer, else should we have the plague upon us ; and then no fire would serve short of burning the whole town." 7. " Was there not an alarm of plague about the time of great July heat ? " asked Scarlet-Cloak. " Ay ! The priests went in procession and sang htanies on the eve and day of St. Margaret, St. Mary Magdalene and St. James." 148 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 8. " And so the plague was stayed ? " " So the simpletons thought ; but it was a fortunate fire in South Street that burnt down the infected houses. There's plague in the air now, and a wet autumn will bring it forth to lurk in corners for next summer's sun. As long as towns are littered with offal and houses are strewn with rotten rushes, there will be plague. I give you ' Good-day,' sir. I have business here, but do not wish to offend my nose wi.th these smells a moment longer than is necessary." 9. De Melton was quite right in what he said. The next summer the plague came forth with its terrible breath, and swept the town from end to end. More than half the people died. And the hot winds carried the pestilence out to village and hamlet, so that the country folk also died in thousands, their bodies sometimes rotting under hedgerows and in the mud cottages where no man would venture to bring them out for burial. 10. And what happened in this neighbourhood happened also throughout the length and breadth of the land. Two millions of people died, and barely two millions were left to bury the dead and put their weakened hands to the plough, or pen or workman's tool. Such was the Black Death and such the year 1349. 1 1 . The evil done in a day does not end with A PEEP INTO THE PAST. II. 149 the sunset, but comes to light with the morrow's dawn and for many morrows afterwards. And so the evil of the Black Death stayed in England long after men grew healthy and strong again. But out of the evil came some good. So many of the workpeople perished, that neither in town nor country were men found in sufficient numbers for the work that there was to do. 12. Hitherto the peasant workers had been bound to a master, and bound to the soil whereon they were born ; their wages were poor, their hves hard, and their masters severe. But now the workers were stronger than the employers. They ran away to other villages and into the towns, where many were eager to hide them and employ them and pay them good wages. 13. Those, too, who stayed in their old homes refused to work under the old conditions, and for the old wages. The masters fought hard, but they could not succeed. Men went about preach- ing liberty to the poor and the landless, and the workers Hstened eagerly. They determined to be free men, able to go whither they would, and work at such things as pleased them. England at last became a land of free men. Keep fires burning — this was to purify the air. Litanies — prayers said or chanted in procession in times of war, plague and famine. 150 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 31.— "UNEASY LIES THE HEAD THAT WEARS A CROWN." HE above words, so full of truth and meaning, were put by Shakespeare into the mouth of King Henry IV, the first of the Lancastrian monarchs that ruled England. If King Henry did not actually use the sad expres- sion, the thought that they utter must have been in his mind many a time, for he enjoyed little ease or quietness whilst he was king. 2. This Henry was a grandson of King Edward III, and he reigned in England from 1399 to 1413. At first he could have had little thought or hope of being king ; so we will see how it was that he came to wear the crown, and how his son kept it. 3. When King Ed- ward died, Richard, the son of the brave Black Prince, was made king. He was but a lad, and his uncles governed the kingdom for him. They were so busy looking after their own interests that they forgot to train him for his high position, and so, when full "''.i' GOLD COIN OF RICHARD II. " UNEASY LIES THE HEAD THAT WEARS A CROWN." 151 power became his, he did not know how to use it wisely. 4. He offended the nobles, and he also spent money so wastefuUy that he was always in need. To fill his empty purse he taxed his people very heavily, and as they were already dissatisfied at the way the powerful landowners treated them, they rose in rebeUion. The rebellion was put down, and many of the poor unhappy rebels were hanged. But the common folk did not forget their wrongs. 5. Some years afterwards, because of a quarrel, the king sent his cousin, the Earl of Hereford, out of England for ten years, and whilst he was away he seized his estates. This Earl of Hereford, having become by his father's death Duke of Lancaster, waited a chance of revenge. His chance came. Richard took an army to Ireland. The duke stole back home, gathered an army, and seized the kingdom, most of the people being quite willing that he should do so. Richard came back, was seized, imprisoned and quietly murdered. 6. Parhament recognised Henry as king, but his neighbours, the kings of France and Scotland, would not do so, because there was another grand- son of Edward III who had a better right. A Welshman, named Owen Glendower, thought he saw a chance of making himself Prince of Wales, 152 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. and he was encouraged to rebel. Then King Henry offended his most powerful friends, the Percies of North- umberland, and they joined Glen- dower. There was much fighting, but the common people were with Henry, and so he conquered. Yet all through his reign he was fearing plots and rebellions. 7. He had trouble, too, with another set of people. These were known as Lollards, and were, for the most part, good and earnest men. They saw that many things done in England were harsh and unjust, and they wished these wrongs put right. Most particularly, they attacked the Church, which was rich and powerful, and paid little of the taxes which fell so hard upon other people. Moreover, they declared that the bishops and clergy were not honest. God- fearing men. They accused them of greed and HENRY IV. {Portrait in the National Portrait Gallery.) TRUTH AND FABLE. 153 harsh deahngs, and said that many of them led wicked hves and were not true servants of Christ. Much of this was true, but men sometimes pay dearly for teUing the truth. 8. It was so with these Lollards. Henry owed much to the bishops and abbots, for they sup- ported him strongly in Parliament. With many of the nobles against him, he could not afford to offend them. So he passed laws allowing the bishops to burn men who did not agree with them in their religious views. No law of this sort had ever been passed in England before, and what King Henry did is a big blot on his name and his reign. 9. The troubles of his reign wore out his strength, but he kept his crown on his " uneasy head " and passed it on to his eldest son Henry, who was one of the most popular kings England ever had. We will write down in the next chapter some things concerning this dashing young monarch. Note. — Wycliffe, who translated the Bible into English, was a great man amongst the Lollards. 32.— TRUTH AND FABLE. UR great poet, Shakespeare, wrote many plays that deal with the history of England and the lives of her kings. Into these plays he put much good and true history; 154 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. but he also put many fables and stories that the story-teUing folk told to one another in the long winter evenings. ' 2. The ballad-singers, too, sang of the old heroes and kings, and their songs often had but a small grain of truth in them. Thus it happens that men who write of the history of our land have great difficulty, at times, in sifting the true from the false in the old books and papers that they study so carefully. 3. Now Shakespeare wrote a very long play concerning the life and times of Henry IV ; indeed, it is so long that it is divided into two parts. You ought to read this play some day, and when you do, you wiU learn much concerning King Henry and the Percies and Owen Glendower. You will also meet young Prince Henry. Some- times he is with the army, fighting bravely; at other times he is talking wisely to his father and his father's counsellors ; but for the most part you will meet him in very queer company and doing most unprincely things. 4. What would you think of a, prince if someone told you that he spent much of his time in ale- houses and taverns, with such people as frequent those places ? If they told you that he plotted and planned to rob travellers on the King's high- way, and generally behaved like a lawless young man, you would not look upon him as one hkely ijm^ PRINCE HENRY LEADING HIS MEN TO BATTLE HENRY V. {From an old painting in the National Portrait Gallery.) TRUTH AND FABLE. 157 to be a very good king some day. Yet all these things are told of Prince Henry— or " Madcap Hal/' as some folk call him. 5. In his play Shakespeare shows us many of these supposed companions of the young prince, and we find that they are not at all good people. They are rude and vulgar, such men as the police would very quickly take into custody nowadays. The chief of them was a fat, cowardly knight, named Sir John Falstaff. He is shown to us as a foolish person also, one, in fact, for other men to laugh at. 6. Some of the others are worse even than Falstaff ; all are shown as drunkards or braggarts, or careless fellows. The best of them, Ned Poins, is brave enough, but he could be no proper companion for a young prince. With these, so the old stories say, Henry lived a wild life in London. 7. The law at last got hold of them all ; and the tale goes that the prince went to the chief justice who was trying them for highway robbery, and demanded that he should let them go. The judge — a brave man — refused, and ordered the prince himself to prison for breaking the laws and threatening those who carried them out. The prince acknowledged the error he had com- mitted, and went to prison. Now this is rather a pretty story, and shows the prince to have been 10— (78.S) 158 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. a hot-headed, yet a sensible young fellow. But I am afraid none of the stories have much truth in them. 8. Let us see what history really can tell us of Prince Henry's youth. It tells us that when he was but fifteen years old, he went to Wales as his father's lieutenant, and that he ruled wisely and well. At eighteen years of age he sat in the President's chair of his father's council, amidst the wisest of the land, listened to and respected by the old men and warriors. 9. We know also that he fought most gallantly against the Percies and the Welsh, and gave early promise of great skill as a general. At the age of twenty-five he succeeded his father, and though he reigned but nine years, he won more glory as a soldier than any other king of England since his day. Lieutenant (pronounced Uf-ten'-ant) — one holding a high office in the place of or next in rank to, a superior ; also an officer in the army and the navy. A FIGHT AGAINST FEARFUL ODDS. |ING HENRY IV had so much trouble with foes at home that he had no time or money to spare for fighting abroad. With his son, affairs were very different. The people liked him, and, although there were some ready to plot against him, as they had plotted A FIGHT AGAINST FEARFUL ODDS. 159 against his father, he did not fear them. He knew, too, that idle hands soon begin working mischief, and resolved that he would have no idle hands amongst his nobles. 2. So Henry remembered that his great-grand- father Edward III had once claimed the throne of France and fought some notable fights in enforcing his claim. He did as his great-grand- father had done, and prepared to invade France and seize its crown. By so doing he would please his people and keep the restless ones out of mischief. Money was soon found, and Henry crossed the Channel with thirty thousand troops. 3. But the sun did not smile upon the English invasion. Henry besieged Harflieur ; the inhabit- ants resisted most stoutly, and although they were badly frightened by the iron balls that a new and fiery machine dashed against their walls, yet they held out for many months. Thousands of Enghsh perished before Harfieur surrendered. 4. Meanwhile the French had gathered a great army and were marching north. Henry's men had dwindled to about nine thousand, for their life before the walls of Harfleur had bred fevers that had killed them off as the frost kills flies. Those that were left ahve were weakened by wounds and sickness, and the French who were coming against them were sixty thousand 160 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. strong, all well-armed and well-fed, and eager for battle with the English. 5. Henry decided that he dared not face so mighty a host ; so he sent to the French leaders offering to give up the town he had taken if they THE ENGLISH ON THE FIELD OF AGINCOURT BEFORE THE BATTLE. would only let him go away in peace. But the Frenchmen said " No ! " They knew they were at least seven times stronger than the Enghsh, and that the latter were feeble and worn out. So they said that Henry must surrender his army and himself, and trust to their mercy. A FIGHT AGAINST FEARFUL ODDS. 161 6. This Henry would not do, and he called his brave fellows together and marched off, hoping to get to Calais, which was in English hands. The French followed, and at Agincourt Henry turned to bay, and faced the great host that followed him. Night came on. The Enghsh soldiers prayed and took the sacrament. The French spent the night in singing and feasting and talking of the captives they would take on the morrow ; twenty knights swore to take King Henry. 7. The English were astir very early. The archers went into a neighbouring wood, and cut stakes which they sharpened at both ends. They were the chief strength of Henry's army, and five thousand of them were well enough to fight. Of the men-at-arms and knights there were barely a thousand more fit to sit a horse and handle sword or spear. But the French army grew hourly larger, and was quite twelve times stronger in actual fighting men by the time the battle opened. 8. The young king spoke hopefully to his brave fellows, and reminded them of what their fore- fathers had done at Cressy, which was not far off. Some of his captains wished for a greater force to meet the mighty French host, but Henry cried, " No, I would not have another man \ if we are to die, the loss will not be so great for England, and if we win, then our glory will be the greater." 9. Now the French had thousands of cavalry. 162 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. enough to trample the little force into dust if ever they rode over them. So Henry drew up his men in a somewhat narrow way between two woods. Then he bade them kneel in prayer for a few moments. This done, they moved slowly down until the archers were within bowshot of the foe. A shower of arrows brought the Frenchmen on. 10. The archers planted their sharpened stakes before them with one point thrust forward to stop the horsemen. Then their arrows flew from the long bows. By thousands the keen shafts whistled through the air, so that it seemed as if it were snowing. In the narrow way the Frenchmen fell in hundreds and blocked up the path to the others. Archers went into the woods and shot at them from either side. The king with his knights dashed hither and thither fighting like a giant. 1 1 . For three hours only the battle raged ; at the end of that time the French -fled, leaving their Constable — or chief general, — seven princes, one hundred great lords, and eleven thousand knights and soldiers dead upon the field. It was as though each man in the English force had slain two foes and put ten others to flight. Never did an army win a more glorious victory. 12. Henry hastened on his way, for his little army had now dwindled to about four thousand effective men, and there were still tens of thousands A WONDERFUL MAID. 163 of foes a few miles off trying to make up their minds to attack again. But the leaders could not get their men to face the terrible storm of EngUsh arrows. 13. Henry got safely away and crossed the Channel. News of the victory had gone before him, and his people rushed into the sea and carried him ashore on their shoulders. They were wild with joy and pride. Twenty thousand Londoners came miles along the road to meet their hero king, whose armour was dinted and broken from the blows he had received. Parlia- ment gave him whatever he wanted, and placed more power in his hands than a king had had for many a day. 14. The war with France went on, and so successful was Henry that in the end he married the French king's daughter, and was promised the crown when the old king died. Dinted — marked by a blow. 34.— A WONDERFUL MAID. jJHEN gallant King Harry died, the sudden blaze of England's glory died also. He left his son, an infant eight months old, to the care of his uncles, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, and he left these nobles very straight instructions as to what they should do both in 164 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. England and in France. The old king of the latter country dying two months after Henry, the royal baby was crowned king of both kingdoms. 2. But the King of France had left a son who was grown to man's estate, and he resolved to win back his father's lands. He and his friends gathered troops, and the Scots, whose king was a prisoner in England, sent an army to the help, of the French Prince (or Dauphin). But the soldiers and generals trained by Henry V proved successful everywhere ; there seemed to be no hope of driving the English out. 3. Then two things happened which helped the Frenchmen. First of all, the English nobles and those who were guardians of the young king, began to depart from the instructions that Henry V had left them. There were in France two great dukes — those of Burgundy and Brittany — and these had quite the power of kings in their own countries. Henry had made great friends of them and they had helped him much. But now the Duke of Gloucester picked quarrels with them. 4. But the second thing that happened was the one that mattered most. A young peasant girl, one who dreamed dreams and was gentle to bird and beast, came to the Dauphin and said that angels had spoken to her and bidden her deliver her country from its foes. Most people thought she was mad ; but others, when they saw her 166 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. dreamy face and beautiful eyes, believed that heavenly beings had really spoken to her. They saw, too, that she was as brave as any man and quite persuaded that God had sent her. 5. So they advised the Dauphin to listen to her. They clothed her- in white armour like a knight, mounted her upon a white horse, gave her the banner of France, and sent her to Orleans, which was just about to surrender to the English. The rough, ignorant soldiers believed in the maid and her message, and followed her as though she were a holy person sent direct from heaven to their assistance. They left off swearing, drinking, thieving and gambling, and took to praying instead. 6. Her forces, at first, were but small, and the English laughed at the storied about her that came to their ears. But when she slipped through their lines and got into Orleans, they soon stopped laughing. The French soldiers, who had been in despair, began to hope again. Joan — that was the maid's name — led them against the besiegers and won a little fight. This heartened them still more and made them believe the more strongly in her. Again and again she led attacks on the English camp and forts outside the walls, and each time her men fought more bravely; never once did she fail to win the day. 7. At last the Enghsh, who believed that the A Wonderful maid. 167 maid was a \\'itch, gave up the siege altogether, declaring that they could not fight against her. Joan followed them, and crowds of knights and soldiers flocked to her banner. She beat the English everywhere, and at last crowned the Dauphin king in the sacred city of Rheims, just as she had promised to do. Then she laid her armour aside and asked to go home, as her work was done. 8. But the king would not let her go, and the army cried aloud for her to remain as its leader. So she stayed. She fought the English as before, always winning her fight ; but at the siege of a certain city, she was thrown from her horse and taken prisoner. Her captor sold her to the Duke of Burgundy, and he sold her to the English. 9. Now prisoners of war were bought and sold in those days as a regular custom, and soldiers and generals made much money from such sales. The King of France might have ransomed her, also according to custom, but he neither made an offer of money for her freedom, nor led any force to re-capture her. The English honestly believed she was a witch, and as such she was tried at a bishop's court. She was found guilty of witchcraft and condemned to be burnt to death. 10. The sentence was carried out in the market- place of Rouen. We cannot but feel ashamed of what our ignorant forefathers did to this brave 168 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. peasant girl; but, surely, the gallant boys of France must blush every time they think of their cowardly, ungrateful king. 11. Many people thought that when Joan was dead the English would win again. But they did not. The French soldiers kept the courage the heroic maid had given them. They thought their foes had burnt a saint and that God would never give them victory any more. The Duke of Bedford, the greatest of the English leaders, died ; the Duke of Burgundy went over to the side of the King of France, and by the year 1453 — thirty- eight years after the battle of Agincourt — only Calais was left to us. 35.— THE RED ROSE AND THE WHITE. HE loss of his kingdom in France was only the beginning of the troubles that beset poor King Henry VI. Very soon the time came when he lost the crown of England also. He was a meek, quiet man, and fond of books, but utterly unfitted for the post of king in such rough and warlike times. His health was bad, and at times he became insane. He never had any real power in England. 2. In the early part of his reign his uncles ruled for him. They died, and his wife Margaret, a brave, high-spirited woman, took most of the JACK CADE IN LONDON. 170 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. power into her hands. She chose the king's ministers, and they did as she wished. Of course, this gave rise to quarrellings and jealousies, and in time the great nobles dividejd themselves into two parties — those that were friends to Queen Margaret and those that were against her. 3. The queen's friends did not always do those things that pleased the people or that seemed best for the kingdom ; they lost all the fair provinces in France, and they taxed the common folk heavily. There was one rebellion under Jack Cade, and the rebels actually took London and frightened the king and his court away. 4. When Parliament gave the crown of England to Henry IV — grandfather of Henry VI — they did so because he was of royal descent, and had proved himself a stronger man than his cousin Richard II. You will remember that Henry was Duke of Lancaster. Well, at that time, there was one who was a nearer heir of Edward III than Henry, but Parliament passed him over, as it had a perfect right to do. Now, when Henry VI proved so feeble, and the people grew so dissatisfied, a nearer heir came forward once „again. 5. This man was the Duke of York, and he opposed Queen Margaret and her friends. Some of these friends were driven from the kingdom and the Duke of York made Protector whilst the king was ill. When the king recovered, the duke was THE RED ROSE AND THE WHITE. 171 turned away from court. His friends were furious and quarrelled with those nobles that held with the House of Lancaster. So marked was the quarrel that, as people sometimes do nowadays, each party chose a badge which they wore to show which side they favoured. The queen's party chose a red- rose and the duke's party a white one. A man who wore a red rose was a Lancas- trian ; if he wore a white rose he was a Yorkist. To this day the Yorkshire cricket team wears the white rose and the Lancashire cricketers the red. 6. The quarrel led to a fight, and the fight lengthened out into a war that lasted thirty years. The war was mainly between the nobles and their servants and hired soldiers, and the battles were usually fought on lonely heaths and moors. The merchants and workers and common folk troubled httle about the affair, and went on with their daily business. Thirty years of civil war ought to mean ruin to a country, but England actually prospered. The men who were killed were largely those who lived by fighting, and the land was well rid of them. 7. The first battle was fought at St. Albans. The Duke of York, with three thousand men, marched upon London. The high road runs through St. Albans, and there the king and the queen's great friend, the Duke of Somerset, met him The king was defeated. Other battles were 172 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. fought at Blore Heath and Northampton, and then a peace was made. Poor sick Henry was to be called king as long as he lived, but York was to be regent, or ruler, and after the death of the king, he was to wear the crown. Parliament agreed to this. 8. But Queen Margaret did not. She had a son, a pretty boy of whom she was very fond, and she would not have him set aside. She raised an army, fought the duke at Wakefield, slew him, and crowned him with a paper crown. 9. The duke had also a son, Edward, a fierce young man and an able soldier. He took up the cause of his family, fought the queen, defeated her, entered London, and was crowned king as Edward IV. He was only nineteen years of age. But the brave Margaret was not yet wholly beaten. She fought the new king, and though at first she lost, she tried again until she routed the Yorkists, drove Edward out of England, and placed her husband once again on the throne. 10. She was able to do this because Edward had offended his greatest friend, the Earl of Warwick. This earl was more powerful than either the Duke of York or the Duke of Lancaster. He held much land and many castles, and could raise an army of ten thousand men. 11. After a few months of exile in France, Edward stole back once more. He quickly THE BEGINNING OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES KING IIEN'RY VI KNIGHTING YOUNG PSiNCE HENRY, HIS SON THE RED ROSE AND THE WHITE. 17S gathered an army, defeated Warwick at Barnet, overthrew the army of the queen at Tewkesbury and slew her son. The queen herself was taken captive, and shortly afterwards Henry died, or was murdered in the Tower of London. 12. Edward had now no one to oppose him, and he reigned for twelve years. When he died he left two little sons, and one of these became king as Edward V, his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, governing in his name. But, so people say, the duke had his two nephews put to death in the Tower, and he took the kingdom as Richard III. He did not prosper. 13. There was still a Lancastrian prince left. This was Henry, Earl of Richmond. He brought an army into England, met Richard at Bosworth, defeated and slew him. Thus the Yorkist kings came to an end. But Henry of Richmond, who became Henry VII, did not continue the line of Lancastrian kings. His father was a Welshman, and Henry VII was the first of a new line of sovereigns — the Tudor line. He came to the throne in 1485, just thirty years after the Wars of the Roses began with the battle of St. Albans. Lytton's " Last of the Barons " gives an excellent picture of Warwick the King-Maker and his times. Insane — mad. Jack Cade rebelled in 1450 ; his followers were mostly the men of Kent. The nearer heir was the Earl of March. Edward IV was Earl of March. Heaths, moors — wide waste places. II— (783) 176 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 36.^A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. Part I. Dickon Sets Out. HE sun shone gloriously on a certain June morning in the year 1480. There was just enough breeze to swing the sign of a gilded boar that hung over the shop of Master Richard Whistler, a goldsmith in London's great street, the Chepe. Lines of shops ran east and west from the Cathedral of St. Paul's to CornhiU. Over each shop was a swinging sign, and 'prentice lads stood at the doorways and shouted " Buy ! buy ! " to the good folk as they passed. 2. And what a crowd thronged the famous street and market ! There were lords and their ladies in fine array, knights and yeomen, lawyers and scholars, priests and monks by the score, quiet-looking citizens with their wives and daughters, servants in livery and wearing their master's badge in their caps, swarms of noisy children , and many a cunning sneak and cut-purse looking for an opportunity to snatch the little bags that hung from the ladies' girdles. Dogs quarrelled in the gutter, springless wagons, with clumsy, wooden wheels, creaked and groaned along the uneven roadway, and above all the din rose the shouts of the 'prentices : " Buy, buy ! What do ye lack, ladies and gallants ? Buy ! buy ! " A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. 177 3. The Chepe was no narrow street, but a wide thoroughfare that had been the scene of many a gay procession and tournament. Rich merchants Uved over the shops, and many a prince would have been content with half their wealth. Master Richard Whistler was a goldsmith, and one of the richest of them all. King Edward IV had often sat down to dinner at his table, and had borrowed money from him to fight his foes the Lancastrians. Master Whistler hoped to be Lord Mayor the next year. 4. Dickon, the merchant's eldest son, clad in doublet and hosen of dark red, with shoes to match, stood at the shop door fingering the feather in his cap and watching the busy scene. For many months to come the sights and sounds of Chepe would be only a memory with him. He was going to Oxford to learn wisdom at the schools and live with hundreds of other lads, rich and poor, whose minds hungered and thirsted after learning. He meant to work hard, but he hoped, sometimes, to play hard also. In his father's shop he had already shown that he had no lazy bones in his body, and the 'prentice lads had made him their leader in many a tough fight, and youthful foes knew how hard Dickon could hit. 5. A servant came to the door with a horse and stout pony ready saddled. Master Whistler came forth and laid his hand on his son's shoulder. MASTER WHISTLER LAID HIS HAND Oil HIS SON'S SHOULDER. A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. 179 " Hast said good-bye to thy mother and sisters, Dickon ? " " Ay, father, but they would not stop weeping, so I came away from them, lest I should weep also." " Thy mother is afraid of the dangers of the way. There be many lusty rogues on the road 'twixt this and Oxenford, but John hath a stout arm, thou art no baby, and plenty of honest folk will be wayfaring now that the sun shines." 6. Master Whistler spoke a few words to the servant John, saw that the packs were strapped tightly to the saddles, kissed his son and, with a " God bless thee, Dickon ! Pay great heed to thy teachers and pray to God daily, " saw him mount into the saddle and jog off westwards towards the Lud Gate. 7. Many a 'prentice lad caught sight of Dickon, forsook his shop for a moment, and dashed into the dusty roadway to shake him by the hand, and wish him " God-speed." Some kept by his stirrup right along Chepe, through St. Paul's Churchyard, and down the hill to the western gate of the city. There they bid him a last " Good-bye," sent a ringing cheer after him, and set him hght-heartedly on his way into the world that lay outside the walls of London. 8. At the foot of the hill was the bridge over the Fleet River, a ditch-like stream that lilled with each tide and brought flat-bottomed boats to the 180 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. western entrance of the city. The tide was in. Boats bobbed up and down, lads bathed in the waters, and knots of idle folk stood and looked on. Beyond the Fleet lay the .great monastery of Whitefriars, and many a monk with shaven crown and sandalled feet loitered by the river side. 9. Dickon and his servant John rode over the bridge into Fleet Street, which stretched away westwards past the monastery and " inns " where the law students lived. The city lad had had many a tough fight with these students, and he expected to see the face of more than one youthful foe before he got beyond Temple Bar. He was not disappointed. Many a lad in a black gown hailed him and wished him a safe journey. " Do not let them crack thy head at Oxenford," cried one ; "we will do that nearer home." 10. " Ay, ay," laughed Dickon ; " there be plenty of stout lads and tough cudgels left in Chepe. And when Yule comes with the snow, and the cry goes up, ' 'Prentices and Clubs ! ' I promise thee that my legs will be at the sign of the Gilded Boar, and will answer the call. Keep thine own pate whole. Master Quill, for I have vowed to crack it some day." 11. The law student laughed merrily. "Good luck to thee, Dickon ! A sight -of thee will be as pleasant as a Christmas gift. FU dry a good ash stick against thy return." The lads waved one A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. 181 another a friendly adieu, and then each went on his way. Chepe was the great market of London. Cheapside is its name to-day, but old Chepe was much wider than the present street. In olden times all shops hung out signs ; only inns do so nowadays. The Fleet River flowed where Farringdon Street now runs. "'Prentices and Clubs! " — the old battle-cry of the London apprentices ; there were continual fights between them and the law students. 37.— A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. Part 2. Dickon Reaches Uxbridge. LEET STREET, full of holes, thick with dust and crossed by more than one muddy ditch, was quickly passed. Through Temple Bar rode the wayfarers, coming out upon the Strand and bank of Father Thames. Fine houses of the nobles stretched away to the edge of the great stream whereon gay barges went swiftly, rowed by brawny arms, for the river was the highway between London and Westminster, and it was both pleasanter and easier to travel on its broad bosom than to ride the hot and ill-kept streets. 2. Dickon reached the pleasant little village of Charing, and glanced up at the beautiful cross that King Edward the First had raised in memory of his queen. He could see, also, the towers of the noble Abbey at Westminster. It was not often that he had been so far beyond the city gates, 182 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. and westwards before him stretched green fields and waving woods that were quite an unknown land. 3. John was looking sharply about him. " Mayhap we shall see some- one who is riding our way/' he said ; " there is no lack of foot- pads beyond Tyburn, and it will be well to join some honest party as soon as we can." 4. "It wants three hours to noon/' replied Dickon ; " ras- cals will hardly be hiding behind hedges until night begins to fall. Thou hast sword by thy side. I have a dagger and a trusty cudgel that will make a rogue's head sing in his cap. Let us try a gallop, John ; our horses are fresh, and the breeze on one's lips tastes like new OLD CHARING CROSS A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. 183 honey. Come, I'll race thee to Tyburn for a groat." But John shook his head, now growing grey in the service of a good master. "We'll keep our own wind and that of our steeds ; we may want both, and 'twould be foohsh to squander them so soon." Dickon sighed. " Thou art a careful soul, John." " That is why my master entrusts thee to me. I have to see thee safely lodged at Oxenford," was the reply. 5. So John jogged soberly along, turning into a bridle path through the fields that would bring them to the Uxbridge road. They had no lack of company, passing many a pack-horse and wagon wending their way to the city with goods for the thriving citizens. Once they met a knight attended by half a dozen armed men. Their badges showed that they were in the service of the Duke of Gloucester, the king's brother. " They look rare fighters," said Dickon admiringly. " Ay," replied John ; " but the less of such we meet the better I shall like it. Since the wars ended there are too many companies like that on the road, and they are not slow, at times, to try their weapons on peaceful travellers." 6. London had dropped behind ; its walls were no longer visible, and the tall spire of St. Paul's pointed skyward like a dim finger. They reached the Uxbridge Road, and the tide of traffic grew thinner and thinner. By the time they got to 184 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. Tyburn they had the way almost to themselves. The hedges threw a grateful shade on the green margin of the road, and Dickon would fain have cantered along on the fresh turf, but John kept the middle of the way, and looked well about him when passing copse or thicket. 7. Presently they espied a horseman riding ahead, who, like themselves, kept away from the thick hedgerows. " Yon fellow is honest," said John ; " we'll overtake him and Jiave his company as long as we may." So Dickon put his pony to a trot and speedily came up with the other traveller. The latter turned to greet the new- comers. " Give ye good day ! " he cried heartily ; "do ye ride far ? " "To Uxbridge," answered John. " And I go to my house at Hilhngdon, which is not many bowshots off," said he ; " shall we jog together ? " " If 'tis your pleasure," replied John. 8. The three rode side by side and were soon chatting easily and pleasantly. " So this is Master Whistler's son ? " said the stranger. " I have heard of your father, sir, as a worthy citizen, one of London's best. I have a sister married and living in Chepe ; she is wife to Simon Haws at the sign of the ' Crossed Keys.' " 9. " I know Mistress Haws, ' answered Dickon. "Roger, your nephew, was a playmate of mine, and went with me to the school pf the Blackfriars, A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. 185 Now I go to Oxenford and shall see him again. A rare scholar was Roger ! " " Ay, ay," said the uncle proudly, " he hath brains enough for two. Thou shalt carry a letter from me and a crown or two for his pocket. I was at Oxenford myself, and know that a lad of spirit hath need of a few pennies to jingle. I am right glad that we have met." 10. Morning grew to hot noon, and the little company, horse and man, felt the need of rest and refreshment. " There is a snug ale-house about three furlongs farther on," replied Dickon's new friend in response to his enquiry. " I know the ale-wife ; she is a clean, honest body, and gives a pennyworth for a penny, which is more than you will get at every place these days. We shall see the place as we top the next rise." The ale-house, thatched and snug-looking, presently came into sight, and the wayfarers finished the distance in a canter. 11. The house, with the bush overhanging the door to tell all men that they and their beasts were cared for, proved as good as the stranger had said. The kitchen was clean and strewed with dry rushes, and stools and table were well- scrubbed, a sign that the wooden platters would be free from grease and the stale remains of former meals. The ale-wife was a bustling, rosy-cheeked person, and soon had jacks of thin ale, a round 186 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. of good beef, and a brown loaf spread for her hungry guests. They ate and rested, whilst their horses munched a few handfuls of oats and slaked their dry throats from the pond by the roadside. The three men were soon ready. DICKON ON THE WAY TO UXBRIDGE. 12. The reckoning was paid, with a farthing over for the ale-wife's sturdy little son. The good woman spoke a word of warning. " Ye had better ride warily past the wood that ye see yonder. Four men that might have had honester faces stayed here for ale about an hour before ye came. A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. 187 I liked not the look of them, and travellers have been waylaid near by several times of late. Now that the Red Rose and the White have ceased fighting, there be a lot of masterless fellows about who rob and beat better folk than themselves." 13. " That is true, good wife, we will look to ourselves ; three honest men are better than four rogues. Give ye good-day and thanks for whole- some cheer." Dickon, mightily refreshed, was in the saddle again. The breeze was gone, not a leaf stirred, and the heat beat down so that all three were glad to ride in the shade. John rode ahead, with Dickon and the gentleman from HiUingdon a few paces behind. Hedge-thieves were hardly likely to catch them unawares. 14. Coming to the belt of woodland, they took again the dusty middle of the way, Dickon with his cudgel free in his hand, and his companions with swords loosened ready for instant action. John, still riding a little ahead, kept keen eyes looking on the ground and he saw where hoof marks ceased. At that point the rogues had left the road and were doubtless hiding in the trees at no great distance. Dickon now rode in the centre, with his companion dropped a few yards behind as a rearguard. 15. This precaution met with its due reward ; the three travellers passed on unmolested. Yet each one caught a rustling in the bushes and knew 188 STORIES FROM BRITISH HJSTORY. that keen, rascally eyes had watched them, and noted that they were well prepared to resist attack. Rogues, whose desire is for money easily gotten, do not risk their skins for hard gains, and so the little company passed the danger spot without challenge. 16. In the late afternoon they came out upon the little hill overlooking the valley of the Colne. Uxbridge lay before them. " Yon's my house," said the gentleman ; " will ye rsest the night with me?" John fingered his grizzled beard. "Thank ye, no," he replied ; " my young master is come out to see the world, and 'twere better that he sees it whilst I am at his side to guard and guide him." " That is sound wisdom," was the reply; " so I will say, ' God rest ye this night ! ' Look for me in the morning soon after dawn. I will bring the letter for my nephew, and see ye a little on the way northwards towards Oxenford." With this adieu he turned aside through his own meadows and left Dickon and John to seek lodgings at the best inn there was in TJxbridge. Fleet Street and the Strand — connected flic cities of London and Westminster. In 1480 only fields la,y to the north of them. All the west end of London was fields' and woods. Hyde Park still remains. The Uxbridge Road is now Oxford Street. Wlien Dickon rode along it, it was a grassy lane between fields, and robbers lurked behind the hedges. Ale-houses hung out a green bush over the door. There is an old proverb, " Good wine needs no bush." In 1480 ale was the drink at all meals ; tea, coffee and cocoa were unknown. A farthing was equal to about 3Jd. of our money to-day. A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. 1S9 38.— A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. Part 3. The Company at the Inn. HERE was but scant room in either ale- house or tavern that night, and Dickon and John had to make shift with crowded quarters at a hostelry that went by the sign of the " Wallet." A company of pilgrims returning from the tomb of St. Thomas of Canterbury had reached Uxbridge in the early afternoon, and seized upon every inch of lodging in the little town. 2. John was strongly minded to retrace his steps up to HilHngdon, and accept the hospitable offer of their late companion, but Dickon would not hear of it. The pilgrims were a jolly company, happy because they had duly performed a religious duty, and in the mood to make merry. In his heart, John wished to pass the evening with them quite as much as his young master did. 3. The company at the " Wallet " was about a score in number, but others of the pilgrim band were scattered here and there in other lodgings. They were not poor folk ; indeed, only persons of some substance could afford to go on a journey that lasted three months, and was looked upon as a holiday. They had gone to Canterbury quietly enough, for then they looked upon them- selves as sinners seeking for pardon. Now they 190 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. felt at peace in their hearts, and were in the humour to eat and drink and make the time go merrily. 4. There were many joined to the band who would help them to do this. A harper and glee- maiden, a tumbler and conjuror had attached themselves to the pilgrims as they wended home- wards, and these amused them by the way and in the evenings, receiving for payment a few stray pence and plenty to eat and drink. Supper was cooking when Dickon and John rode up, and the pilgrims welcomed them with a shout, for they believed in the old sapng, " The more the merrier." 5. Very few of the pilgrims had travelled on foot, most of them having good nags for the long journey ; even the harper rode an ass, with the glee-maiden perched up behind him. The meadow in the back of the tavern was dotted with grazing horses, and John hobbled his own and that of his master, and turned them loose with the others. Then they went into the big -kitchen to make friends with some of the wayfarers, and also to sniff the odours that came from two great pots hung on chains above the fire. 6. This fire was in the middle of the room, and the hearth was a pit in the floor. The innkeeper and his wife and two daughters were busy stirring the pots, and there was a pleasing clatter of wooden plates coming from an outhouse. Some A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. 191 of the pilgrims had their own supper bowls and! spoons hung from their belts, for they well knew that many a roadside tavern would be quite unable to provide for so big a band of travellers. Heat and smells drove Dickon forth into the air, and he told John that he would eat his supper on the ale-bench under the trees. 7. Supper was served. The innkeeper dipped a wooden ladle into the stew pot, filled platters and bowls, and the feasters picked out the meat and bread with their fingers, drinking the greasy liquid afterwards. Jacks of ale followed, and then the company proceeded to make merry as long as a glimmer of Ught remained. The tumbler com- menced by jumping clean over hearth and stew- pots and turning summersaults through the doorway. The pilgrims got up and followed him„ 8. The whole company gathered beneath the- tree that shaded the house, and the harper tunedl his strings. The glee-maiden, a pretty, sunburnt girl, decked out with ribbons, sang to the harper's music, and her voice sounded very sweetly in the cool, evening air. Her songs were of the simple joys o.f the country, the sowing and reaping, the doings of elves and fairies, and the mating of the birds. Between her songs the tumbler cut quaint antics, danced round on his head, chmbed the tree Uke a monkey, and grinned at his audience from amongst the green leaves. 12— (783) THE WHOLE COMPANY GATHERED BENEATH THE TREE TO LISTEN TO THE HARPER AND THE GLEE-MAIDEN. A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. 193 9. Then the conjuror did his part, swallowing daggers, eating fire and finding farthings in people's hair and ears, very much as conjurors do to-day. The harpist took his turn last, when the hght had grown dim and owls were hooting from the wood near by, warning the pilgrims that it was bed-time for folks that were going a long journey on the morrow. He recited ballads of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, of Richard the Lion Heart, and many another hero, twanging his harp at the beginning and end of each verse. 10. Night came down ; the stars came out in silvery clusters ; nightingales began their sweet yet mournful song from the copse over the way. A parson who was amongst the company said a Paternoster- whilst the pilgrims stood bareheaded, and then all sought their beds. The women who were of the company slept beneath the roof of the inn ; the men stretched themselves on couches of straw in barn and outhouse, and a deep silence soon reigned over all. The weary innkeeper laid himself down by the kitchen fire, knowing that he must be up with the sun if breakfast was to be prepared for so many hungry guests. Pilgrims — for some centuries English folk delighted to go on pilgrimages. The favourite places were Canterbury, in Kent, and Walsingham, in Norfolk. Crowds went to both places every summer. A pilgrimage (especially the return journey) was a jolly holiday as well as an act of religion. For good company, as well as safety, the pilgrims travelled in bands. Paternoster — the Lord's Prayer. 194 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. 39._A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. Part 4. The End of the Journey. LD England rose with the sun, and for the most part went to bed with it ; pilgrims and larks awoke together the next morn- ing. Dickon went down to the river to bathe, and some of the company followed his example ; the greater number of the wayfarers were content to souse their faces in a pail of water drawn from the well. The sun came up like a ball of gold, and when it stood clear above the horizon, the old priest called his feUow-pilgrims together for a morning Paternoster. 2. Breakfast soon followed, the oat cakes, barley bread and boiled pork being washed down with i acks of brown ale ; other pilgrims straggled in and joined the main band ; horses, mules and donkeys were fetched from the meadow, and mine host counted the company and gathered in a harvest of pence. Chanting a pilgrim song, the band filed down the hill to the wooden bridge that spanned the river. Dickon stayed behind for his friend of the previous day, who rode down shortly afterwards with the promised letter and purse of crowns for his nephew. 3. As Dickon and John wished to ride with the pilgrims both for safety and for their pleasant company, they started off at a sharp trot. Their A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. 195 steeds were fresher and of better quality than many of those that had done the long journey to Canterbury, and the pace of the band was leisurely enough for the slowest mule or ass to keep in touch with the main body. At the end of half an hour the pilgrims were sighted wending their way up a httle hill covered with gorse and bracken, and the tinkle of the bells on the horses could be plainly heard. 4. The two riders were still on the flat marshy land that stretched for some distance on each side of the sluggish stream, and clumps of green osiers and tall rushes fringed the path. Away to the right a flock of geese rose swiftly and noisily into the air, and John rode instantly to that side of his young master. He knew that the sounds of their hoof-beats had not startled the birds, and sus- pected that some rogues had hidden themselves amongst the rushes, hoping to get a chance of waylaying a stray pilgrim. 5. He was not mistaken. His quick eye detected a bending and swaying of the tall green growth that was not due to the gentle morning breeze. Without waiting for an attack or the chance of a sudden arrow, he shouted to Dickon to follow and dashed towards the moving patch. His bold action scared the lurking rascals — there were three of them — for they yelled an alarm and scuttled away as fast as their legs could carry 19S STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. them ; they had no stomach for a fight with two riders who were ready enough to attack them. 6. After pursuing them for about a hundred yards, John reined in his horse, shouted out a mocking challenge with plentiful threats of the gallows, then turned into the roadway again and went on his journey. " Always put on a bold front before villains," he said to Dickon ; " like the wolves they are, they will not face an honest dog that dashes for them with his teeth showing." 7. Dickon sighed with disappointment. " I should have liked a blow or two with my club," he said. " I don't doubt it," replied John, " there will be bolder knaves than these that will straddle across thy path. A stout staff is a good friend ; see that thy right arm forgets not how to swing it lustily and truly. Look ! my shout has reached the ears of the pilgrims ; they await us. Give thy pony the reins, and we will gallop to the foot of the hill." 8. The rest of the morning passed without in- cident. Dickon mingled freely with the pilgrims, chatting first to one and then another, and listening with both ears to the stories they told of their pilgrimage and of their homes in the western shires. Most of them came from Glouces- tershire, and the priest, who was their leader, had assembled them within the walls of the old city on the banks of the Severn. Some of the band A GLIMPSE BACKWARDS. 197 had been on other pilgrimages to shrines in other places than Canterbury, and all were glad that armies no longer marched up and down the great roads, burning and sla5nng for the White Rose or the Red. 9. The wayfarers halted where the little market town of Wycombe nestled amongst the hills, but set out again to climb the steep ridge to the north before the heat of noon came on. For a couple of hours they camped in the cool woods, going on their way in the afternoon. In the evening they came within sight of the spires and towers of far- famed Oxford, and Dickon gazed eagerly on the city of learning that was to be his home for a long time to come. It lay before him ringed in by green meadows and waving woods, a centre from which light and wisdom streamed out to all parts of the kingdom. " Yon's Oxenford," said John. " Ay," said Dickon. " They'll make thee a scholar, young master." " Please God," was the reply. Detected — saw. Scuttled — ran. Oxford was in the old days called Oxenford ; scholars from all parts of Europe came to study at this famous University. Seven hundred years ago there were thousands of youths studying within its walls. Gallows — a place to hang criminals. HISTORICAL SUMMARY. B.C. 55— A.D. 1485. THE ANCIENT BRITONS. These were the earliest inhabitants of our land of whom history can tell us anything. They, or people nearly related to them, dwelt not only in Great Britain but also in what are now France and Belgium. We learn from the Romans almost all we know about them. For the most part they were hunters and fishermen, living in rude huts, built along the rivers, and in the clearings of the forests. Many dressed only in the skins of the aniinals ■they killed for food, and were real savages, knowing little more than the black men who live, to-day, in the forests of Africa, Others, however, had learnt much from more civilised people. These made proper clothes for themselves, planted corn, kept flocks and herds, and lived in settlements large enough to be called towns. One king, who lived where Colchester now stands, used money for trading, and many coins stamped with his image are to be seen in our museums. You will easily understand that a king who made and used properly coined money could hardly be a savage. The Britons were heathens and worshipped the sun as a god. The oak was a sacred tree to them, and the mistletoe was a sacred plant. We sing many songs about the oak even to-day, and some of our regard for this noble tree may be traced to its worship by our heathen forerunners in this land. The mistletoe has its place, too, in some of our festivities. The priests were called Druids, and history tells us that they offered hunian sacrifices. The people of Wales, Cornwall and Cumberland are directly descended from these ancient inhabitants. They were brave warriors, and the soldiers of mighty Rome fought hard for many years before they conquered them. Uther (Lesson 1) was a young Briton. 199 SUMMARY. 199 THE ROMANS. At the time when our little history book begins its story these people were the masters of almost all the known world. When reading Lessons 1 and 2 you should think also of what you read in your New Testament about Jesus and Joseph and Mary. Only 54 years after Uther fought in the sea against the ships from Gaul, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and the Jews served the Romans and paid tribute to them just as the Britons did. It was forty-three years after the birth at Bethlehem when a Roman Emperor, called Claudius, made up his mind to subdue the Britons thoroughly. His general fought against a British king named Caratacus, defeated him, and took him a prisoner to Rome. Caratacus was the son of the king that reigned at Colchester and made coins stamped with his own image. Caratacus was not a savage dressed in skins. ^ The Romans ruled over Britain until the year 410 a.d., and when they went away they left many beautiful cities behind them. We can still walk along roads that the Romans made, and in the Forest of Dean the kerbstones along the roadside remain to this day just as the Roman soldiers laid them down nearly two thousand years ago. Between the Tyne and the Sol way Firth they built a wall to keep out a savage little people called the Picts (or "painted ones"), and along this wall there were towns in which tens of thousands of people lived. You must go to Northumber- land some day and walk along this wall, as it winds over hill and down dale, and see what great builders the Romans were. ANGLES, SAXONS AND JUTES. If a foreign nation came to our land and conquered it, we should strive and pray night and day to drive them back over the sea again. When their last ship disappeared on the horizon we should shout for joy ; bells would ring and boniires would blaze every- where. But the Britons wept when the Romans left them, for they knew that dark days were in store for them. They begged them to stay, they followed them to their ships, and sobbed aloud as the sails faded from view. Why did the Romans go ? 200 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. For these reasons. Tribes of fierce warriors, some savage, ugly, yellow-skinned little people — the Huns, others tall, fair-haired, big and handsome — the Goths, were swarming over Europe, and driving the Romans from the lands they had held so long. The Emperor was actually afraid of them in his palace behind the high walls of Rome. He knew the Britons were in great danger also. The Plots on the north, and the Saxons along the eastern shores, were daily growing stronger and more daring. When the Romans went they rushed in. The Saxons fought the Picts as well as the Britons and conquered both ; their cousins, the Jutes and Angles, helped, and each took a share of our land. The Saxons were the stronger, although the Angles gave us the name of England (Angle-land) . You can read about them in Lessons 4-9. The Britons were not easily conquered, but they were driven from their cities and -fertile lands, and took refuge in Wales, ,Cornwall and Cumberland, and some fled across the sea to a part of France now called Brittany. There were many tribes of Saxons, Angles and Jutes, and these formed themselves into separate kingdoms, and often fought with one another when they had a rest from fighting the Britons. Egbert made himself overlord of all the country. The greatest Saxon kings were Egbert, Alfred and Athelstan. THE DANES. These people followed the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. You can read about them in Lesson 10. They fought the English for hundreds of years, but never conquered the whole land, although three Danes — Canute, Harold and Hardicanute — ruled over the country from 1016-1042. They settled in the eastern counties, and many of the people still living there are descended from the Danes. They were called also Northmen and Vikings. THE NORMANS. These people were Nor'-men or Northmen, that is, Danes who had conquered the North of France when their fellows were fighting the Saxons. They became so " French " that they forgot their own language. William, their Duke, said that a SUMMARY. 201 Saxon King, Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) had promised him the Enghsli crown. You have read in Lesson 15 how he fought King Harold at Hastings and won the day. There were four Norman kings and one queen. The Normans greatly changed England. They took the English lands, robbed the people of their freedom and made many new laws. Even now when our King agrees to a new law as made by the Parliament his agreement is made known in four Norman-French words — " Le roi le veult ! " ("The king wills it ! ") . Although the Normans did many harsh and cruel things to the English, their conquest of our land was a good thing for us. They brought with them new ideas, new ways, and new learning. The English were rude and backward, and knew too little about what the rest of the world was doing. This ignorance is not a good thing for a nation ; the more we go about the world and mix with foreigners the better for us. People who stay too much at home get old- fashioned and slow, and the world soon leaves them behind. The Normans stirred up England, and set its mind growing again. They had many possessions in France, and people were always going backwards and forwards between the two countries. The Norman kings, when they gave lands to their followers, made them promise to serve them in war instead of paying money rents ; this was the Feudal System of holding land. King Stephen was the last of the Norman Kings. THE PLANTAGENETS. These were a line of kings that began with Henry II. He was really a Frenchman that had Queen Maud — the Norman — for his mother. He began to reign in a.d. 1154. He was the father of the brave Richard Lion-Heart, and also of the wicked King John. You have read of him in Lessons 18 and 19. He was a strong man but always in a quarrel with somebody. The Plantagenet kings really reigned until the Tudors came in with Henry VII in 1485. Our land made great progress during this time anci we fought many wars in Wales, Ireland, Scotland and France. Indeed, at one time, we were practically masters of all four countries. 202 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. THE CRUSADES. In the picture on page 93 we see King Richard I standing on the shore of his kingdom. A large cross is worked into the front of his long white mantle, and the knight standing behind has a smaller cross on his breast. These crosses show that both men were crusaders, or soldiers of the Cross, the cross representing faith in Christ who died on the Cross. The wars in which they fought are known as Crusades. Duke Robert of Normandy lost his chance of the English throne because, when his brother Rufus died, he was away in Palestine fighting as a Crusader. The " Lion-Heart " went crusading 93 years afterwards, and was the greatest warrior that ever fought in the cause. Prince Edward (Edward I) also went on a crusade, after he had beaten Simon de Montfort and set his father, Henry HI, safely on the throne again. Now, what were these crusades ? They were wars between the Christians of Europe and the Turks — or Saracens — who had conquered the Holy Land. The Turks are Moham- medans, and they did not love those who followed any other reU- gion. Christian men thought it a duty to go on pilgrimages to holy places (see Lessons 38, 39) . The highest and noblest journey of all was that to the land where Christ lived and died. Many men went. The Turks ill-treated them ; so Christian princes went eastwards and fought them again and again, yet never took the sacred places from them for long. The first crusade set out in 1096, and the last in 1270; Prince Edward of England was its real leader. PLANT AGENET KINGS AND IRELAND. It was in the time of Henry II, the first of the Plantagenet kings, that the English — or rather Normans from England — first got a footing in Ireland. In those days there were four Irish kingdoms, those of Ulster, Leinster, Munster, Connaught. These divisions are marked on maps of Ireland to-day. There were frequent quarrels and wars between these kingdoms, and one of the kings appealed to England for aid against his neigh- bour, Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, went to his assistance. His service? were rewarded with the hand of the princess, quite after SUMMARY. 203 the fashion of the faiiy tales, and King Henry, when the Irish chiefs had acknowledged him as their overlord, made the Earl governor of the whole of Ireland. Prince John also governed the land for some time, and, as we might expect, governed it very badly. Strongbow became governor of Ireland in 1173, but for centuries England had very little authority in the land. The Irish have never liked English rule, and as late as 1798 they fought us for their independence. PLANTAGENET KINGS AND WALES: The Welsh struggled with the Saxons for about five hundred years, and when the Normans came they fought on for nearly three hundred years longer. Sometimes they paid homage to our kings, and at other times flatly refused to own them as their lords. Edward I conquered them, and made his son prince of the country. PLANTAGENET KINGS AND SCOTLAND. Scotland was never conquered by its powerful southern neigh- bour, although we read of their kings paying homage even in Saxon times. This homage, however, was paid because the Scottish kings held lands in England and were therefore vassals of England. As we have read, Edward I had no sooner subdued Wales than he set about the conquest of Scotland. The bravery of Wallace and Bruce prevented this, and the victory at Bannockburn made Scotland secure for ever. The Scots were always more friendly wth the French than with the English, and often invaded the northern counties when the English kings were fighting in France. The two kingdoms were peaceably joined in 1603, when James of Scotland, as nearest heir, succeeded our Queen Elizabeth. PLANTAGENET KINGS AND FRANCE. Henry II was, of course, Duke of Normandy as well as King of England ; he inherited these lands from his mother. But his father was a French count, and had large possessions which he ruled practically as a king. Then Henry married a French lady whose father left her much French territory, so much that Henry ruled more of France than the French kings themselves- King John lost nearly all these fair provinces, and it was not 204 STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY. nntU the time of Edward III and the Black Prince that English kings made any attempt to get French lands again. Edward III was the son of a French princess, and because of this he claimed to be heir to the French crown. The claim was not a good and lawful one, but he fought to enforce it, and he and his brave son won some famous victories, especially Cre9y in 1346 and Poitiers in 1356. Henry V, after his victory at Agincourt in 1415, married the French princess, and was acknowledged as next heir to the throne. His son, Henry VI, was actually crowned king of France and ruled most of the land for some years. We have read how the brave maid, Joan of Arc, drove him and his soldiers from the country. In spite of this, the kings of England called themselves kings of France for a very long time afterwards. KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER. In Lesson 31 you have read how Henry, Duke of Lancaster, became king of England. He quarrelled with his cousin, Richard II, and the quarrel led to fighting, as was often the case in those rough old times. Richard was captured, probably killed in prison, and Henry reigned in his stead. There were two other Lancastrian kings that followed him, tiamely, Henry V and Henry VI ; we have already learnt something of these monarchs. Now there were many men that disputed the right of the Dukes of Lancaster to wear the English crown, and Henry IV and Henry VI had to fight hard to keep that golden burden on their heads. But there are other matters besides these that we ought to remember in connection with the reigns of these kings. It was in those days that England began to wake up from a long, long sleep. Whilst the nobles and their soldiers were fighting and killing each other, the common folk — merchants, traders and farmers — were busy with much better things. They built ships and shops and warehouses, and tilled the soil, setting thousands of busy hands and brains at work. So they grew rich and strong. The Norman and early Plantagenet kings had beaten them down ; the Lancastrian kings let them alone, for they dared not be tyrants over them, as they wanted their goodwill. Men rose up and stretched themselves, and once SUMMARY. 205 they had done so, there was no fear that they would bend their backs again under royal or noble taskmasters. The peasants and labourers began to say openly that one man was as good as another, being all sons of Adam. Teachers like John Ball had gone about from place to place and stirred them up against those who had oppressed them. A devout and good man, named John Wycliffe, translated the Bible into English, and his close study of God's word taught him that much that the monks and abbots preached and did was contrary to the Scriptures. Followers of his, called Lollards, went throughout the whole country preaching. Men began to grow eager after learning and liberty. Poets like William Langland and Geoffrey Chaucer had written famous poems, and these the people learned for themselves. Much of the truth and freedom that we ha\'e and love to-day is o^ving to what these men thought and said and did. The Commons of England grew powerful ; the nobles lost strength year by year ; many were slain in battle and their lands passed into the hands of the men who had made money as merchants and traders. KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF YORK. There were three of these kings, namely, Edward IV, Edward V, and Richard III. Edward IV was a great warrior, but he was neither a good man nor a good king. Of Edward V we can say but little. It can hardly be said that he reigned at all. His uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, took him and his brother and lodged them in the Tower of London, which was then a royal residence as well as a prison. There is no doubt that they were secretly murdered. Richard took the kingdom. Few men trusted him, so he took steps to get rid of those whom he knew for enemies. It is quite possible that Richard meant to rule well, for he was a clever and able man. But his many crimes and the cruelty and treachery by which he got the crown set all men against him. A Lancas- trian prince came forward once more. Henry Tudor invaded the land, marching from Wales, where he had many friends. A great battle was fought at Bosworth in Leicestershire, and Richard was defeated and slain. DATES TO BE COMMITTED TO MEMORY. B.C. 551 „ 54) Roman Invasions Uther sauw the ships. (Lesson 1 .) of Britain. Caesar feught with Caswallon. A.D. 1 ' 62 Suetonius Gov- Queen Boadicea took Verulam. ernor of Britain. Suetonius defeats her. (Lesson 3.) 410 Romans leave Britain. i# 449 Vortigern invites the Saxons to England. 871 Alfred is King. Lessons 11 and 12. 1002 Massacre of St. Brice's day. Lesson 13. 1017^ King Canute Lesson 13. to \ 1035 J reigned. 1066 Battle of Hast- ings. Lesson 14. 1066) to Norman Kings. Lessons 15-18. 1154' 1154 Henry II is King. Lesson 17. 1189) to 1216) Reigns of Ricli- Lessons 19 and 20. ard and John. 1215 John granted Magna Carta. Lesson 23. 1216 Hubert de Burgh fought the to Henry III reigned . French. Simon de Montfort fought 1272 for liberty. (Lesson 22.) 1272 Edward I is King Lessons 25 and 26. Battle of Jamie Duncan sees the English Bannockburn. beaten. (Lesson 27.) 1346 Battle of Cressy. Lesson 28. 1399 Henry IV won A Duke becomes King. the crown. (Lesson 31.) 1415 Battle of Agin- court Lesson 33. 1429 Joan of Arc Lesson 34. fought for France. 1455) to 1485) Wars of the Lesson 35. Roses. Press of Isaac Pitman & Sons, Both, England, M-(783) SAXON NORMAN .