; 'w-..^ : K. ■ ' ■:: : • ■ ■: ':;. -:.:■:■■■. '■' ■ ■ \\;\" y ' jijj! . .; ; ' :' .: I!!i$3!i '■■/"—V.v LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 00005L>b434E *< ^VWV\M\A -MR $ **' ** -.J \ \ :* .** ^Vw\>v ^ % *T7i V • I • •• c* d 9 * f £°* <> *o • » * .0 f BOOKS BY JAMES RICHARD JOY. AN OUTLINE HISTORY OF ENGLAND .. $ I oo (WITH J. H. VINCENT,) AN OUTLINE HISTORY OF GREECE 50 AN OUTLINE HISTORY OF ROME The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. STUDIES FOR 1890-91. An Outline History of England. Joy $1 00 Our English. Hill 60 From Chaucer to Tennyson. Beers 1 00 Walks and Talks in the Geological Field. (Illustrated.) Winchell 1 00 History of the Church in America. Hurst 40 French Literature in English. Wilkinson 1 00 AN OUTLINE HISTORY OF ENGLAND BY JAMES RICHARD JOY NEW YORK CHAUTAUQUA PRESS C. L. S. C. Department ISO Fifth Avenue 1890 The required books of the C. L. S. C. are recommended by a Council of six. It must, however, be understood that recom- mendation does not involve an approval by the Council, or by any member of it, of every principle or doctrine contained in the book recommended, Pa, 3:i THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON Copyright, 1890, by Hunt & Eaton, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York. PREFATORY NOTE. It is of prime importance that the books of the Chautau- qua Reading Course should be clear, concise, and accurate. The author has endeavored to comply with this threefold requirement in this Outline History of England. The story of the growth of Britain, England, and the British Empire has been compressed within narrow limits, but there has been no sacrifice of clearness, or of scrupulous fidelity to the truth. The author makes no pretensions to originality of research, and small claim to freshness of statement. He would grate- fully acknowledge assistance received from many sources ; would especially own his debt to the following works : A Short Geography of the British Isles, by J. R. and Alice S. Green ; Story of Early Britain, by Alfred J. Church ; The Normans in Europe, by A. H. Johnson ; The Early Planta- genetSy by William Stubbs ; The Age of Elizabeth, by Man- dell Creighton; The Puritan Revolution, by S. R. Gardiner; Oliver CromwelVs Letters and Speeches, by Thomas Carlyle; The Fall of the Stuarts, by Edward Hale; The Age of Anne, by E. E. Morris; History of Napoleon, by P. Lanfrey; Con- stitutional History of England, by Henry Hallam ; History of Our Own Times, by Justin M'Carthy; History of En- gland, by Edith Thompson ; Short History of the English 6 Outline History of England. People, by John Richard Green, and the Universal Historic* of Plcetz, Labberton, and Fisher. To those readers who care to fill in for themselves the outlines which are sketched in this volume, the histories of Green, Freeman, Bright, Stubbs, Taswell-Langmead, and Hume are recommended. The Sketch of English Literature, by Henry A. Beers, which accompanies this book in the Chautauqua reading course has enabled the author to devote to other matters the portion of his space upon which the writers of England had large claim. That work admirably supplements this history. James Richard Joy. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PAGE England— The Island ok the English 13 CHAPTER II. The Early Britain's and Roman Britain 28 CHAPTER III. The English Kingdoms 42 CHAPTER IV. The English and the Northmen 59 CHAPTER V. The Norman Conquerors *J8 CHAPTER VI. The Rise of the Barons . . 95 CHAPTER VII. The Plant agenet Kings 112 CHAPTER VIII. England and France 128 CHAPTER IX. Lancaster and York 14(5 CHAPTER X. The Tudor Monarchs 150 An Outline History of England. CHAPTER XL Page The Later Tcdors 178 CHAPTER XII. The Stuart Tyranny 205 CHAPTER XIII. The Commonwealth and the Restoration 232 CHAPTER XIV. The English Revolution 251 CHAPTER XV. The House of Hanover, or Brunswick 271 CHAPTER XVI. Conclusion 293 -+++*- MAPS. England 12 Britain 44 English Empire 62 Dominions of House of Anjou 96 British Possessions 304 The Sovereigns of England. THE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND. SINCE THE NORMAN CONQUEST. (1.) WILLIAM L, b. about 1027, d. 1087, m. Matilda of Flanders. I WILLIAM II. (Rufus), b. about 1060, d. 1100. I I HENRY I. Adela, b. 1068, d. 1137, d. 1135, m. Stephen, m. 1. Matilda of Count of Scotland. Blois and Chartres. I ,1. Matilda, STEPHEN, d. 1167, d. 1154, wi. 2. Geoff veil (Plan- m. Matilda, tagenet), Count of Countess of Boulogne. Anjou. (5.) HENRY II. b. 1133, d. 1189, m. Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine. Henry, b. 1155, d. 1183. (6.) RICHARD I. b. 1157, d. 1199. Geoffrey, b. 1158, d. 1186, m. Constance, heiress of Brittany. I Arthur, Duke of Brittany, b. 1187, d. 1203. Note.— The kings are printed in capitals and numbered in the order of their reigns. 1* I (7.) JOHN, b. 1166, d. 1216, m. 2. Isabel of Angouleme. (8.) HENRY III. b. 1207, d. 1272, m. Eleanor of Provence. I (9.) EDWARD I. b. 1239, d. 1307, m. 1. Eleanor of Castile. (10.) EDWARD II. b. 1284, murdered 1327, m. Isabel of France. <,!.> EDWARD III. b. 1312, d. 1377, m. Philippa of Hainaidt. [See next page.'] 10 An Outline History of England. THE SOVEKEIGNS (11.) EDWARD 1 1 I Edward, Lionel, 1. Blanche, 1 - John of Gaunt, = = 3. Katharine Prince of Duke of daughter of Duke of Swynford. Wales, Clarence, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, b. 1330, b. 1.338, Lancaster. b. about 1340, d. 1376. d. 1368. (12.) (1 d. 1399. ,> RICHARD II. Philippa, HENRY IV. John Beaufort, b. 1366, m. Edmund b. 1366, d. 1413, Earl of Somerset. deposed Mortimer, m. 1. Mary 1399. Earl of Bohun. March. 1 (14.) Roger HENRY V. John Beaufort, Mortimer, b. 1388, d. 1422, Duke of Earl of m. Katharine Somerset. 1 March. of Frai 1 ice, who =- 5.) = 2. Owen Tud( ir. i a 1 1 Edmund Anne HENRY VI. Edmunl Margaret Mortimer, Mortimer, b. 1421, Tudor, Earl Beaufort. Earl of m. Richard, d. 1471, of Richmond. March, Earl m. Margaret d. 1424. of Cam- of Anjou. bridge. I who was (19.) HENRY VII., = beheaded, Edward, 1415. Prince of Wales, b. 1457, d. 1509. b. 1453, slain at Tewkesbury, 1471. (20.) . 1. Katharine = HENRY VIII. = 2. Anne Boleyn. = 3. Jane Seymour. of Aragon. (2 b. 1491, d. 1547. 2.) (2-' ,) (2 10 MARY, ELIZABETH, EDWARD VI. b. 1516, d. 1558, b. 1533, d. 1603. b. 1537, d. 1553. m. Philip of Spain. The Sovereigns of England. OF ENGLAND— continued. 11 III. Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, b. 1341, d. 1402. Richard, Earl of Cambridge, beheaded 1415, m. Anne Mortimer. I Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, slain at Wakefield, 1460. I (16.) EDWARD IV. b. 1442, d. 1483, m. Elizabeth Wydeville. i di.) George, Duke of RICHARD III. Clarence, b. 1449, d. 1478. b. 1452, d. 1485, ! m. Anne Neville. Elizabeth, d. 1503. (17.) EDWARD V. b. 1470. Richard, Duke of York, b. 1472. Edward, Earl of Warwick, beheaded 1499. I Margaret, b. 1480, d. 1541, pi. 1. James IV., King of Scots. Ja-ues V., King of Scots, d. 1542. I Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded 1587. I (19.) JAMES I. b. 1566, d. 1625, Anne of Denmark. [See next page.} Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, beh'd 1541, m. Sir Richard Pole. Edward, Prince of Wales, b. about 1476, d. 1484. Mary, b. 1498, d. 1533, m. 2. Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Frances Brandon, m. Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk. Jane Grey, beheaded 1554, m. Lord Guilford Dudley. 12 An Outline History of England. THE SOVEBEIGNS OF ENGLAND— continued. JAMES I. I (25.) CHARLES I. b. 1600, beheaded 1649. m. Henrietta Maria of France. (26.) CHARLES II. b. 1630, d. 1685. I (27.) JAMES II. b. 1633, d. 1701. (28.) MARY, b. 1662, d. 1694. (30.) ANNE, b. 1665, d. 1714. WILLIAM III. James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, b. 1688, d. 1766. Charles, Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, b. 1720, d. 1788. I Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal York, b. 1725, d. 1807. Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, b. 1596, d. 1662, m. Freder- ick, Elector Palatine. Mary, b. 1631, d. 1660, m. William, Prince of Orange. Sophia, d. 1714, m. Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover. I (29.) (31.) WILLIAM III. GEORGE I. b. 1650, d. 1702. b. 1660, rn. d. 1727, MARY OF m. Sophia ENGLAND. Dorothea of Zell. (32.) GEORGE II. b. 1683, d. 1760, m. Caroline of Branden- burg- Anspach. Frederick, Prince of Wales, b. 1707, d. 1751. I (33.) GEORGE III. b. 1738, d. 1820. m. Charlotte of Mechlen- burg-Strelitz. I (34.) GEORGE IV. b. 1762, d. 1830, m. Caroline of Brunswick- Wolfenbilttel. Charlotte, b. 1796, d. 1817. (35.) | WILLIAM IV. Edward, Duke of Kent, b. 1765, d. 1837. b. 1767, d. 1820. Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover, b. 1771, d. 1851. (36.) VICTORIA, b. 1819, m. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. HlSTOPvY OF AN 01 'LINE /NGLAND. -♦•♦- CHAPTER I. ENGLAND-THE ISLAND OP THE ENGLISH. The thoughtful student of the marvelous history of En- gland, her rise from weakness and poverty to surpassing wealth and power, will more than once note to what an ex- tent the physical characteristics of the land have molded the development of the nation. The simplest of these in- fluences has been the most effective, and England is now the ruler of continents mainly because for centuries she was con- fined to the narrow limits of an island. There first she learned to rule herself. It was this insular position — dis- tinct, though not distant, from Europe — that delayed and restricted the Roman conquest ; this it was which tempted the Anglo-Saxon invaders, and later left them free to con- solidate the kingdom they had won; and not until the Nor- man-French monarchs had lost their continental dominions and become simply the lords of the island did England take her rightful place as mistress of the seas and first in the roll of commercial empires. Sitting thus by herself, removed a step from her brawling neighbors, England has solved some of the hardest problems of government. Before proceeding to the study of the English people we should give some at- tention to their island home, which has formed their national character. The British Isles, of whose area England comprises about 14 Ax Outline History of England. one half, exceed five thousand in number, though only two, Great Britain and Ireland, are of considerable size and im- portance. On the westward the open Atlantic, a thousand miles wide and a thousand fathoms deep, separates them from the American continent, and furnishes a roadway for the commerce of two worlds. The North Sea, or German Ocean, rolls its shallow waters on the east, offering means of communication with the Baltic Sea and the hundred harbors of Northern Europe. To the south the sea is constricted into the Strait of Dover, where the French sentinel at Calais may descry the chalk cliffs of England across twenty miles of choppy waves. The strait relaxes again in the English Channel, which washes the southern shore of England and the northern coast of France. Again two channels — the North and St. George's — with the Irish Sea, furnish a con- tinuous water-way between the two greater islands of the British group. In comparison with Great Britain and Ire- land no member of the cluster merits mention, but others will figure in this history, and should not be overlooked in this preliminary survey. North of Great Britain are two rocky groups, the Shetlands — whose hardy ponies are dear to the heart of boyhood — and the Orkneys — some seventy weather- beaten, sea-bird-haunted cliffs. Westward, and not far from the Scottish coast, are the stormy Hebrides. Among these are Lewis, Skye, little Staffa, famed for Fingal's Cave, and Iona, the ancient center of Celtic Christianity. Advancing south- ward past Islay and Arran, the voyager in the Irish Sea would reach the Isle of Man, and near the coast of Wales Anglesey, a sacred seat of the Druid worship of the an- cient Britons. West of Land's End, at the south-western angle of England, are the Scilly Islands, a welcome sight to the eastward-faring mariner, and nestling close under the southern coast is the fair Isle of Wight. Leagues away to the southward are cattle-breeding Jersey, Guernsey, Al- derney, and the other Channel Islands, like British outposts, England — the Island of the English. 15 but in reality the paltry remnant of the once vast continental realm of England. The east coast of Great Britain has but one island that need be named — Holy Isle, in the German Ocean, near Tweed-mouth. Great Britain itself comprises about two thirds of the British group. Its area is 84,000 square miles, with a maxi- mum length of 600 miles, and a breadth varying from 33 to 367 miles. Although under a single government, it is di- vided into three sections — Scotland, Wales, and England. Scotland has an area of 24,000 miles, a length of 286, and a breadth of from 33 to 160 miles. It is a land of rugged mountains, beautiful glens, and crystal lakes, but its soil, save in the southern Lowlands, is thin and its climate harsh, and neither in wealth nor population can it compare with Wales, which is rugged, and among its mountain-masses descend- ants of the ancient Celtic race that Ca?sar found in the island linger yet. The principality covers 7,400 square miles, and until the dawn of this century of metals and steam the Welsh people were as poor as they were scattered. Mining and quarrying for coal, iron, and slate have changed this for the better. But it is not Scotland, nor Wales, nor even the Emerald Isle, that most concerns us. Our theme is England. East of Wales and south of Scotland, occupying two thirds of Great Britain, the choicest territory of the island, is the country whose history lies before us. It is not exten- sive, this England — 350 miles from north to south, and no- where more than 370 from east to west. Its area, stated roundly, is 50,000 miles. It will make matters clearer to survey its physical features, note where its mountains rise, where its great plains are spread out, and whence and whither its rivers run. The backbone of England is the Pennine Chain, a line of mountains and high plains, or moors, extending southward from the Scottish border to the heart of the king- dom, where it ends in the Peak of Derbyshire. On the one 10 An Outline History of England. side — west — of the Pennine range is a knot of lofty mount- ains, the Cumbrian Hills, among which rise the summits of Scafell (3,162 feet), " the brow of mighty Helvellyn " (3,118 feet), and Skiddaw (3,054 feet). In the folds of these mountains are the lakes Windermere, Ulles Water, Derwent- water, Thirlmere, Buttermere, and Coniston Water, which make this " lake district " the most picturesque region in England, and a favorite haunt of poets. East of the Pen- nines is the great plain of York, curving around the Peak and joining the central plain. A range of uplands sepa- rates these plains from the valley of the Thames, which stretches its fertile length nearly across the kingdom, and from the Severn valley, which cuts off the Welsh highlands from the gentler levels of the east. Cornwall, the narrow south-western prolongation of England, is mountainous, like Wales, but the greater part of southern England is a rolling country traversed by four ranges of uplands or high plains, the Oolitic, Chilterns, North Downs, and South Downs. The first is of limestone, the three latter are of white chalk, and ter- minate respectively in Hunstanton Point, the Forelands, and Beachy Head. These four ranges converge from the east coast to Dorsetshire, the region between the Bristol and En- glish Channels. North of them, beyond the valleys of Thames and Severn, lies the mining and manufacturing center of the world, drawing its sustenance from the iron, coal, and lead of the Pennine Chain, the wool from the northern and southern grazing lands, and the cotton of both hemispheres. The water system of England is simple. Navigable seas surround the island, fine harbors indent its coasts, and many rivers traverse its plains and thread its valleys. The deep bays and prominent headlands give to England and Wales a coast line 1,800 miles long. The eastern shore is generally low and level. The rivers that enter the German Ocean are the Tyne, which flows through the northern coal-beds, the Tees, the Humber, which gathers to itself a sheaf of streams— England — the Island of the English. 17 the Trent and Ouse among them — the Wash, a shallow bay receiving the slow moving waters of the expanse of marsh-land known as the fens of Lincolnshire, and the Thames, the main water-course of Great Britain. The south coast runs through many variations of height, from the low chalk cliffs of Dover to the iron-bound masses of the Cornish promon- tories. Its rivers are few and of no moment, but the arms of the sea, which embrace the Isle of Wight, provide the splendid harbors of Portsmouth and Southampton, and far- ther toward the west is Plymouth Sound, the head-quarters of the royal fleet. Rounding Land's End and coasting northward, the sailor enters the broad waters of Bristol Channel, the estuary of the Severn. North of Wales the rivers Dee and Mersey discharge into the Irish Sea through broad mouths, the former now choked by "the sands o' Dee," the latter the second sea-port of the realm. The Ribble cuts another deep notch in Lancashire, a little south of the wide Bay of Morecambe, which receives the Lune and other southward-flowing waters from the Cum- brian hills. The northerly meres and torrents find their way into Solway Firth by the Eden and Derwent. The climate of the British Isles is remarkable. The group lies between parallel 50° and 60° of north latitude, as far north as Labrador or Central Russia, yet the temperature is mild throughout the year. It is their insular position, and especially the proximity of the warm ocean-river, the Gulf Stream, which sweeps past their western shores, which secures to these islands warmth and evenness of temperature and plentiful moisture. Ireland is as warm as Virginia, and the air of the Isle of Wight is nearly as mild as the climate of France and Italy. The mean temperature of London is much higher than that of New York. The stranger in Great Britain is most invpressed by the frequent and copious rains. The prevailing winds blow from the west, gathering moisture from the evaporating 18 Ax Outline Histoky of England. waters of the Atlantic. Ireland receives the first downpour, and the fields of that green island are watered by showers 208 days (average) in the year. The mountains of Britain — Scottish, Welsh, and English— next intercept the heavy clouds. The rain-fall upon their western slopes is enormous — seven feet every year in some districts. These waters reach the sea in short and rapid torrents. The eastern counties have but a moderate amount of rain, but nowhere is the land too dry for pasturage, and in general the humid atmosphere nourishes the lawns, fields, and hedge-rows, which give luxuriant color to the English landscape. Coupled with warmth of climate, this moisture makes the soil productive of rich crops of cereals. Wheat thrives almost every- where, and barley and oats in the north. Ireland's chief crop is potatoes, though •flax is much cultivated. Grazing is successful in all parts of the United Kingdom, and the best breeds of horned cat- tle and sheep bear the names of the English counties and islands where they were bred. Moor and fell, lake, stream, and chalk cliff remain much as they were when the first Greek or Roman discoverer set foot in Britain, but among these the modern traveler or student finds new names and places that mark the island as the hab- itation of man. England has a political geography no less interesting than the physical features which we have enu- merated, and at the outset we shall do well to impress upon our minds its leading facts — the counties and towns of En- gland, their names, positions, and characteristics. With the help of a map we shall again commence at Ber- wick, on the river Tweed — the English Rubicon — and, mov- ing southward, note them in succession. The first of the forty English shires, or counties, is North- umberland, the old border-land where English Percy and Scottish Douglas met in frequent foray. The Tweed on the north and the Tyne on the south form outlets for the rich coal-measures which contribute to the prosperity of North England — the Island of the English. 19 Shields and Newcastle-on-Tyne, the latter city ranking after London and Liverpool in trade. Durham, which lies next, between the Tyne and Tees, surpasses its northern neighbor in the variety of its industries. Its coal-beds are extensive. Near them is iron ore. And its river valleys are checkered with fertile farms. Durham, the shire-town on the Wear, is a quiet little city with a famous cathedral church. Sun- derland and South Shields are the other cities. York, the greatest of the shires, occupies the plain between the Tees and the Humber, drained by the dozen streams which swell the latter river through the channel of the Ouse. In the center of this rich farming district is the city of York, one of the oldest of English towns, and prominent in the chroni- cles of war and peace, 'Church and State. It has a splendid cathedral, the seat of one of the two Anglican archbishops. Moors and uplands rich in metals and coal skirt this river- basin, and at the south-western angle among the Pennine foot-hills populous manufacturing cities have sprung up around the woolen-mills of Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Hud- dersfield, and the edge-tool shops of Sheffield. Hull, on the Humber, is the port for much of the export trade in the prod- ucts of these factories. For convenience the great county is divided, its three districts — the North, East, and West Ridings — all meeting in the county town of York. Again two rivers — rather, broad inlets — the Humber and the Wash, inclose a county. This time it is Lincoln. Lincoln- shire differs materially from the shires already noticed, hav- ing no share in the mineral treasures of the Pennine Chain. Its northern districts, known as the Wolds, are upland past- ures, but where they fall to the level of the Wash land and water mingle in the vast marshes called " the fen country." These fenlands have been diked and drained, and are now fertile. grass-lands, while countless flocks of ducks and geese are bred in their sluggish waters. The capital is Lincoln, a little old cathedral city, and the chief port is Boston — St. 20 An Outline History of England. Botolph's town — both on the river Witham, and bearing names dear to Americans. West of Lincolnshire the river Trent drains an inland region comprising the four Midland counties — Nottingham, Derby, Stafford, and Leicester. All except the last named border the Pennine Chain and delve for its minerals. In Nottinghamshire was Sherwood Forest, the haunt of Robin Hood and his greenwood rangers. Not- tingham is its busy capital, and it has no other large city, the farming people being dispersed among many market- towns and villages. Northern Derbyshire contains the rugged region of the Peak (1,981 feet high), and its eastern section is rich in coal and iron. Derby is the thriving county seat. Rich Staffordshire lies next, on the south-west. Coal in the north, and coal again in the south, alternating with rich beds of clay, have made the Staffordshire potteries the largest in England. Stafford, a " shoe-town," is the county seat, but Stoke-on-Trent is the center of the earthenware manufacture. In the south are Wolverhampton, with extensive iron-furnaces, Burton-on-Trent, a brewer's city, and peaceful old Lichfield, with a much-admired cathedral. The fourth and least of the midland shires is Leicester. Its pleasant farms lie wholly south of the Trent, and are watered by the river Soar. Leices- ter, where court is held and wool is spun and woven, is the only large city among a score of country towns. With Lincoln, noticed above, five other shires — Rutland, Northampton, Huntingdon, Bedford, and Cambridge — are sometimes classed as counties of the Wash or the East Mid- lands. Rutland is the smallest shire in England ; the court- house is at Oakham. The water-shed of central England ex- tends through long and narrow Northamptonshire; numerous herds graze upon these uplands, and rivers springing here find their diverse ways to the Wash, the Severn, and the Thames. Northampton, the capital, is the center of the shoe-trade, but Peterborough, with its towering church, is far more inter- esting. About the farms of level Huntingdon lingers the England — the Island of the English. 21 memory of one Oliver Cromwell, the sturdiest patriot that ever tilled an English field; and Bedford, the county seat of the adjoining Bedfordshire, is better known for its dream- ing tinker, John Bunyan, than for the straw hats and bon- nets plaited there and at Dunstable. The last of these six counties bears the renowned name of Cambridge, its county seat, where in simpler times the little river Cam was bridged, and where one of the two English universities has been for six centuries a center of learning;. The northern section of the shire is fen-land, like southern Lincoln, and from the marshes rises the Isle of Ely, a religious center from the earliest English times. Between Cambridge and the east coast lie the two East Anglian counties, Norfolk and Suffolk, the "north-folk" and "south-folk" of the Angles? who first conquered this district. Farms in the interior, and fisheries on the sea-board, give employment to the inhabitants. Norwich is the capital, and Yarmouth — famed for its her- rings — the sea-port of the northern shire. Ipswich is both capital and port of Suffolk. In the interior is the historic Bury St. Edmunds. The Thames (length, 215 miles) is the chief English river, and eight counties lie within the region which it drains. Essex, Middlesex, Hertford, Buckingham, and Oxford lie on its left bank, opposed on the other shore by Berkshire, Sur- rey, and Kent. Essex got its name from its East-Saxon conquerors. AVhere once were the royal hunting preserves of Epping and Hainault is now a land of farms and rural pros- perity without large cities. At Shoeburyness, guarding the Thames-mouth, is the artillery-school of the British army. The Middle Saxons gave their name to Middlesex, smallest but one and most populous of all the English shires. Its capital is Brentford. Westward, by a heath once infested by Sir John Falstaff and fiercer cut-purses, is Hounslow, and a few miles to the north is Harrow, the home of a famous public school. But in comparison with its great city the 22 An Outline History of England. towns of Middlesex sink out of sight; for within this county lies the greater portion of London, the greatest city that the world has known. The population of 4,000,000 souls gathered here overflows upon the Surrey side of the Thames, and the docks and warehouses of its abounding commerce line the river to its mouth. London is the seat of the English government, and the capital of the world's trade. Hither run all the roads in England, and hither tend the sails from every sea. No metropolis of the ancient world is to be compared with this modern marvel. Middlesex cuts off Hertford from direct contact with the Thames. This shire has no great cities, but St. Albans is a town of note in early times. In Buckinghamshire is Eton, noted like Harrow for its ancient school. Agriculture is the prevailing industry, as it is in Ox- fordshire, which adjoins the former on the west. Oxford, the county seat, has also a cathedral and a university seven centuries old. In the north-west are the Edge Hills, and in the center of the county is Woodstock, where the poet Chaucer lived and wrote The Canterbury Tales. Crossing to the right bank of the Thames, and following it to the sea, we pass through Berkshire, another land of farmers, having the royal residence of Windsor Castle in its north-eastern angle. The Hampshire Downs, a range of chalk hills which crosses Berkshire, also traverse the adjacent county of Surrey. Here the influence of London has turned the farming hamlets into thrifty suburban towns, and two populous divisions of the metropolis, Lambeth and Southwark, lie wholly on the Surrey side. Kent, which lies between Surrey and the Straits of Dover, is one of the most interesting of this long list of counties. On this coast are Dover and Folkestone, whence steam-boats cross to Calais and Boulogne in France. Rams- gate and Margate, on the Isle of Thanet, are the popular sea- shore resorts of the London crowds. Canterbury is the site of a grand cathedral, the seat of the first Anglican arch- bishop, and perhaps the most venerated spot in the kingdom. England — the Island of the English. 23 Tunbridge Wells, on the southern border, was the fashionable watering-place two hundred years ago; at Rochester is an ancient cathedral, and near by at Chatham is the arsenal of the royal navy. Deptford, Greenwich, Woolwich, and Gravesend, which elbow each other for a water-front upon the Thames, present mile upon mile of docks, crowded with the shipping of the globe. Marking the mouth of the Thames is the North Foreland light. Our traveling student of political geography has now re- turned from his trip among the Thames counties and may follow the Channel coast into Sussex, another historical name derived from the South Saxons. The surface of this shire is broken by the South Downs, a range of crumbling chalk hills ending at the Channel shore in Beachy Head. Between these hills and the North Downs is the Weald, a plain of clay and sand, which was until recently a tangled wilderness. Sussex is not populous, but among its coast towns are Hastings, where William the Conqueror fought, and Brighton, the most popular beach in England. Chichester, now decayed, has the court-house and bishop's church. On the plain of Senlac William won his decisive victory over Harold, and near by is the ruined abbey of Battle — the mon- ument of the conquest. The Hampshire Downs, of which the North and South Downs are the eastern branches, extend across northern Hampshire, rising in places to the height of about 1,000 feet. Between their wall and the Channel is a gently undulating and fertile region, of which the ancient royal and cathedral city of Winchester is the center. Two harbors, Portsmouth and Southampton, indent the southern coast, the former being a naval post, the latter the entry port of an active commerce with the Mediterranean. Southampton Water, with its arms, the Solent and Spithead, divide the Isle of Wight from the Hampshire main-land. The climate of the island is charmingly mild, and its scenery very beautiful. West of Southampton Water is a wide 24 An Outline History of England. tract of woodland called the New Forest. The conquer- ing Normans laid this country waste to form a game pre- serve, and it was here that "the red king" lost his life. Wiltshire, though wholly inland, is linked with this southern range of counties by its rivers, which flow into the English Channel, though parts of it are drained by affluents of the Thames and Severn. Much of its surface is high and barren — Salisbury Plain and Marlborough Downs. Salisbury is the capital and cathedral city, Wilton has given its name to a kind of carpets, Stonehenge is a circle of massive stones marking, perhaps, the center of the religious exercises of the Druids. Dorset lies between Wilts and the Channel. Much of its surface is high, and clay for the Stafford potteries is almost its only mineral product. Bristol Channel, a wedge driven far into Britain, splits off a slender sliver of land, which is divided between the three counties of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. Somersetshire borders the Bristol Channel, and is cut in two by the river Parret. East of this river are low hills and fertile valleys. There are cathedrals at Bath and Wells, and Glastonbury was once the site of the most extensive monastery in the island. West of the river, however, there are few cities ; masses of rocky mountains take the place of the ridges of chalk and lime which cross the eastern counties, and few villages are found in their isolated glens. The rocks of Devonshire are of the same character, but the mountains rise higher, and are rich in metals. Exmoor is the name given to the highlands of North Devon, and Dartmoor to the more extensive southern plateau. Yes Tor, the Dartmoor summit, exceeds 2,000 feet in height. Mines of lead, iron, tin, cop- per, and quarries of valuable building stone enrich South Devonshire, and have built busy cities at the mouths of the rivers: Plymouth, Devonport, and Dartmouth. In the plain between these two strips of moorland are bred the herds of Devon cattle, and here are the towns of Exeter, another England — the Island of the English. 25 cathedral city, and Honiton, where lace is made. The point of this south-western sliver of Britain is the county of Corn- wall, which is again split at its western tip into the two headlands — Land's End and Lizard Point. Flinty rocks and scanty soil form the forbidding surface of the shire, but the hard rocks of the utmost west are richly veined with lead, silver, copper, and exhaustless stores of tin. The chief Corn- ish towns are Truro, Falmouth, and Penzance. Turning northward from the mineral-bearinor rocks of Devon and Cornwall, we find a group of six West Midland counties lying in the valley of the Severn, between Wales and the already mentioned Midland shires. They are Glouces- ter, Worcester, Warwick, Monmouth, Hereford, and Salop, or Shropshire. The first named is an agricultural region, notable for the wool of its Cotswold flocks, and for the com- merce and manufactures of its city of Bristol, which trades extensively with Ireland and the West Indies. Tracing the course of the Severn northward, one enters Worcestershire, a land of fertile valleys, rich in farms and orchards. Worces- ter, its capital, has famous porcelain works, carpets are woven at Kidderminster, and iron and glass are manufactured in a busy district at the north. The river Avon, the main tributary of the Severn, flows midway through lovely Warwickshire. This is Shakespeare's county, for he was born at Stratford-on-Avon. Rugby, dear to many genera- tions of English school-boys, is in the Avon valley. So is Coventry, where the chaste Godiva rode at noonday, and Kenilworth Castle, now ruined, where the Earl of Leicester feasted the august Elizabeth. Beyond the charming valley is the populous manufacturing city of Birmingham, ranking fourth in England. Across the Severn, from Gloucester, is Monmouthshire, taken from Wales by the eighth King Henry. The Welsh mountain spurs which enter the county from the west yield coal and iron, and the basin of the river Usk is fertile. The Wye, which here enters the Severn, has 2 28 An Outline History of England. come down through the orchards and hop-gardens of Here- fordshire. The sixth and largest of the West Midland coun- ties is Shropshire, which the Severn cuts into halves, the north- ern section low, with fat pastures, the southern mountainous and sparsely peopled. Its towns are small and unimportant. The four remaining counties of England — Chester, Lan- caster, Westmoreland, and Cumberland — are washed by the Irish Sea and run back to the Pennine Chain. The double advantage of mineral wealth and easy water communication has raised them in wealth and population. Cheshire has the Mersey, with the sea-port of Birkenhead on its northern, and the sandy Dee, with Roman-walled Chester, on its southern, boundary. Midway flows the river Weaver, through a valley whose salt springs were utilized before the invasion of Caesar. Copper and lead mines, coal-fields and stone-quar- ries, are worked in the eastern districts, which thus gain importance as a manufacturing center. But the county of Lancaster, or Lancashire, stands easily first in manufactures. Lancaster is a long and narrow county, comprising the iso- lated lakes and mountains of Furness, the thinly settled pasture-lands of North Lancashire, and, between the Kibble and Mersey, South Lancashire, a swarming hive of industry. The coal-fields of the Lancashire moor-lands and the use of steam-power have changed this desolate country into a popu- lous and wealthy section until, as a recent writer says, " the whole county has now the appearance of one unbroken city of mills and factories, all busied in the same trade, the weav- ing, dyeing, and printing of cotton." Bolton, Oldham, Roch- dale, and Manchester are cities of spindles and looms, and Liverpool, on the Mersey, the second city of England, and second sea-port of the world, is the outlet and inlet for the materials and products of this enormous industry. West- moreland, which only comes down to the sea at the head of Morecambe Bay, is the most mountainous and barren, and, consequently, the least populous, of the English counties. England — the Island of the English. 27 Yet the poets have lived there and written of the glories of Helvellyn and the beauties of Windermere, and this lake country has a charm for the artist and sight-seer. Cumber- land, wedged in between Westmoreland, Scotland, and Sol- way Firth, completes the tale of forty shires. It includes the northern lakes and mountains, and has mines of coal and lead. Carlisle, one of the oldest towns in Britain, is its capital. Thus we have made the circuit of England as it is to-day. We must now turn from this busy scene of crowded cities, of bustling harbors, great factories, and deep mines. The beginnings of English history go back to a time when no Englishman dwelt in Britain and a half-civilized Celtic race tilled the plains and hunted in forests of the island. 28 An Outline History of England. CHAPTER II. THE EARLY BRITONS AND ROMAN BRITAIN. 55 B. C.-410 A. D. The people who call themselves English make no pretense of being the original proprietors of their England. The first ship-load of their pagan ancestors who crossed from the Scandinavian and German coasts of Europe and disembarked upon the eastern and southern shores of the island, in the fifth century after Christ, found the country already in pos- session of a partially civilized and Christianized Celtic race — the Britons. But it is probable that even these were preced- ed by another people, for the Roman pioneers, who reached Britain five centuries before the first Englishman set foot there, describe besides the Celts a swart, curly-headed people dwell- ing in the interior. This second nation, sometimes called Silu- rian, was perhaps related to the Iberians of early Spain, as the Celtic Britons were surely akin to the Celtic Gauls of France. Of the Silurians we merely know that they existed in the island when it was first visited by observing Europeans. Of the Celts there is something further to remark. It is now generally believed that the table-land of Central Asia was the mother-land of many races which in successive pulse-beats of population started forth to people the lands which lay to the west and south. This family of nations is variously named Aryan, Indo-European, and Indo-Germanic. To it belong most of the tribes which peopled Europe at the dawn of history, including the Hellenes, of the Greek countries; the Italians, from whom sprang the Romans, and the multi- tudinous races of northern Europe — the " barbarians," who first called forth the sneers, and afterward the fears, of Greece and Rome. The Early Britons and Roman Britain. 29 From evidences of location and language it has been de- termined that the Celts were among the first Aryan families in Europe. They settled in Helvetia (Switzerland) and Gaul (France) in prehistoric times. A grain of credibility in the legendary history of Rome is that the hordes of Brennus, a Celtic chieftain, ravaged Italy and sacked Rome in the time of the kings (390 B. C). The unceasing westward movement of the Aryans, the later nations pressing the early- comers down into the peninsulas of the west, had already driven the non-Celtic race, which we shall call Silurian, across the English Channel, leaving a remnant hidden away among the Spanish mountains, who seem to survive to-day in the curious Basques of the Pyrenees. A portion of the Celts, obeying the same impulse, followed on the heels of the fugitives. All these movements probably took place very slowly, and no record of them has ever been found. The Celts of the British Islands are of two branches, the earlier Gaels — still represented by the Irish and the Scottish High- landers — and the Cymri, who originally held most of southern Britain, but whom we shall see retiring before the German invaders, and finding refuge in the mountains of Corn- wall and Wales, where the language and national type is still to be found. The history of early Britain, and, in truth, of early En- gland, is even more difficult to trace with certainty than that of Greece or Rome ; for the people of classic antiquity early took on civilization, and preserved written chronicles of events in their national life. Britain, remote from the intel- lectual lights, peopled by long-untutored barbarians, and twice or thrice submerged in wars of foreign conquest by yet ruder races, furnishes the most meager material for filling in the outline of her story. Legends there are in abundance connecting the islanders with the tales of JEneas and the Trojan founders of Rome, but they are too fanciful to claim a place in sober history, and we must pass them by so V\ OuTLiin Bisromi of Ench vm>. to learn what wo may of the actual condition and events in the island pro v ions to the advent of the English in the n ear 149 A IV ' Some have fancied that the fearless mariners ot* the The- nioian cities [N re and Sidon, at the eastern end ot the Med- iterranean Sea -groped their way between the Pillars ot' Her- . S ,\ called the Strait of Gibraltar, and coasted northward to the Germ*!) Ocean a thousand years before the b Christ, in which ease the shores of Britain would ..nlv ha\e tempted them to land, and its ores would have tarnished lading for their little vessels. This mineral wealth was &ari} fa R Herodotus, "the Father of .. hbottl 450 B, (X, speaks of the ■• V:w Islands," making unquestioned allusion to the tin lodes M rail, Still the richest in the world. One hundred v writer Aristotle speaks of two great ; in the oeean, inhabited by British and called \ ltd (erne, names still clinging to the British Isles, — the SC< 1 is now spelled llibernia. v . .\ i . ;\ . i v iMassilis (Marseilles), in Gaul, vis- ited marsh and its asts He stated als neestors of the ( sn Is, South Downs, . Dei as graaed in the oak open- i on the upland pastures Wheal ' e round growing » coast, and - urns must be built - forbidd more assl - Qaul 1 sn j Sicily. . v ic not seek. The an- •■..'■ 58 B. CL, s .. which his ambition demand- l r.\e-\ i rs' orship in intry iuhal The Early Britons and Roman Britain, 31 by tribes of Celts, simple, rude, but in a way warlike, brave, and chivalrous. These tribes he reduced to subjection to Rome in a scries of brilliant campaigns, the records of which be kept with bis own hand, and soon published in his Notes on the War in Gaul. To these books we turn and find rich information. As Caesar's conquests progressed among the tribes of western Gaul, his efforts were hampered by the succors which his enemies received from the .Britons, a kin- dred people, who lived on a great island, distant but a few Leagues from the main. Harassed by their interference, and am bilious of new laurels, the Roman gathered a hundred little vessels and two legions of men, near Cape Grisnez, in France, for the invasion of Britain. A reconnoitering galley returned with small information, and chiefs of several island tribes came professing submission. Setting sail before day- break, on August 27, 55 ]>. C, Caesar sighted the white cliffs near Dover early in the forenoon. The watchers on the heights gave the alarm, and late in the afternoon, when the Romans attempted a landing, the shore (near Deal, in mod- ern Kent) was lined with fiercely yelling Britons, horrible with war-paint, and driving their heavy war-chariots up and down the beach. The ships had to anchor far down the sand, and the legionaries, cumbered with armor, must wade ashore through tumbling breakers, in the face of arrows and javelins. Once landed, their victory was easy, and in obedience to Caesar's iron discipline they fortified a camp and rested from battle and labor. In a few days the neighboring British tribes sued for peace and sent in hostages, but, the Roman fleet being damaged by storms, the Britons plucked up cour- age and made a sudden attack upon a Roman foraging party, which was only saved by the promptness of the commanding general. A few days more of bad weather convinced Caesar that the autumn gales were approaching. He won another in- decisive battle over his besiegers, and then ingloriously sailed away in his racked vessels, having secured little booty and 32 An Outline History of England. no conquest to show for his three-weeks' campaign among the men of Kent. This did not satisfy him. Early in the following summer Caesar collected an armament of 800 small vessels, with 30,000 foot and 2,000 horse, near Boulogne, on the east side of Dover Strait, and on July 20, 54 B. C, again turned his prow to- ward Britain. This time the landing was unopposed, and the army, hastily disembarking at Deal, marched a few leagues inland and took by storm the strong palisade and earth- works to which the Britons had retreated. It was two weeks before the Romans could follow up their advantages, and meanwhile the painted Britons were crowding into Kent to expel the intruder. Tribal feuds were laid aside in the face of the common peril, and one Cassivelaunus — so Caesar spelled the Celtic name Caswallon — was made leader of the horde. With the courage of numbers and a righteous cause the Celts engaged the legions in repeated combats, hurling their chariots through the Roman lines, the horsemen leaping to the ground and engaging the infantry hand to hand. But their successes were few and temporary. The veterans of five campaigns against the Gauls were not to be stampeded by the rudely armed and undisciplined islanders, and it was not long before the Britons, checked and disheartened, fell away from their chief and sought their own safety, tribe by tribe, in submission. Caesar followed Caswallon northward across the Thames and took his stronghold. In early au- tumn the campaign was closed. The Romans withdrew across the channel, leaving no garrison, but taking many noble youths as hostages to secure peace and the payment of trib- ute. How regularly the tribute money was paid no records tell. Other events turned Caesar's face eastward, and he never revisited the island. This is what Caesar said of the inhabitants : " The interior of Britain is inhabited by a race said to be aboriginal ; the coast regions by invaders from Belgium, whom war or foray The Early Britons and Roman Britain. 33 has brought thither, and who have afterward settled in the country. There is a large population, the buildings being numerous and closely resembling those of Gaul. Cattle form their chief possession. For money they use copper or iron in bars of fixed weight and value. Tin is found in the interior, and iron sparingly near the coast. Whatever copper they use is imported. They have the forest trees of the main-land, except the beech and fir. It is forbidden by law to eat the flesh of hare, goose, or chicken, and these creatures are do- mesticated for mere amusement. The island has a milder climate than that of Gaul. " Of all the tribes the Kentish men stand first in civiliza- tion. They dwell on the sea-board, and differ little in cus- toms from the neighboring Gauls. Farther back from the coast many tribes sow no grains, subsisting chiefly upon the milk and flesh of their herds, whose skins form their clothing. Every Briton stains himself blue with the juice of the woad, giving him a horrible appearance in battle. The men shave themselves, excepting the head and the upper lip. Ten or a dozen men have wives in common." Of their system of society, government, and religion Caesar makes little note, but by likening their customs to those of Gaul he justifies us in quoting for the Britons what he says of those nearly related tribes. He found,, then, that there were practically two main bodies in the nation, the people and the privileged classes. The former were little better than slaves of their more fortunate masters. The latter class was twofold — Knights and Druids. The Knights were not the courtly cavaliers of later feudal France, but were the families whose wealth or prowess in Mar gave them eminence. The customs and beliefs of the Druids are still a mystery, although much thought and more words have been devoted to them. All that Cresar says of them is : "The Druids have charge of all matters of religion; they officiate at public and private sacrifices and interpret the 34 An Outline History of England. omens. The people hold them in high honor, and many- young men resort to them for education. They decide al- most all law-suits, judging and passing sentence in civil and criminal cases, murder, disputed wills, and boundaries. Any person or tribe that dissents from their decision is declared an outlaw. Over them all is an Arch-Druid, elected by his fellows for life. . . . The system is said to have originated in Britain, and thither go many Gauls to learn its principles. The Druids are exempt from taxation and free from civil and military duties. These privileges attract many novitiates, and many others are sent to them by parents and kindred. They have to commit to memory a great number of verses, the full course of training sometimes running through twenty years. This knowledge of theirs is a sacred secret, and it is unlawful to write it down, though they employ the Greek al- phabet in their other affairs. I think they have two reasons for this : they do not want their system published to the out- side world, and they hope thereby to cultivate the memory of their pupils. The chief doctrine of the Druids is that the soul of man does not perish, but has everlasting life, passing at the death of one body to renewed existence in the person of another. Thus, they would incite courage by removing the fear of death. They have much lore concerning the stars and their motions, concerning the universe and the earth, concerning natural objects, and about the power and purposes of the immortal gods. Such things are the staple of their discussions, and it is learning of this kind that they hand down to their young disciples." Caesar found them worshiping many gods whom he iden- tified with Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva, of the Roman religion. Horrible sacrifices he describes of hu- man beings. There is ample proof of this awful feature of the Druidic religion, and it is believed that the groves of sacred oaks were often scenes of consecrated murder. The oak, its leaves and acorns, were held in veneration, and The Early Britons and Roman Britain. 35 it is said that the mistletoe, which grew upon its branches, was the sacred symbol of man, upheld and nourished by di- vine power. The island of Mona (modern Anglesey) was a favorite school of the Druids, and it is urged by many that Stonehenge, the circle of rudely cut gigantic stones, which has stood on Salisbury Plain from time immemorial, was the Druid cathedral, as it were, of all Britain, the seat of the Arch-Druid. The Britons — Druids, Knights, and Commons — were little molested for a hundred years, following the terror which Caesar's advent must have spread among them. Rome was the only center of action, and the ambition of that same Caesar kept Roman hands from her foreign foes for three generations. The Latin poets of the Augustan age make mention of the Britons — choose the Briton for their type of the freeman, unsubdued, and " out of the world." The tribute promised to Caesar may have been extorted now and then after Augustus had gathered up the reins of power at Rome, but the actual conquest of Britain was not begun until 43 A. D. The work was done piecemeal, and was many years in ac- complishment. We need note only the main events in its course. In the year 43 A. D., Claudius, emperor of Rome, ordered Aulus Plautius, a general commanding in Gaul, to invade Britain with four legions. Despite their mutinous spirit at being led " out of the world," Plautius invaded Britain with 40,000 men. He found the country united in resistance under the two sons of the late King Cunobelin (the Cymbeline of Shakespeare's play). One of these, Caradoc (Caractacus in its Roman form), ranks high among the British heroes in the stub- born struggle. The Roman army seems to have penetrated from the mouth of the Thames to the valley of the Severn, winning battles and ravaging the fields. Imperial Claudius came in person to share in the glories, and returned to Rome to enjoy a triumph and to add the surname Britannicus to 36 An Outline History of England. his many titles. Hither also eame Vespasian, a general who subdued the coast tribes of the south, and marked himself for future honors at Rome. In 47 A. D. Ostorius succeeded Plautius, pushing his conquests northward into York and Lancashire, and founding a military colony at Camulodu- num (Colchester) to hold the region for Rome. His energy fired the patriotism of the Britons, and again Caradoc, the Silurian king, led them to battle (50 A. D.). The natives fought with desperation, but the soldiers of Rome were vic- tors, and the British leader was sent a captive to Rome, whose arms he had resisted for eight years. It is said that the noble prisoner was much affected by the splendors of the world's metropolis, and cried out in bitterness, " Strange that the owners of all this should envy us our miserable huts !" His life was spared, and he ended his days in obscurity in " the eternal city." After the death of Ostorius the feeble generals made little headway in Britain, but in 58 A. D. (Nero then wearing the purple) Suetonius Paulinus, a genuine Roman, clear of mind and strong of will, took command in earnest. From the Druid's seat at Mona (Anglesey) came the fire-brands that kept the Britons ablaze against Rome, and it was the plan of Suetonius to quench this flame by an invasion of that island (61 A. D.). This he did, landing in the face of a British army, egged on by ranks of chanting Druids and infuriated women. The unaccustomed array daunted the soldiers a moment only; they routed the enemy, put priests and women to the sword, and leveled the oak forests where the Druid altars were ready to consume the Roman captives had the fortune of battle been otherwise. While Suetonius struck this heavy blow in the west, the east had risen. Boadicea, queen of the Icenians (inhabiting Norfolk and Suffolk), had suffered sadly at the rough hands of the Ro- mans. Pillaged and insulted, her two daugl iters violated, she vowed revenge. The tribes of the east, maddened by her The Early Britons and Roman Britain. 37 injuries, and by the cruelty and greed of their Roman mas- ters, joined her in insurrection. Without warning they fell upon unfortunate Camulodunum and murdered its helpless colonists. Suetonius hastened eastward at the alarming news. He was too weak to save Londinium (London) and Verulami- (St. Albans), which were laid in ruins — seventy or eighty thousand men, women, and children fell victims to the rage of the rebels. The Romans were far outnumbered, and the Britons had every thing to fight for, but soldier was pitted against savage, and, as usual, disciplined valor won. The wretched queen soon died, some say by self-administered poison, some by disease. Suetonius took such dire vengeance upon the Icenians and allied tribes that after his recall (61 A. D.) there was no combined resistance to the Roman con- quest. For nearly twenty years but little was added to the history of Britain. Roman armies were there, but their generals were inactive or unsuccessful. The Emperor Vespasian, however, himself a veteran of the British wars, put Cnaeus Julius Agricola in command of the island (78 A. D.). He was both valorous and virtuous, and to the good fortune which gave hirn the historian Tacitus for a son-in-law we owe a charming story of his noble life. He add- ed Wales to the Roman province, and completed the subjec- tion of Anglesey. Wars with the north Britons took him to Caledonia, the country since called Scotland, and here, fail- ing to subdue the clansmen of the Highlands, though beating them in bloody battles, he fortified the northern line from Forth to Clyde, re-enforcing this by a second line of forts from Solway to the Tyne. To the south Britons the rule of Agricola was a period of peace. They now began to adopt the ways of life which the Romans had already introduced among their kindred in Gaul. Fortified towns sprang up at the mouths of the rivers, trade began to divide with agriculture and grazing the attention of the people, the mines were worked to advantage, and the clothing and domestic arrange- 38 An Outline History of England. ments of Rome were gradually adopted by the children of the rough woad-stained warriors who had confronted Caesar and followed Boadicea and Caradoc to battle. The good gov- ernor who brought about this change was called home (84 A. D.) by the wicked Domitian, with no reward but the con- sciousness of duty done. Agricola's successors made no mark in history. For nearly forty years the southern half of the island gradually took on the character of a Roman province. It doubtless gained in wealth in these times of peace, and as its prosperity increased its northern frontier was the more threatened by the fierce Caledonians. Hadrian, Rome's vigorous monarch, the memo- rials of whose travels were set up in nearly every province, came to Britain (120 A. D.) and gave orders for strengthen- ing Agricola's southern line of forts. The barrier was after- ward improved and many times repaired. There are evi- dences that it was eighty years in building ; and after fifteen hundred years of decay, destruction, and neglect this relic of old Rome may still be traced throughout its seventy-three miles of windings from Wall's End to Bowness.* * From the description given by A. J. Church in The Story of Early Britain we condense these facts concerning Hadrian's Wall : It consisted of five parts : a trench, a stone-wall, buildings for troops, a rampart of earth, military roads. 1. The Trench. This skirts the northern base of the wall, whatever the soil, whether earth or rock. Its dimensions vary. The average has been given as " 36 feet wide and 15 feet deep." 2. The Wall. This was carefully constructed of stone, and its line follows the highest ground, passing at its highest point over a summit one thousand feet above the sea-level. Its width is eight feet, and perhaps its original height was eighteen feet, though now it is much crumbled and broken. 3. Buildings for Troops. These were of three kinds : (a) Fortified rectan- gular camps lying along the southern side of the wall at intervals of four miles; (b) mile-castles, smaller camps (fifty feet by sixty feet) at intervals of a mile along the wall; (c) between each mile-castle were four turrets, or watch-towers, now mostly in ruins. 4. The Rampart, South of the wall proper, and at a varying distance The Early Britons and Roman Britain. 39 A generation later Agricola's northern line of forts was utilized by the Emperor Antoninus Pius as the basis for a second system of earth-works, known in its prime as the "Wall of Antoninus, but whose ruins time out of mind the Scots have called " Graham's Dike." This wall was strengthened early in the third century by the Emperor Severus, whom the in- cursions of the Caledonian tribes summoned to protect the island. He penetrated the highlands with an army, and among their mists contracted the disease which ended his life (210 A. D.) in the city of York, then called Eboracum. The history of the two following centuries is confused in places, in other places blank. Rome itself was in turmoil, one soldier after another grasping at the purple and drag- ging his rival from the throne. Ambitious generals seized upon such distant provinces as Britain, and held them in comparative independence until the rise of some stronger power at Rome re-established the imperial dominion. This civil strife was fatal to the peace of Britain. The northern Picts, with the Scots from Ireland, surged over wall and rampart, plundering and burning in the lowlands, and hastening back to the glens of the north before the settlers could rally in sufficient force to punish them. In the fourth century, as Britain grew more defenseless, these raids were redoubled. Ambitious generals in the island dreamed of conquering Rome, and sailed away with the legions never to return. To the danger from the Celts of the north was added one more formidable. The long coast-line of southern Britain tempted the piratical Saxons who dwelt upon the from it, is the rampart — a trench with bordering walls of stone and earth, one on its northern and two on its southern border. 5. Roads. A stone-paved military way connected camp with camp, fur- nishing every means of transport for men and stores. South of the rampart was a similar road. The whole work constituted a fortress available against enemies on either hand. Ten thousand men were needed to defend it properly. to An Outline History of England. shores and about the mouths of the German rivers. They were bold seamen, pagans in religion, unbroken by Rome, and they swooped down merely for plunder. The Roman commanders, with their scanty forces, were at their wit's end to repel them. The imperial city, beset by foes as cruel, sent but feeble succors. In 367 A. D. the prowess of Theodosius had driven back Pict, Scot, and Saxon, but only forty-three years later, when the British cities begged for aid, the Emperor Honorius sent back the disgraceful mes- sage: "Shift for yourselves henceforth; Rome cannot help you." After this the end of Britain came quickly, not from Celt, but from Saxon, and the making of England was begun. Of the internal condition of the people very little is known. While the south was at peace the northern Avails afforded some protection from the assaults of the Picts and Scots — the latter a fierce tribe which had come from Ireland to give its name to north Britain. The plow-man, the grave-digger, and the delving builder of our own time contribute what- ever information we have of the social condition of the British people. Plowshare and spade have turned up bronze helmets and battle-axes of Roman workmanship, funereal urns and baser pots and kettles for household use, and many coins bearing the effigies of Roman emperors. Remnants of porticoes and inlaid floors in Roman style have been laid bare, testifying to the magnificence of the villas which dotted the pleasant country. Remnants of old Roman city walls may yet be seen at Chester and elsewhere. The straight lines of old Roman roads strike across moor and plain. In the geographical names, -coin (Latin colonia, "colony") and -Chester (Latin castra, "camp") reveal the site of early settlements. Although the Roman civilization prevailed, and Latin was the language of court and Church — for in the fourth century Christian missionaries had come to Britain, and one of them, St. Alban, is said to have died The Early Britons and Roman Britain. 41 for his faith at Verulamium, since christened St. Albans in honor of the martyr — nevertheless the Roman blood ami tongue show themselves but slightly in the nation we now call English. On the Continent — in Italy, in France, in Spain — Rome made conquests which influenced permanently the na- tional character and language. Their people, inextricably mingled now with the conquering tribes which swept down from the north to the south of the Roman Empire, are still the " Latin races ; " their languages, strongly individualized as they have been by the clumsy organs of Lombard and Frank and Goth, are still the " Romance " languages, and re- tain a similarity to the speech of Cicero. England stands apart from these nations. Like them, she was for centuries a portion of the Roman realm, and, like them, she was over- run by tribes of heathen Germans, yet out of the long- welter she comes with not a trace of Roman manners, and scarcely a Latin word is on her lips. 42 An Outline History of England. CHAPTER III. THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 410 A. D.-837 A. D. FROM THE ROMAN EVACUATION TO THE SUPREMACY OP THE WEST SAXONS. In this and the succeeding chapter will be sketched the main events in the process of transformation which took place in southern Britain after the withdrawal of the Roman gar- risons, which left the Britons naked to their enemies, the Picts and Scots of north Britain, and the pirates from the German lowlands. The sources of the history of this period are choked and for the most part dry. For the British side of the story the Latin annalists recorded little that has survived, and on the other hand it was years before the German conquerors were sufficiently civilized to make and preserve the formal story of their conquest. The period on which we now enter opens with the year 410 A. D. For a century previous there had been a mysterious movement of German- speaking tribes westward across northern Europe. It was perhaps another of those pulse-beats of the Aryan race such as had sent forth the Hellenes, the Latins, and the Celts in re- moter ages. Some of these German, or Teutonic, hordes menaced the open frontier of the Roman Empire, and many times broke through and overran its provinces. The Ro- man emperors were kept in the field in continual efforts to check this resistless tide of paganism. To defend Italy and the eternal city itself the outlying provinces had to be sac- rificed. In 410 the Emperor Honorius called home to Italy the garrisons which had held the long lines of the northern ramparts of Britain and guarded with steady vigilance the ports along the Channel, It was too late to save Rome j The English Kingdoms. 43 before the close of the century Odoacer, the German, had stripped the purple from the last of the Caesars, Augustus the Little, and Italy became the prey of Vandal, Goth, and Lom- bard. The Franks poured into Gaul, and, mingling with the Romanized Celts, formed France and the French nation ; the West Goths seized upon the Roman provinces in Spain and founded the Spanish race. We shall soon see how a trio of German-speaking tribes crossed the channel, made them- selves masters of southern Britain, and there made England and the English nation. It was in 449 A. D., according to the oldest chronicles, that the English invaders first seized and kept a slice of British soil. They were Jutes by name, a tribe speaking a dialect of the German language and coming from the southern part of the peninsula now occupied by Denmark, although still bear- ing the name Jutland. South of them and along the sea- coast to the westward dwelt two nearly related tribes, the Saxons and the Angles, whom the success of the first comers soon tempted to similar raids, which ended in the Anglo-Saxon sovereignty of the island, spreading over it their English language, and finally giving to it the glorious name of Angle-land, or England. Vortigern, British king of Kent, was guilty of intro- ducing the Jutes into his country. The Picts harassed him, and the German pirates plundered his sea-board. So his crafty head conceived the plan of playing off pirate against Pict, in the hope of destroying both foes. The device called down his own destruction. Two Jutish chiefs, Hengist and Horsa, accepted his terms, drove out the Picts (449 A. D.), and, instead of retiring with their reward, turned upon the men of Kent and drove them from their homes. Horsa perished in the war, but Hengist lived long enough to estab- lish the strong Jutish kingdom of Kent, which at his death (479) descended to his son. Before the spirit of Hengist, the Jute, took its flight to 44 An Outline History of England. Valhalla, the heaven of northern warriors, reports of his rich prize had crossed the sea, and Ella, the Saxon, with three sons and three ship-loads of buccaneers, had set sail for this land of promise, no longer guarded by the Roman buckler. In 411 they landed on the channel coast near the modern Chichester, and made a place there for their kingdom of Sussex (South Saxony) by killing or enslaving the luckless Celts. Such terror of the Saxon name sank into the Celtic mind that the English traveler still finds himself called a Saxon in Celtic Wales or in Celtic Scotland. As the British Celts called all the invad- ers Saxons, from whatsoever tribe they sprang, so the in- vaders had but one contemptuous term for all the islanders; they were Welsh (foreigners or aliens) to them, and Welsh their descendants are called to this day. The third English kingdom was destined to become the greatest. In 495, about the time when Ella and his sons had hewn out Sussex with the sword, two other German chiefs of Saxon blood, Cerdic and his son, Cynric, came coast- ing down the channel, and, finding the Jutes settled in Kent and their kinsmen in Sussex, kept on to Southampton Water, on whose shores they first set foot and fought the Welsh. The latter were now thoroughly alarmed at the rise of the heathen kingdoms among them, and gave Cerdic's men stiff battle. But the Saxons, though twice beaten off, re- turned with more ships and Jutish allies, and did finally con- quer a foothold which grew in the thirty years of Cerdic's life-time to be Wessex, the kingdom of the West Saxons. From this stout Saxon Cerdic, the royal line of England may be traced through the families of Plantagenet, Tudor, and Stuart to the present House of Hanover, of which Queen Victoria is the head. This historic Cerdic, in one. of his attempts to push his dominion to the north-west, encountered a British chieftain, Arthur, " the flower of kings," whose name is interwoven with all the legends of that time, and has L;.iined new luster in the poetry of our own. At Baden Hill, or BBXTAIN IN 597 Longitude West 2 from Greenwich The English Kingdoms. 4o Badbury, near Bath, in modern Dorsetshire, this prince met and repulsed the Saxons, doing the work so thoroughly that they advanced no farther on that line for fifty years. Here alone history touches the story of Arthur. The songs of the Celtic bards took up the tale and made their prince and the " fifty Knights of his Table Round " the theme of a wonder- ful story, which, oft-repeated, has gained in charm with each retelling, and now greets us in .perfection in Tennyson's " Idyls of the King." After Arthur and Cerdic had departed the battle raged again, and in 577 a West Saxon monarch won the valleys of the lower Severn and upper Thames by his victory at Deorham, in Gloucestershire. In the lower course of the Thames the Middle Saxons had set up about London the small state of Middlesex, and in Essex, farther east, were the East Saxons. ■ It was neither Jute nor Saxon, but their kinsman the Angle, who occupied the greater part of the country and bequeathed his name to the whole. Yet history has no clear record of how or when the Angles came. They settled on the eastern coast and in the valley of the Trent in the midlands. Between the Thames and the Wash lay their kingdom of East Anglia, di- vided between the North Folk and the South Folk (now Nor- folk and Suffolk counties). North of the Huniber, and extend- ing beyond the present limits of England, was Northumbria, at times a united and complete kingdom of the Angles, at another under the divided sway of Deira in the south and Bernicia in the north. In mid-Britain was the last of these heathen States — Mercia, the border or march land. It cannot be said with certainty when it was founded, nor whether Saxon or Angle predominated in its population, but its retired position, and the genius of its monarchs, give it for a time a large place in the history of the island. Of all these kingdoms seven, Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, Northumbria, and Mercia, were the more im- portant, and are sometimes grouped together as the Saxon 46 An Outline History of England. Heptarchy, or rule of seven. But they were in no sense a league of seven states. No sooner had they overcome the Britons than they turned their arms against each other. Their constant wars ravaged the island and kept it weak. The only unity was that of overlordship, to which from time to time some strong king, Bretwalda (wielder of Britain), raised himself and maintained for a few years. The states had no definite boundaries, but waxed and waned in direct ratio of their conquests from the Welsh and from each other. The seventh century dawned upon a Britain one third of which was British, two thirds English. The division was on a north and south line. As the map indicates, the Celts had retired into the hill country of the west, leaving the plains and river-basins of the east to the German tribes. The un- subdued west country then comprised West Wales (now Cornwall), North Wales (the Wales of later times), Cumbria (Lancashire and the lake country), and Strathclyde, lying on both sides of the Scottish border. The English had now thoroughly established their conquest, and they no longer waged a war of extermination upon the islanders. We may profitably turn aside from the course of events to learn what manner of men were these early English who superseded the Romans as masters of Britain. Whence they came we know, and we know, too, that they brought with them the religion, government, and social sys- tem under which they had lived in the older Angle-land beyond the German Ocean. Their religion was that of all the North German and Scandinavian tribes — a belief in many divini- ties, male and female. Woden, or Oden, the war-god, the direct ancestor of their royal families; Thor, the thunder- wielder; Frea, giver of peace and plenty; Saetere, little known to us, and Tiw, an avenging deity — all these names we, the children of the north, unconsciously commemorate in the Tiw's-day, Woden's-day, Thor's-day, Frea's-day, and SaBtere's-day of our calendar. Eostre, the English goddess The English Kingdoms. 47 of the dawn, strangely gives name to the Christian Easter. Nicor, a mischievous spirit, is the " Old Nick" of our common speech. But, beyond these names and a few local super- stitions lingering among the English peasants, the old re- ligion has perished utterly, leaving no lasting impress. It was not so with the early English system of govern- ment; the revolutions and changes of a thousand years have obscured but not effaced the principles which the English brought with them to their new abode. The German people were clannish. Those of the same name and family con- nection dwelt together, forming village commonwealths. The freemen of the village, the lesser " churls," and the more wealthy and influential " earls " met in town-meetings to consider questions of public concern, and to try criminals and award justice in disputes between freeman and freeman. Besides these freemen there were many serfs and slaves — the former personally free, but without political rights, the latter captives in war, or churls whom desperate poverty had forced to sell themselves. The tribe, which was made up of a number of these village communities, had its ealder- man (alderman), and in their English conquests several tribes united under a king. The crown was partly hereditary, partly elective. It remained in one family, but did not pass by law from father to son. The elders, or wise men (witan), in their moot or meeting (witenagemot), selected from the men of royal blood the one best fitted to lead them in war and guide them in peace. This witenagemot, or council of the elders, met frequently, and besides electing the monarch gave him advice in times of need.. Its action may not have been strictly binding, but he would be a headstrong ruler w r ho would persist in a course which the first men of his realm opposed. The king led the armed freemen to battle, and decided their most serious lawsuits in time of peace. He owned land like a common freeman, but he had likewise the management of the public land, or folk-land, 48 An Outline History of England. which belonged neither to individual nor community, but to the State. This he granted to his followers in return for service done — to his best lieutenants in war and to the trusted body-servants who formed his household, or court, and super- intended the details of his business. These men were called the king's thanes, or servants, but their position brought them such wealth and distinction that they soon ranked above the older aristocracy (the earls of the village common- wealths), and thane became a coveted title of nobility. As the kingdoms increased in extent it became inconvenient for many of the elders to attend the witenagemot, so that, ex- cept upon extraordinary occasions, the royal thanes sat almost alone in the council of the king, though the abbots and bishops seem to have been associated with them after the conversion of the island to Christianity. From the architecture and domestic arrangements of the Romans to the homely dwellings of the English was a long step downward. The new-comers were agriculturists and fiVhtins: men — not traders — and active commercial inter- course between England and the Continent was interrupted for years. The farmers bred swine and horned cattle, and sowed wheat and barley in the better soils. They lived in rough huts and halls of wood or stone, with no glazed windows, a hole in the roof for a smoke-flue, beaten earth or flag-stones for floor, with rushes strewn upon it for carpets. They sat at meat, instead of reclining in the Roman fashion, and they ate with knives of steel and spoons of iron or horn. They were none too nice in table manners, and the English- man of this period used no forks. Beef and pork formed their principal food, washed down with copious draughts of ale and strong mead made from honey. They were hard drinkers and hard lighters, these early English, and their wild lives were usually cut short by battle or pestilence. The tankards and drinking-horns of the period show slight appreciation of art, and the literature of the heathen time is only relieved of The English Kingdoms. 49 its barrenness by the single epic poem of Beowulf, com- posed by an unknown Saxon singer before the migration, and brought to England in the memory of his fellow-tribesmen. The English differed in one important particular from the kindred nations which wrested France, Italy, and Spain from Rome. Those conquering races adopted the religion as well as the language, and to some extent the laws, of the con- quered. Scarcely a British word survives in the English language, scarcely a Celtic' line in the English face, and it was no British mission, but one straight from Rome, which first turned the English pagans from their idols to the living God. The feeling between the two races was too bitter to encourage the British Christians to mission-work among the Saxons. The English invaders came slaughtering and burn- ing, and the horrified Britons who escaped their axes and arrows fled westward, cursing the barbarous intruder. The priest Gildas,tbe one British writer of the period, speaks with utter loathing of these blonde butchers, " hateful not only to man, but to God himself." They were scarcely considered to possess souls worth the saving. Four generations were born and buried before this horror died away, and intercourse be- tween the peoples gradually obliterated differences of race. Yet the Britons sent out one famous missionary, Patrick, the saint who led in the conversion of the Celts of Ireland in the fifth century. From Ireland, which after St. Patrick's de- cease became the seat of an active Christian Church, mis- sionaries lifted the cross of Christ in the heart of Europe, on the sea-coast of Holland, and among those Picts who had once been the terror of the British Isles. It was an Irish priest, St. Columba, who founded the school and monastery whose ruins still attract the tourist to the storm-beaten island of Iona, off the Scottish west coast. Thus, although the British Church was powerless for good, the earnest and devoted Irish clergy from Iona shared with the Roman missionaries the labor and the crown of England's conversion. 3 50 An Outline History of England. A familiar story recites how Pope Gregory the Great, when a young clergyman at Rome, was attracted by the faces of some fair-haired youths in the motley stock of the slave market. " Who are these ?" he asked of the dealer. " These are English — Angles," said the man. " What sweet faces ! Surely not Angles, but angels I" (non Angli, sed angeli !) exclaimed the pitying priest. " Whence come they ?" " From Deira." " De ira!" was Gregory's Latin comment. "'From God's ire' verily they are snatched, and they shall come to know the mercy of Christ! Who rules in that land?" "iElla." The young man passed on musing, and straight- way vowed that " Alleluia " should be sung in ^Ella's realm. This priest afterward became the pope, or head, of the whole Christian Church except that of Ireland, and set about the fulfillment of his vow. Kent was the threshold of Britain. The first Romans and the first Englishmen had landed there, and Christianity en- tered by the same door. Ethelbert, the pagan king of Kent, a king so influential among the neighboring states that the chroniclers entitle him Bretwalda, had married a Christian princess, Bertha, daughter of a Frankish king on the other side of the Channel. The queen was allowed to worship as she pleased, and it was her pleasure to establish a Christian chapel in the royal town of Canterbury. To her protecting court Pope Gregory sent Augustine, an abbot, with a band of preaching monks, in 597 A. D. King Ethelbert feared magic, and preferred to meet the strangers from Rome on the Kentish hill-side rather than in his hall. After a few months' delay he accepted their religion, and multitudes of Kentish men professed conversion and were baptized. Augustine was made Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England, and pressed the evangelizing work beyond the boundaries of the kingdom. Essex forsook Woden and Thor and turned to Christ. Bishops were ap- pointed to the sees of London and Rochester. The British The English Kingdoms. 51 clergy were invited to aid in the work, but jealousy and cer- emonial differences interfered, and Augustine kept on alone. Edwin, king of Northumbria, was the next point of attack. He is the fifth Bretwalda of the old historians, but in his boyhood it had seemed unlikely that he would ever rule even the kingdom to which his birth entitled him. But he fought himself into his rightful place, on the throne of Northumbria, and mastered many of his neighbors. Edin- burgh, on the Forth, was Edwin's burg, or fortress, in the north. At Chester, on the Dee, he built the fleet with which he took the islands of Man and Anglesea, in the Irish Sea. But we must go back a few years to the king's conver- sion. His queen, Ethelburga of Kent, was the daughter of Ethelbert, Augustine's royal convert, and she, like Bertha, was allowed to worship her God in this heathen court. It is said that the king was persuaded by Paulinus, his queen's chaplain, who preached Christ to the king in his witenage- mot, before his priests and lords. Said a noble:* " So seems the life of man, O king : as a sparrow's flight through the hall when you are sitting at meat in winter-tide, with the warm fire lighted on the hearth, but the icy rain-storm with- out. The sparrow flies in at one door, and tarries for a mo- ment in the light and heat of the hearth-fire, and then flying forth from the other vanishes into the winter darkness whence it ^ime. So tarries for a moment the life of man in our sight, but what is before it, what after it, we know not. If this new teaching tells us aught certainly of these, let us follow it." King and council were won over to the Christian side, and the aged high-priest Coin led the band which desecrated the heathen temple. Thus commenced the conver- sion of the Northumbrians. In East Anglia the influence of the Bretwalda, Ethelbert, good Bertha's husband, wrought the conversion of Redwald, the king, but it is said that the ♦Green's Short History of the English People, p. 21 (Amer. edition). 52 An Outline History of England. common people clung so fondly to the old gods that the king allowed Christians and heathen to worship in the same churches. After the first triumph of the new faith its outward success ceased for a time. The conversion of a king did not regen- erate the hearts of his people, nor always of his own family. Ethelbert's son, Edbald, was a royal backslider, and the Christian bishops of that kingdom were discouraged to the point of leaving the island when, as by miracle, his heart was softened and Kent reclaimed. Essex also fell into the old ways, and at Edwin's death (633) the gods whom Coifi had insulted won back their Northumbrian worshipers. The defeat and death of the Bretwalda Edwin by Penda, king of Mercia, introduces a new figure. The Mercians were so far inland that they had not yet been reached by Augus- tine's monks. Penda's court would thus become the refuge of those whom the downfall of the old religion affected in Kent, Essex, East Anglia, and Northumbria. Priests and employees of the Woden worship, used to the reverence of the people and the favor of the king, would in general resist the entrance of the Roman clergy. The disaffection of the common people of the partially Christianized kingdoms also encouraged Penda to raise the standard of Woden and make war upon Christians in the name of the old religion. A Welsh prince, Cadwallon, joined his forces with the Mercian army, and after conquering a wide realm from his neighbors in central Britain, Penda struck down Edwin of Northumbria, and Sigbert of East Anglia, and won the title of Bretwalda. Oswald, the new king, stopped Cadwallon's northward ad- vance in the battle of " Heaven's Field " (635), fighting under the standard of the cross. The cross of Oswald was not of Roman origin. In his youth Prince Oswald had been convert- ed by the Irish monks of Iona, and when he became king of Northumbria he summoned missionaries from that monastery, and not from Canterbury, to labor among his people. Aidan The English Kingdoms. 53 came and was made a bishop, with his seat at Lindisfarne, or the Holy Isle, near the mouth of the Tweed. Oswald's conversion was thorough, and wherever he carried his con- quests he set up the cross. Wessex, already the preaching- ground of Gaulish monks, owned his overlordship, and its king professed his Christ. This isolated Penda and his heathen kingdom, but they still held out a score of years. Oswald fell, like Edwin, in battle (642) with the pagan, and was succeeded by Oswy. Aidan's pious monks of Lindis- farne never ceased teaching and preaching among the North- umbrians ; they even found a way to Mercia and to the heart of King Penda's son, but they could not touch the old king. He persecuted none, but yielded nothing. In 655 Oswy, of Northumbria, vowed to give God his daughter and twelve monasteries if so he might rid his realm of the heathen who had vexed it. The battle was fought at Winw^ed, and Penda, the champion of the old religion, there met his death. Henceforth the Gospel was freely proclaimed in Mercia, and the last of the English kingdoms accepted the new faith. From the landing of St. Augustine in Kent to Penda's defeat and death was scarcely sixty years, a short time for the conversion of a land like England. In fact, we must believe that it was only in courts and towns, and upon the more cultivated few, that the early preachers made their impression. The farmer on the moor-land, the peasant in his hut, the miner, the shepherd, and the fisherman long lived in utter darkness until the self-sacrificing zeal of the monks brought the Gospel to their humble doors. The Abbey of Lindisfarne was the great northern school which trained many missionaries. Ceadda, or St. Chad (whose memory is still revered at Lichfield), w r as the evangel of middle England, and St. Cuthbert, another, is the patron saint of the north countrymen. Melrose Abbey, in the Scottish Lowlands, w r as his mission station, whither he returned alter long tours 54 An Outline History of England. among the villagers. Himself a Northumbrian shepherd boy, he was nearer to the hearts and lives of his people than were the Irish monks of Iona and Lindisfarne, and his sowing came to a rich reaping. The story of his life is beautiful for its humble service, simple faith, and unselfish devotion to God and the welfare of his countrymen. The English Christians of the seventh century were not united. Each kingdom had its independent bishop and clergy, and, indeed, the bishops were not of one belief nor of one practice. While the south-eastern churches looked up to the Roman pope, as they had been taught by Augustine and his Canterbury monks, the north, which had been illu- mined by the light from Lindisfarne, acknowledged the su- premacy, not of the Roman but of the Celtic Church, which St. Patrick had nurtured in Ireland and St. Columba had transplanted to Britain. Both branches were Christian, but the protracted isolation of the Irish and Roman branches had given rise to differences between them which tended to bit- ter strife. The controversy concerned only such slight mat- ters as the date of Easter, form of tonsure, and minor cere- monials, but while it lasted it was an evil, and King Oswy did well to bring it to an end. In 664 he summoned represent- atives from Iona and Canterbury to the monastery of Whitby, memorable as the abode of Caedmon, the first English poet, and bade each party to set forth its case. His decision, which was for the Roman usages, cleared the way for the unification of the English Church. Theodore of Tarsus, whom the pope consecrated archbishop of Canterbury (669), brought order and system into the religious establishment. His far-seeing eye laid off the English kingdoms into a larger number of dio- ceses, each in charge of a bishop, each bishop subject to the primate or archbishop of Canterbury. (It Avas not until after Theodore's death that the northern dioceses were gathered into a second province under the primacy of the archbishop of York.) The wandering preachers gave place to local The English Kingdoms. 55 priests, and the churches and chapels, monasteries and schools, which multiplied in England, gave witness to the wisdom and skill of Theodore's directing hand. The Celtic influence, defeated in Whitby Synod, was withdrawn. Col- man, the abbot, and his monks retired from Lindisfarne, and the walls of Iona crumbled in neglect. For eight hundred years the Church of England, the center of its education and literature, acknowledged the pope of Rome as its earthly ruler. The result was twofold: England was again linked to the Continent, whose nations were now all Catholic Chris- tians, and the unification of the English Church prefigured and expedited the unification of the English kingdoms. The English clergy, meeting from time to time in national councils, foretold that the boundaries of Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria, and the lesser states, would vanish and •give place to one grand English kingdom. The events which marked the progress of this consolidation extend through a long period. The English conquests began in the middle of the fifth century (449); they were substantially completed by the middle of the sixth, when three fifths of England was divided among seven superior and a half-dozen lesser Anglo- Saxon kingdoms. Then followed the successive rise of sep- arate states to temporary pre-eminence among their neigh- bors. Some of these we have noticed in our account of the conversion of Britain, and have seen seven Bretwaldas, the last three of whom were the powerful Northumbrian kings, Edwin, Oswald, and Oswy. The son of Oswy extended the supremacy of Northumbria over Cumbria (now Lancashire and Westmoreland), and then (685), in battle with the Picts, lost his life and his country's position. Although Northum- bria was no longer chief among English states it was a leader in religious and literary development. Here w r as Lindisfarne, ever re-appearing in early history ; Whitby, the home of poor Caedmon, the Anglo-Saxon poet, whose "Song of the Cre- ation " may have suggested to Milton some scenes of Paradise 56 Ax Outline History of England. Lost; Wearmouth, whence apostles of the Gospel did foreign mission-work in Europe, and J arrow, a sacred house famous for its monk Beda, whose character and learning distin- guished him as "the Venerable Bede." He was the most learned man of his time, versed in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and his mother-tongue, the Low German dialect of the Angles. The fruits of his study were many books, the most valuable to us being a Latin history of the English Church, the most dear to him and his countrymen being, doubtless, the Anglo-Saxon version of the gospels, which employed his last hours. He dictated the closing sentences of John's gospel a few minutes before his death. Mercia, in the Midlands, awakened from heathenism to new life, and still ruled by a prince of Penda's Woden-de- scended line, aimed to reach the high place from which North- umbria fell. Wessex, on the south coast, the kingdom which Cerdic founded, but which had remained in obscurity, became the chief rival of Mercia. The lesser kingdoms owned now to Mercian, now to West Saxon, overlordship. The kings of Wessex, as they found opportunity, had steadily driven their conquests westward to the Bristol Channel, forcing the Britons to the tip of Cornwall's rocky tongue. Ine, who ruled for thirty-eight years (688-726), brought British Som- erset and Jutish Kent under his power, and drew up a laAV- code which still exists; but he could not conquer the Mer- cians, who in the next reign made Wessex their tributary state. Under King Cuthred the West Saxons broke their Mercian yoke in the fight at Burford (752), and never wore another of English manufacture. The three greater English kingdoms no longer fought solely against each other. Northumbria conquered the Britons of Strath clyde (756), and tried to guard her coast from a new foe — the Danes. Under King Offa (755-794) Mercia turned her arms from her kindred against the Britons, conquered the Welsh kingdom of Powys, and The English Kingdoms. 57 built a wall — Offa's Dike — connecting the Wye and Dee Rivers, and fencing the Celts into the principality of Wales, which they still occupy. In order to establish the independ- ence of the Church in his kingdom, Offa persuaded the pope to consecrate a third English archbishop, whose seat should be at Lichfield, and whose province should include all bishop- rics between Thames and Humber, but the arrangement did not long survive him. Lichfield sank back to an ordinary bishopric, and the provinces of Canterbury and York re- sumed their Lite possessions. Canterbury has never lost its place at the head of the English churches. Offa's kingdom was no more permanent than his church-establishment. His weak successors were confronted by Egbert, a West Saxon king, whom no other English monarch, Angle, Jute, or Saxon, could withstand. In his youth Egbert had been excluded from the throne of his ancestor Lie, and had been a fugitive at Offa's court, and afterward on the Continent, at the court which Charles the Great (Charlemagne) was making the most splendid in Christendom. Charles conceived the idea of reviving the Roman Empire with himself at its head and the CI mrch as his ally. At Rome, in St. Peter's Church, on Christmas day, 800 A. D., Pope Leo III, placed upon Charles's brow the crown of the Roman Caesars. This event marks the beginning of the modern history of Europe, and the Holy Roman Empire, which that day's act created, continued for a thousand years, expiring in the first decade of the nineteenth century, its life trampled out by the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. To this empire England never became subject; but it is probable that Egbert's expe- rience in the conquering armies of the emperor, among the statesmen who helped Charles to organize his realm, and in that splendid coronation scene at Rome broadened the mind of the Saxon and qualified him for the throne. The death of a rival left him king of Wessex (802). By brave and persistent effort he strengthened his dominions at home, 3* 58 An Outline History of England. reduced Kent and Sussex, Essex and East Anglia in succes- sion, defeated the Mercians and gained their submission, and led a conquering army into Northumbria. To a greater or less degree all England owned his sway. The old title of Bretwalda was revived and bestowed upon him, but he was more powerful than any of his Mercian or Northumbrian predecessors, and fairly merits the distinction " First King of the English." He was not the only king in England ; the old Saxon kingdoms retained their subkings — some were merely tributary to Egbert of Wessex, some were under his personal government; but now for the first time since Hengist and Horsa plunged through the surf to the beach at Ebbsfleet all England was in some slight degree under the control of a single ruler. The chronicles of the time are filled witli the names of Egbert's battles with the Welshmen, and with Norse viking vessels, but he seems to have stoutly held all that he won until his death, which took place 837 A. D. The English and the Northmen. 69 CHAPTER IV. THE ENGLISH AND THE NORTHMEN. 837 A. D.-1066 A. D. FROM THE SUPREMACY OF THE WEST SAXONS TO THE NORMAN" CONQUEST. Before the death of Egbert (837) England was warned of an approaching danger. The tribes of northern Europe, urged by some unknown impulse, had recommenced their attacks upon the nations of the south. The history of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries runs strangely parallel with that of the third, fourth, and fifth. In the earlier period the Roman Empire was overrun by German barbarians; in the later era these German settlers, now civilized and Christian- ized, had in their turn to meet the heathen hordes from Nor- way, Sweden, and Denmark. The Englishmen who had mastered Britain now met, and after strenuous resistance yielded to the Danes — the name which in the English chroni- cle stands for any and all of the Scandinavian people, whether from Norway, Sweden, or from Denmark itself. It was in 789, according to the old record, that the Danes first landed in England, and for a hundred years plunder was the only apparent object of their incursions. " Vikings " we call these early pirates, "men of the viks" or bays, in which they moored their light craft. Their ships were driven by both oar and sail, and were better manned and officered than any vessels of the south. Their pirate mas- ters coasted along the German Ocean to the Channel, Bis- cay, and the Mediterranean. With matchless audacity they ascended the Seine and burned Paris, plundered Bordeaux on the Garonne, took Lisbon in Portugal, Seville in Spain, and despoiled rich Italian sea-ports. These exploits were 60 An Outline History of England. performed by single chiefs at the head of swift squad- rons, who swooped down upon unguarded points and es- caped with their booty before the stricken people could gather force to punish them. Although the earlier Danes made no attempt at an English conquest, they soon seized upon outlying portions of the British Isles. The Orkneys, Shetlands, and Hebrides, with portions of the Scottish Highlands and a large part of Ireland, were early subject to Danish princes, and the early glory of Ireland — her Church and civilization — was lost in the confusion of heathen wars and Danish domination. At times the Danes allied themselves with the Welsh for a combined assault upon the English, and it was such a mixed force that Egbert defeated in his famous fight at Hengestesdun (836). The successors of Egbert could not maintain his mastery over the English kingdoms, and some of them had much ado to hold their own realm of Wessex against the downpour of Northmen. The old Saxon chronicles abound in notes of the Danish attacks. Their ships, singly or in fleets, came almost yearly, and they were only beaten off with heavy loss. In 851 an armada of three hundred and fifty Danish vessels entered the Thames and burned the great trading town of London and the sacred city of Canterbury be- fore Ethel wolf (837-858), Egbert's son, could drive them back to their ships. The monasteries of the north were favorite prey of these Woden-worshipers. The abbeys of Wear- mouth and Lincoln, Ely, Peterborough, and Croyland were burned and their inmates ruthlessly massacred. The brief reigns of Ethelbald (858-860) and the first Ethelbert (860- 866), the elder sons of Ethelwolf of Wessex, were similarly distracted by incessant calls to arms. While their younger brother, Ethelred I. (866-871), ruled the West Saxons, the Danes changed their plan of attack. Abandoning their raids and sudden forays, they now came to conquer and dwell among the English. Some Norse sagas, or legends, preserved in the The English and the Northmen. 61 ENGLISH KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF CERDIC, FROM EGBERT. EGBERT, reigned 802-837. ETHELWOLF, r. 837-858. 1 1 ETHELBALD, r. 858-860. 1 ETHELBETIT, r. 860-806. 1 ETHELRED I. r. 866-871. 1 ALFRED, r. 871-901. 1 1 EDWARD, "the elder,' r. 901-925. i 1 Ethelfled, ' " The Lady of Mercia. •• 1 ETHELSTANE, r. 925-940. 1 EDMUND I. r. 940-946. 1 EDRED, r. 946-955. EDWY, 'r. 955-959. 1. Ethelfled = EDGAR = 2. Elfrida. I r. 959-975. i EDWARD 1. Name = ETHELRED II. = 2. Emma of 'the martyr," uncertain. I "the unready." I Normandy = 2. Canute. r. 975-979. r. 979-1016. I " The Dane, r. 1017-1035. EDMUND II. "ironside," Alfred, r. April 23-Nov. 30, d. 1036. 1016. EDWARD "the CONFESSOR, 1 ' r. 1042-1066. Hardieanute, r. 1040-1042. Edmund, Edward, d. 1057, m. Agatha. Edgar, The Atheling," elected king in 1066. Margaret, d. 1093, to. Malcolm 177., King of Scots. I Matilda, d. 1118, w. HENRY I., Norman King of England. (Son of William Conqueror.) An 0| vi. inf. Ilisvor. s v\;\ liters loela&d — another of I lc viking conquests — tell fanciful tales of the northern heroes, II is said that the \i- king Ragnar Lodbrog stress of' weather upon the Northumbriai s - - into a pit of serpents by the _.:sh king, and tidings of his miserable death aroused his tribesmen to They came in force in 866 and gained the upper-hand of and Horthumbria. Four years later they occupied Bas whose subking. Edmund. Mas offered his freedom if he would exchange his Christianity for the heathen religion. Savage cruelties followed his re- - ... The king is ished to a tree, scourged with rods, made a target for arrows, and finally beheaded. 11 is con- stancy under torture won for his memory the admiration of his subjects, and not many years after, when the pagans had quietly given up their gods for the Gospel, a splendid abbey (Bury St. Edmund's r en at the order of Canute, the Danish king, above the grave of M Saint " Edmund. Elatod with their triumphs, the lords of halt Britain rushed upon Wessex to complete their conquest. But they found their match at Ashdum x 7i\ where Ethelred, with his young brother, Prince Alfred, boat thorn with groat slaughter. The death I Ethelred in this same year brought Alfred, the last of Etholwolfs sons, to the throne of Wessex. King Alfred, "the Groat." was twenty-one years old when he faood the responsibility of defending and ruling his king- dom. There still oxists a life of this king, written by tho care- ful hand of one who know and loved him well. Ilis grace and beauty markod him as tho favorite in tho group of young princes, and his father had further distinguished him by sending him to Rome, at five years of ago, where Pope Leo IV", consecrated his flaxen head for tho crown it should one day woar. Tho prince had a busy brain, a strong arm, a marvelous memory, and loved books as ho did the chase. In tho first year of his reign ho fought one doubtful battle with his everlasting enemies, and then enjoyed a few years /Orkney The English and the Northmen. 63 of respite while they were strengthening their hold upon the northern kingdoms. In 876, however, the Danes returned to Wessex in great force, and could neither be bribed nor ex- pelled. Alfred, hard pressed, fled from his palace to the swamps of Somersetshire with a small body-guard. Here, says a common legend, he sought refuge with a peasant wife, who, ignorant of his royal rank, scolded him sharply because he let the cakes burn which she had left him to watch. The freemen of the south rallied to the standard of the good king at Athelney, where he raised a fort among the marshes, and whence he sallied forth in the spring of 878 to try conclusions with the foe. He won. Guthrum, the Dane, agreed to the peace of Wedmore, and was baptized into the Christian faith. The peace saved Wessex, but recognized the Dan- ish sovereignty of almost the whole of England north of the Thames valley, the territory called the Dane-law. The terms of the treaty may not have seemed glorious, but it was the sal- vation of the West Saxons to enjoy peace at any price at the moment when the rest of the island was passing through the storm of war. Only once in the next fifteen years was Alfred called to battle. In 893 a new influx of Northmen from the Continent, under Hastings, joined with the men of the Dane- law and the rebellious Welsh against his rising power; but in a series of campaigns east and west, led by the king, his son Prince Edward, and his son-in-law, Alderman Ethelred of Mercia, the invaders were repelled and the insurrection crushed (897). The history of most of the early kings is either filled with battles or left blank. The reader who has complained of the confusion of petty wars through which our way has led thus far must know the fact that until Alfred's reign the chronicle is bare of real statesmanship, or of recorded prog- ress in literature and the arts. Alfred was as great in peace as in war, and greater in nothing than in the moral purpose which pervaded all his activity. " To live worthily " was 64 An Outline History of England. his motto. To protect his realm he devised a more effect- ive military system, and built the first royal English navy. From the law-codes of the English kingdoms he selected the best laws for the government of his own people. To the administration of justice in the law-courts he gave personal attention, reviewing the decisions of the aldermen and thanes who sat as judges, and enforcing their awards and penal- ties upon the more powerful offenders. The king took note of all the activities of his people; he invented a clock for marking time by the burning of candles ; he improved their methods of building, and suggested new and better processes in the handicrafts. The ignorance that had drifted in upon the island with the coming of the Danes vexed him sorely, and he labored like a monk to shed abroad a little of learn- ing's light. The king himself translated into the Wessex dialect the histories and religious books of Northumbrian Bede, and such Latin histories of Europe and works upon science and travel as he could obtain. Scholars came from the Continent at his invitation to revive a taste for learning among the English, and the sons of his nobles were carefully educated under the royal eye. By him, or by his direction, the invaluable English Chronicle, a yearly record of events in the island, was compiled from existing annals and main- tained long after his death. Kind of heart, simple in tastes and manner, strong of will, was this first English hero. King Alfred died in the first year of the tenth century, and at the threshold of the twentieth we have to confess that no En- glish sovereign in the thousand years between has surpassed Alfred in his fitness to rule a nation. Of Alfred's five children, only one, Edward the Elder, wore a crown ; one daughter, Ethelfled, married Ethelred, alderman of Mercia, and another daughter became countess of Flanders and grandmother of Matilda, the first Norman- English queen. Edward inherited many of his father's great qualities. He ruled twenty-four years (901-925), and reaped The English and the Northmen. 65 the fruits of "Wed more peace. That treaty had saved Wes- sex from the Danes, and Alfred's military and administrative reforms had laid the foundations of a stronger kingdom than any yet known in the island. Edward took the offensive, and with the aid of his sister Ethelfled, the " Lady of the Mercians," won back the greater part of the Dane-law. The Danes of this region had settled down beside the En- glish, adopting their religion and fitting themselves easily to the English ways of life. The two races were of kindred an- cestry, and spoke closely related languages; both had wor- shiped Woden, and neither had been molded by contact with the Roman civilization. The lasting hatred which kept Briton from Englishman was unknown between Saxons and Danes, whose Christian children, dwelling on adjacent farm- steads, forgot in time of peace the burnings and massacres of their heathen fathers. Over this mixed people of the north Edward gained lordship. All Britain — English, Danish, W^elsh, Scotch — was subject either to him or to subkings who acknowledged his superiority. His authority was great- er than that of any preceding monarch, and in his reign England advanced far toward a permanent unity. A writer of the succeeding century — William, a monk of Malmesbury — describes Prince Athelstan, or Ethelstane (925-940), Avho was chosen to the throne of Edward, his father: " He was of proper stature, thin in person, his hair flaxen and beautifully wreathed with golden threads. Lib- eral he was of his wealth, humble and courteous toward the clergy, mild and pleasant to the laity, practicing dignity and reserve toward his nobles, and greeting the common people Avith all kindness." The same monkish writer tells of the king's battle with the Northumbrian Danes, or rather with Anlaf, a viking who aroused Northumbrians, Welsh, and Scots against the kino; of the south. The northern league was shattered in the battle of Brunanburgh, celebrated in popular song and story for years to come. A few nights 66 An Outline History of England. before the battle came Anlaf (or Olaf) to Athelstan in minstrel guise singing and playing in the royal tent. The Saxon flung him a piece of gold, which the proud Dane scornfully buried in the earth. A Danish deserter in the camp recognized his old master, and after his departure told the king who the minstrel was. Athelstan changed his sleep- ing-place that night, and wisely, for at midnight the camp was surprised and the bishop, who slept where the royal tent had stood, was slain by the false minstrel's men. A few days later Brunanburgh was fought and Anlaf soundly beaten. This was the bloodiest conflict yet known in England. * * Professor Henry Morley has translated the Saxon poem commemorating the fight at Brunanburgh, extracts of which are given here : " This year King Athelstan, the lord of earls, King-giver to the warriors, Edmund, too, His brother, won in fight with edge of swords Life-long renown at Brunanburgh. The sons Of Edward clave with the forged steel the wall Of linden shields. The spirit of their sires Made them defenders of the land, its wealth, Its homes, in many a fight with many a foe. Low lay the Scottish foes, and death-doomed fell The shipmen; the field streamed with warriors' blood, When rose at morning tide the glorious star, The sun, God's shining candle, until sank The noble creature to its setting. There Lay many a northern warrior, struck with darts Shot from above the shield, and scattered wide ; As fled the Scots, weary and sick of war, Forth followed the West Saxons. . . . " Then in their mailed ships on the stormy seas The Northmen went, the leavings of red darts, Through the deep water Dublin once again Ireland to seek, abased. Fame-bearing went Meanwhile to their own land, West Saxon's land, The brothers, king and Atheling. They left The carcasses behind them, to be shared By livid kite, swart raven, horny-beaked, And the white eagle of the goodly plumes, The greedy war-hawk, and gray forest wolf, Who ate the carrion." The English and the Northmen. 67 The hero of Brunanburgh survived the victory scarcely three years, his brother, Edmund the Magnificent, succeed- ing at his death in 940. Athelstan's was a notable reign. It cemented the parts of England into more perfect union, and it brought the royal family into new relations with the outer world. Hugh Capet, the founder of a long line of French kings, was the son of one of Athelstan's sisters, and Otto the Great, Emperor of Germany (the Holy Roman Em- pire), was the husband of another. To show his own inde- pendence of the empire, which then claimed sovereignty over Western Europe, the king called himself emperor {im- perator) of Britain — a title much admired and used by his descendants. This "emperor" had been Alfred's favorite grandchild, and in him was some of his grandsire's wis- dom. It was made easier for the yeoman to obtain justice in the law-courts, and provision was made to relieve the wants of the poor. " Frith guilds," * or peace clubs, grew up among the people. Edmund (940-946), the new king, was called "doer of mighty deeds," but what he did he did speedily. Only eighteen years old at his coronation, he soon lost his hold upon Nortlmnibria, but before his death, at the age of twenty- five, he was again its master, and had inspired the restless Britains of Cumbria|and Strathc-lyde with wholesome fear. As he sat feasting in his hall on St. Augustine's day Leofa, an outlaw, entered and sat himself insolently at the table of the king. In the affray that followed Leofa killed the king. Edred, Edmund's brother, ruled the island nine years (946-955) as " king of the Anglo-Saxons and Ca3sar of all Britain." In his day the Northumbrian Danes made their final stand under Eric, a prince of the Northmen. Their defeat marks the end of a kingdom once the leader of * " Every member of them swore to help his associates in all cases of need. They were leagues against violence and fraud, benefit clubs, and burial clubs." — Early Britain, Alfred J. Church. 68 An Outline History of England. Britain. Their rulers henceforth were earls or aldermen, instead of the under-kings who had maintained a semi-inde- pendence of the monarchs of the house of Cerdic. It was the mind of Dunstan, a Glastonbury monk, that guided Ed red in the policy by which he claimed that lofty title of Ca?sar. This young man had been driven from King Athel- stan's court by the nobles jealous of his learning, his ability, and his graceful manner. Had he been of Cerdic's royal line he might have become a second Alfred; as it is he must be remembered as the first great prime minister of England — the forerunner of Lanfranc, Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell, Pitt, Peel, and Gladstone. The brilliant youth of Athelstan's court, the rising Glastonbury abbot of Edmund's later days, was the leading statesman of Edred's reign and a bold figure in the history of the two succeeding monarchs, Edwy and Edgar the Peaceful. In his early convent life young Dun- stan had cultivated the powers of head, heart, and hand, studying the Greek and Roman literature, practicing benev- olence among the poor, and gaining skill in music, painting, and the handicrafts. A smith's forge formed part of the furniture of the cell which his own hand had built for him- self at Glastonbury, and here, said the legend, St. Dunstan with red-hot tongs discomfited the tempter who intruded his worldly nose upon the good man's meditations. It was probably the wise counsel of Dunstan that arranged the solemn coronation of Edred. The two archbishops, Can- terbury and York, representing the united Church of England, jointly placed the crown on Edred's head, and men from all the island races — British, English, Danes — shouted applause. The same purpose, the unification of England under a single king, dictated the reduction of the Northumbrian kingdom to an earldom. His interference with the marriage of the youthful King Edwy (955-959), and his sympathy with the monks in the controversy then raging between the priests of the monasteries and the " secular " or parish priests, led to The English and the Northmen. 69 the busy abbot's banishment. But the king's triumph was short-lived. The northern earldom revolted, and crownin'sr his brother, Edgar, placed hini on Edwy's throne (959). Dunstan came in again on the high tide of the revo- lution, took his old place at the head of the council, and was raised to the archbishopric of Canterbury. His rule, for he ruled, though Edgar's head bore the golden circlet, was a long stride toward English unity. The conquered Danes were treated like Englishmen, and their best men held high rank in Church and State, however much the Sax- ons growled at the primate's " preference for upstart aliens." A royal navy, built and manned by the sons of the vikings, guarded the English coasts and protected English commerce in the Channel; for England now had a commerce, and a lively trade sprang up between London and the French and Flemish cities, the English metals and farm products finding ready exchange for the fine cloths and manufactures of the continental towns. This intercourse with Europe bore fruit in the Church also, and many Benedictine monasteries, pat- terned upon those abroad, were founded in England. These were communities of monks, men who, cut off from the world by their vows of poverty, chastity, and benevolence, devoted themselves to the works of the Church. The monasteries owned wide tracts of land, whose tillage brought vast wealth. These were conservatories of learning, art, and science. The monks were the* only scholars, and their libraries and schools were the only sources of learning. In after centu- ries their spiritual and intellectual eminence declined and left them rich though worldly, powerful though corrupt. In the course of the Reformation in the sixteenth century they were swept out of existence, but it must not be forgotten that they had their full and splendid share in the making of England. Quarrels between the favored monks and the neglected secular clergy were the chief disturbances of Edgar's peace- 70 An Outline History of England. ful reign. The island was tranquil. The Welshmen paid yearly tribute of three hundred wolfs' heads, so says an old story, until the supply failed. An eight-oared crew of vassal kings, says another boasting Saxon, manned the barge which King Edgar steered from his palace at Chester, on the river Dee, to the Church of St. John. The death of this "British emperor," in 975, plunged the prosperous realm into a wretched strife. Two princes, not yet in their teens, were the only heirs. Edward the Martyr, Dunstan's candidate, was finally chosen, but in his sixteenth year his step-mother, Elf rida, had him murdered to make way for her child Ethelred (979-1016). The little prince, boy-like, wept at the news of his brother's fate, and his heartless mother beat him soundly for his tenderness. When the little fellow grew up, and put on the crown so foully won, he showed himself no better than his mother. Ethelred (of noble counsel) she had named him, but his wretched subjects gave him a name that better suited — the Unready (unwise or uncounseled), a title of ignobility. Other men than Dunstan (who died 988) directed the government for the boy — though there was need of the highest wisdom. Since Brunanburgh the Northmen had left troubling England, and had built up their three kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark ; but as the end of the tenth century drew nigh, their fleets again crossed the shallow German Ocean, bent on adding England to their Scandinavian Empire. The "redeless " Ethelred, lacking the spirit of his ancestors who had vanquished the same foes, levied a tax, the hated Dane- geld (Dane's-money), upon his people to buy immunity. This led to fresh incursions. Though the king was cowardly his people were not. No royal army opposed the invasion, but brave Englishmen, aldermen and commoners, even bishops, fought in defense of their own homes. Lack of union made the resistance futile. The more the king paid for peace the more peace he had to buy. Thirteen times in The English and the Northmen. 71 eighteen years parties of Northmen ravaged portions of the land, rendered helpless by taxation and pillage. On the thirteenth of November, 1002, the weak and cruel king gave the signal for the massacre of all the Danes in England. Among the victims was Chriemhild, a sister of Sweyn (Swegen or Svend Fork-Beard), king of Denmark and Norway. At the news of the massacre, since known as the " Danish ves- pers," he gathered the largest armament that had yet in- vaded England. Ethelred turned for aid to the Norman- French across the Channel, and married Emma, the daughter of Duke Richard II. of Normandy. But he got no real assist- ance. Sweyn took terrible vengeance for Chriemhild's blood, and though Ethelred paid him nearly a half -million dollars to quit the island he sent his lieutenants to kill and burn the more. In 1013 Sweyn came again, and Ethelred, his author- ity limited to his native Wessex, found even that little king- dom unsafe. He fled to his wife's relatives in Normandy. The news of Sweyn's death, in which Englishmen saw a just retribution for sacrilege against St. Edmund's shrine, re- called the worthless Saxon king. His son Edmund II., called Ironside — a name of even higher distinction in a later period — rallied the English against Canute (also spelled Cnut), the son of Sweyn. The strife continued for a few months after the death of the Unready, Edmund at Lon- don and Canute at Southampton dividing the realm. The death of the Ironside in the same year left no strong scion of Cerdic's stock, and from 1017 to 1035 Canute was the sole king of England.* King Canute was a Dane of royal race, himself the ruler *THE DANISH KINGS OF ENGLAND. SWEYN (SWEGEN) FORKBEARD, d. 1014. I CANUTE (CNUT) = Emma of Normandy, widow of Ethelred. j HARDICANUTE (HARTHACNUT), Sweyn. HAROLD I., r. 1040-1043. r. 1035-1040. 72 An Outline History of England. of Denmark, Norway, and half Sweden, but he showed the breadth of his mind by his policy in governing England. His aim was to be an English king in the eyes of his subjects, and to this end no distinction was made between the Dane and English in the land. The king enriched and strength- ened the Church, although it had been the center of the na- tional resistance to him and his father, and he honored Edmund, the martyr-king, by dedicating to his memory the shrine of St. Edmundsbury. " The laws of Edgar,^' as the people called the system of government which Dunstan had established in the reign of that good king, were restored and administered justly. For better government, he divided the English realm into four earldoms : Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumberland, their lords or earls being the most powerful men in the kingdom. Curious legends cluster about Canute's name. It is said that on one occasion his flattering courtiers, extolling his power, told him that even the tide of the ocean would obey his will. The king accord- ingly caused his throne to be placed on the sands, and there, arrayed in his royal robes with his flatterers, awaited the flood. Stretching forth his scepter, he bade the waters stay their progress. The result is not difficult to imagine — king and courtiers hastily regained dry land, having learned a lesson in the limits of human authority. From that day forward the crown that he had worn was placed on the image of the crucified Christ. Canute, who began his reign amid hatred and horror, died (1035), beloved and reverenced. Two sons, Harold and Hardicanute (Harthacnut), divided the empire. For two years there was strife in England, but in 1037 the former united England under his rule, his brother remaining in Den- mark as ruler of his father's continental inheritance. While the crown was weakened by this discord the earldoms gained in power. The earl of Northumberland was Siward, whose fame has gathered interest from Shakespeare's play of Mao The English and the Northmen. 73 beth. Earl Leofric, of Mercia, was the stern husband whose lady Godiva rode through Coventry streets one famous noon-day, when " She took the tax away And built herself an everlasting name." Godwin, the stout earl of Wessex, needs no poet to tell of his lasting renown; his own keen mind and sword have carved him a place in English history. Earl Godwin, an En- glishman, whose marriage allied him with the royal family of Denmark, served Canute faithfully in his life, and is a chief actor in the multitudinous events which crowd the stage from this time forward to the Norman conquest. As the first minister or "justiciar," he had carried out the will of Canute and his son, Hardicanute, who ruled the island for a few years (1040-1042) after Harold's death. There is a story, oft denied and as frequently re-asserted, which accuses God- win of betraying to the cruel Harold Ethelred's youngest son Alfred, who came to England in the troublous time which followed Canute's death, and sought at least a share in the kingdom of his father. Hardicanute, a drunken and blood- thirsty Northman, died miserably at Lambeth, near London, in 1042. Magnus, king of Norway, succeeded to his posses- sions in Denmark, but Godwin restored the English power to the exiled heir of Cerdic — Edward, the son of that Ethelred from whose unsteady hand the rough Danes had wrested the scepter. This Edward had the weakness, but not the wicked- ness, of Ethelred. His counselors ruled him, and their quar- rels disturbed the reign and led to the third and — for eight hundred years— the last conquest of England by foreigners. Two parties contended for the supremacy in Edward's coun- cils. The king himself, though born of an English father, had been brought up in Normandy — a duchy on the French side of the English Channel, of which we shall hear much during the next two centuries. He spoke the Norman-French language, and brought with him to England a throng of Nor- 4 74 An Outline History of England. man courtiers, whom he honored with the highest places in his gift. The immense influence of the English Church was handed over to the new-comers, in the person of a Robert of Jumieges, a Norman monk, who exerted a strong man's power over the gentle king. It was natural that Godwin,* a born leader, should head the party which cried, "England for Englishmen!" For a time the earl maintained his place near the king, and his talents might have kept him there and curbed the Norman spirit had not his own ambition wrought his ruin. He used his of- fice for his own aggrandizement. His daughter Edith was queen to the fair-haired Edward; two of his sons and his nephew ruled as earls a large share of the island. Godwin and the English cause were in the ascendant, but the Norman courtiers poisoned the ear of the king against the great earl — told Edward that Godwin had sold Prince Alfred into Har- old's murderous clutches. Some West Saxons insulted a Norman count who had wedded the king's sister, and God- win refused to punish the offenders without legal trial. Two jealous English earls, Godiva's Leofric and Shakespeare's Siward, joined forces with Edward and drove the English champion and his sons into exile (1051). For a year the Norman party triumphed. William, the duke of Normandy, visited the king at this time, and afterward swore that Ed- ward promised that he should succeed to the English throne, though wdiat right the monarch had to make such promises does not appear. In 1052 the English had so sickened of their Norman masters that they hailed with jo v the return of the old earl and his son Harold. Godwin took oath that he was guiltless of Alfred's blood. The king received him into *THE HOUSE OP GODWIN. Godwin. I I I EDWARD, ~ Edith. HAROLD II., Tostig. THE CONFESSOR," d. 1066. d. 1066. The English and the Northmen. Y5 favor, and the French counts, abbots, and bishops were packed off whence they came. Even the lordly Archbishop Robert of Canterbury took hasty leave, and a Saxon, Stigand, became primate of the English Church. The next year was marked by Godwin's death, but not a Frenchman dared come back, for Harold, the true son of his father, succeeded to the earldom of Wessex and the real direction of royal affairs. He exhibited the statesmanship of his father and a military talent of his own. While Edward was busy with his chap- lains founding churches and monasteries — the abbey of Westminster among them — Harold fortified his own posi- tion by giving earldoms to his brothers and leading the English armies to successful war against the Welsh. That he was clearly the first man in England did not escape Duke William, who kept keen watch from his neighboring Nor- mandy. In 1064 Earl Harold, with his vessel, was cast by mischance upon the French coast and became William's enforced guest. At a convenient season, two years later, William declared that Harold had then owned him lord and sworn to support his claim to the crown at Edward's death. They say that the duke outwitted the earl by smuggling sacred relics under the table on which the oath was taken, increasing the sanctity of the agreement. Edward died in 1066. The priests, his friends, were also his historians, and by their grace he is called " St. Edward " and " Edward the Confessor." There was no son to succeed him. Of the direct line of Cerdic only Edgar, a stripling, and Mar- garet, a girl, survived. William of Normandy, as soon as he heard of the Confessor's death, put in his claim by right of his wife Matilda's inheritance, by Edward's promise, and Harold's extorted oath. But Harold alone was able and at hand. The dying king seemed to designate him for the throne, though he bespoke for him a short and disastrous reign. The wise men (witan) elected the most available candidate — Godwin's son, Earl Harold, already actual ruler and general of the army. 16 An Outline History of England. King Harold's reign fulfilled St. Edward's direst prophe- cies. Two mighty foes gathered to crush him. His own brother, Tostig, then in disgrace, leagued with the king of Norway, the famous Harold Hardrada, whose spirit had led him from boyhood upon the wildest adventures, for the con- quest of England. The Norwegian fleet, swollen by acces- sions from Ireland and Scotland, sailed up the Humber, and landed not far from York. At Stamford Bridge the English Harold gave them battle, first offering his Norse namesake, who demanded his kingdom, seven feet of English soil for a grave. The English won, and both Tostig and his giant ally gained only earth enough to bury them. But the worst foe was still unconquered. William of Normandy, claiming the throne as heir, demanding the pun- ishment of Harold as a perjurer, urging the Normans to avenge Godwin's insults toward Archbishop Robert and his followers, and possessing Pope Alexander's blessing as a missionary to the corrupted English Church — uniting all parties by these specious claims — had gathered an army and crossed to Pevensey on the south coast. King Harold hasted from Stamford to meet the invader. William's army, a motley array of fortune-seekers picked up from all France and half Europe, attacked the English position on Senlac hill, near Hastings. The momentous battle, which took place October 14, 1066, is known in history under both names. Much was against the Normans. Their leader had encouraged them with the pope's blessing, but on landing he had stumbled and fallen on his face. Rising, his hands full of sand, he cried to his horrified attendants, " See ! by the splendor of God, the English soil is already in my grasp." In the desperate charges upon the English yeomen his cour- age, audacity, and constancy were every-where apparent. "The duke is dead," cried a hard-pressed battalion. "I live!" cried William, lifting the visor of his helmet, "and by God's help I will conquer." Conquer he did. Harold The English and the Northmen. 77 and his body-guard stood by the golden dragon banner of Wessex all day long, until near sunset a shaft from a French- man's bow blinded the king, and he fell. His English died around him, and that night William, the Norman duke, who ate and drank and slept on the field among the slain, was the real master of England. Still he was not king. The witan set up young Edgar, son of Edmund Ironside, but there was no iron in his com- position, and he and his English adherents soon begged Will- iam to take the crown, not as conqueror, but as the rightful successor. On Christmas day, 1066, the archbishoj) of Canter- bury set the crown upon the head of William the Conqueror. Harold's death closes the second period of English his- tory ; William's coronation marks the opening of a third and grander era in the development of a great nation. 78 Ax Outline History of England. CHAPTER V. THE NORMAN CONQUERORS. 1066 A. D.-1135 A. D. FROM THE ACCESSION OF WILLIAM I. TO THE DEATH OF HENRY I. "Norman" is "Northman," and the Norman subjects of Duke William were Scandinavians closely akin to the Danes who settled in England. Rollo, a Norwegian viking, was the first duke of Normandy. His piratical ravages upon the banks of the Seine forced Charles the Simple, king of the French, to grant to him the lands about the mouth of the river (912). In return for this territory Rollo gave up his wild life, acknowledged the sovereignty of Charles, wedded a princess, and settled down to enlarge the province he had secured. His people soon adopted the religion, manners, and language of the country, and became Frenchmen, differing from their Frankish fellow-countrymen chiefly in physical superiority and a masterful quality of mind. Under Rollo's descendants the Normandy was one of the most powerful of the several dukedoms which made up the French kingdom. William, who succeeded to the ducal coronet in 1035, was the seventh ruler in direct line from Duke Rollo, the viking. Before his name was linked with English affairs his government of his inheritance had distinguished him as William the Great. A boy with twice a man's spirit, he had crowded his way through many obstructions to the chief place among the vassals of France. Normandy, a prey to the French feudalisms which divided power among nobles who waged against each other continual private war, was ham- mered into comparative order and tranquillity by this iron duke. His indomitable will and political sagacity fitted this The Norman Conquerors. 79 DUKES OF THE NORMANS. ROLF, or ROLLO, 1st Duke of the Normans, reigned 911-927. WILLIAM LONGSWORD, r. 927-943. I RICHARD THE FEARLESS, r. 943-996. I RICHARD THE GOOD, r. 996-1026. Emma, m. 1. Ethelred II, of England, m. 2. Canute of England and Denmark. RICHARD III. r. 1026-1028. ROBERT THE MAGNIFICENT, r. 1028-1035. I WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, r. 1035-1087. ROBERT II., r. 1087-1096 (from 1096 to 1100 Duchy held by William), and 1100-1106 (when he was overthrown by Henry). WILLIA M RUFUS, r. 1096-1100. HENRY I. r. 11 06- 11 •S.- Matilda. m. GEOFFREY. "PLANTAGENET," Count of Anjou and 3faine (who won the Duchy from Stephen, 1145). I HENRY II. invested with the Duchy 1150, d. 1189. I Adela, m. Steiihen, Count of Blois and Chartres. I STEP HEN, OF BLOIS. r. 1135-1154. RICHAR D THE LION-HKAKT. r. 1189-1199. Norman dukt's in plain capitals. English kings underlined. JOHN, r. 1199-1204 (when Normandy was conquered by France), 60 Ax Outline History of England. man of all men to undertake with a few raw troops the con- quest and government of England. The battle of Hastings did not complete the conquest, neither did the surrender of Edgar and the coronation of William firmly establish the Norman system. Yet the king dared to quit his new-found kingdom, and hasten over to Normandy, where the Duchess Matilda ruled the barons as regent. To his brother Odo, bishop of Bayeux, and his friend, William Fitz-Osbern, he intrusted England in his absence. The king's plan was to treat the English as his legal subjects, not as a conquered people. By his assertion he was the true successor of Edward, Harold being a usurp- ing rebel. By the same reasoning Harold's followers were traitors to their rightful king, and their possessions were forfeited to the crown. These lands and houses William granted to the Normans, who had embarked their lives and fortunes in his expedition, and thus were founded those En- glish families who boast that " they came in with the Con- queror." Odo and Fitz-Osbern lacked William's broader views, and no sooner was his back turned than they began to persecute the unhappy English for their own advantage. Money, lands, and houses were wrung from the wealthy without distinction of guilt or innocence. Such tyranny aroused the spirit of resistance. Only a fragment of England had followed Harold at Hastings. The people of the north- ern earldoms cared little if a Norman should take from the earl of Wessex the crown which his ambition had acquired. The nation felt no real attachment for Harold as it did for Ethelred's children, Edgar and Margaret, now the wife of Malcolm, king of Scots. But the new tyrannies touched the life of the people. Every Englishman of wealth or high po- sition suffered or was liable to suffer at the hands of the Normans. The signal of revolt went through the island. Mercia and Northumbria rose under Earls Edwin and Morcar, relying upon the promised aid of Sweyn with a fleet and The Norman Conquerors. 81 army of Danes. The Scottish Malcolm added his support to the movement in the north. The western rebels found allies in the Welsh. In the eastern fen-lands, upon the borders of the Norman territory, the outlaw Here ward, " the last of the English," held Ely with desperate valor. William returned to face these serried dangers. The Danes, the main-stay of the insurrection, he bribed into inaction. Isolating the other centers of rebellion, he attacked them in turn, and in a series of campaigns comprising nearly four years (1068-1071) he crushed the rebels singly. Edwin, Morcar, and Ilereward died or yielded. King Malcolm did homage for his crown, and all the island, save the west and Wales, was pacified. The expense of blood and treasure was terrible, but the con- quest was thorough. In the north, whose subjection, even to Harold and the predecessors of Edward, had been but partial, the harshest means were used. Thousands of Northumbrians were slain, and their land was ravaged until it became a dreary and almost uninhabited Avaste. The English were now crushed beyond the possibility of resistance. Their leaders were dead or in Norman dungeons, and their spirit was broken to the Conqueror's will. Peace reigned throughout the kingdom. The soldier-duke whose sword had accomplished it now came forward and as the statesman -king reorganized the government of the land which he had won. Inasmuch as his reforms in the English system were based upon the Norman constitution, we must review both of the older governments in order to gain clear understanding of the new. Some features of the English governmental organization have already been explained. Its characteristic was the idea of home rule. The free people of a village met together to settle for themselves all minor political matters and to decide suits at law. The same system was applied to groups or " hundreds " of these villages ; and a number of " hun- dreds " formed the shire or county, with its shire moot, or 4* 82 An Outline History of England. court, where representatives of the " hundreds " met to hear appeals from the lower courts. The officers of this shire court were the alderman, bishop, and " shire-reeve," or sher- iff. The alderman was the representative of the nation, a sort of lord-lieutenant ; the reeve was the king's personal officer, and the bishop attended to points of church law. The judges, or rather the jurymen, were the freemen assem- bled in the court. If a convicted man appealed from the judgment of the hundred-court to the men of the shire he might take the " ordeal," or judgment of God, proving his in- nocence by walking unshod over hot iron or eating of poisoned cakes. In general the accused brought " compurgators," men who swore to his innocence and general character for good. The " compurgators, " or oaths-men, cf the plaintiff swore to the contrary, and the assembly of freemen com- pared the weight, not of evidence, but of the two parties of compurgators. In early times " an earl's word balanced six common churls [freemen] and one alderman's testimony out- weighed a township's oath." Punishment was commonly by fines, paid not to the State, but to the injured party. Above the shires of England, which were rudely yet not unwisely organized, was the king, and to him in his council of great men — the witenagemot — the man might appeal from the judgment of the lower court. The royal power was, how- ever, ill-defined. Through many changes it had grown to its proportions under such rulers as Canute and Harold. These later sovereigns were kings of England as well as of its people. The public land — folkland — had come to be considered the property of the monarch, and he might dispose of it at will, the witan assenting. Those who received land from him, and many who received none, became his thanes or vassals, owing him service. The greater thanes he summoned to his witena- gemot with the abbots and bishops. With this body he made laws, laid taxes, deliberated on peace and war, and appointed the officers of state. The system of thaneship extended The Norman Conquerors. 83 throughout society, the smaller land-owners, and even land- less freeman, agreeing to do service to an overlord or thane in return for his protection. Some of these thanes seem to have acquired authority as magistrates to try law-suits be- tween their dependents or in the towns (" burghs " or " bor- oughs ") which sprung up on their lands. Again, certain towns had purchased from their overlord, or from the king, the right to hold their own courts, subordinate to the shire- moot, but of equal authority with the assembly of the hun- dred. To this brief statement it should be added that the English shires were allotted among four earldoms — the four powerful earls being chosen by king and council from the royal thanes. In Normandy the feudal system was carried to its full ex- tent. The king of France was lord of all the land, and every man who owned a foot of soil rendered military service for his fief as vassal to a lord. The few great dukes held their duchies directly from the king, and so long as they paid the stipulated services they were supreme in their own domin- ions. These dominions were similarly divided. The duke — himself a king's vassal — granted his lands to barons, or lesser vassals, on similar terms of faithful service. The ten- ants of the barons also did service for the farms they held. In each case, from duke to smallest farmer, the same cere- monies and terms prevailed. The land held was the " feu- dum," or "fief ;" the vassal, or man, swore fealty (fidelity) and did homage, placing his bare head in his lord's hands, and on bended knee vowing to become his man through all perils. This was " feudal tenure," and property so held passed, with the attendant obligations and privileges, from father to son. In France this land and social system was a means of gov- ernment. For with the land the king granted jurisdiction over its inhabitants, and duke and baron each held his own manorial court, in which the law-suits of his dependents were tried. Each tenant of the king contributed a certain num- 84 An Outline History of England. ber of armed retainers to the royal army ; and these soldiers of the dukes and barons were frequently employed in private wars, one baron against another. The whole system tended away from national unity, for the king himself, when stand- ing alone, had less power than any one of a half-dozen of his proudest vassals. It was by feudal tenure that Duke Will- iam held Normandy from the king of France, and by the same system his quarrelsome barons held of him. We shall see how he and his successors combined the Saxon system with French feudalism. The English land-owners who fought on Harold's side were declared guilty of treason, and their lands reverted to the crown. The rebellions from 1068 to 1071 brought about the confiscation of nearly all the remaining English estates of any magnitude. With these William founded his sys- tem — granting them as feudal manors to the Normans of his train. He did not transfer the continental system to the island without changes. The semi-independence of the four great English earldoms which he had encountered warned him against granting too extensive fiefs to any one man. Instead of four earldoms he created nearly forty — an earl to a shire — and where he would show especial honor he took care that the lands of any one man should be scattered throughout England. Warned likewise by the continual wars of his own barons in Normandy, he exacted from all freemen, at a meeting at Salisbury (1086), the oath of alle- giance to himself as sovereign, thus making it treason for any to obey his lord contrary to the king. William thus became the real head of the English people, not simply the feudal sovereign of a few great barons — " tenants-in-chief." He further laid his hand upon the acts of the people by defining the sheriff's duties, and making him the ofiicer who attended to the king's fees and revenues in the courts. While he gave to the barons jurisdiction over the people of their manors, it was provided that appeal should run from the The Norman Conquerors. So baron to the hundred court and to the king. The old village courts were left intact, with the added provision of trial by- battle for Norman offenders. In place of the Saxon assembly of wise men William gathered about him a Great Council of his feudal barons, who superseded the English thanes. In this also sat the high officials of the Church, and a com- mittee of this body, called the curia regis (court or senate of the king), acted as a high court of appeals. The Anglo- Norman system, therefore, was feudal in its tenure of land, but English in its recognition of local self-government. Through it all stretched the strong arm of the king, ex- acting taxes from noble and commoner alike — all classes alike doing him homage. Socially the conquest transformed England. At the head of society stood the king and his Norman barons — proud of their possessions on both sides of the Channel, despising as barbarous the common Englishmen and their Anglo-Saxon tongue. French was the spoken language of the conquerors, though the lawyers and priests wrote a corrupt form of Latin. The English thanes disappeared after the early re- bellions, being slain or deprived of their lands, and so pressed down into a lower social grade. The middle-class English- men, dwellers in towns and coming into frequent contact with the foreigners, soon met them on equal terms in trade and society. The lowest class, serfs and slaves, suffered noth- ing by the change of masters, and clung persistently to the language and manners of the Anglo-Saxons. The Norman vigor breathed the breath of life into one En- glish institution. William had been consecrated by the pope as the reformer of the English Church, and, once master of England, he placed his charge in the able hands of Lanfranc, a Norman abbot, reputed to be the most learned man in Europe. Upon him William conferred the archbishopric of Canterbury, to which he subordinated the see of York. The able Gregory VII (Hildebrand), the reigning pontiff 86 An Outline History of England. at Rome, was determined to extend the feudal system over Europe by inducing all kings to do him homage for their kingdoms, and own him for their temporal as well as spirit- ual master. This William swore he would not do. Peter- pence he would pay, but homage for England's crown he owed to no man, nor to any would he give it. He willingly forbade the priests to marry, and allowed Lanfranc to en- graft the strict rules of the continental monasteries upon the lax religious establishments of England. Bishops' courts were set up in each shire to decide offenses against morals or religion. But he ordered that without his royal leave no pope should be acknowledged in England, no papal bull be read, no bishop appeal to Rome, and no royal tenant be excommunicated. Thus William thwarted Hildebrand's scheme of including England in his universal empire, and thus the trenches were dug for the later foundations of an English national Church free from papal domination. Not all of these changes took place in William's reign, but the beginnings of most of them are found there, though their course of development runs through more than a century. In his own life-time the king found much to oc- cupy his mind on both sides of the Channel. The closing decade of his life hedged him in with dangers. The barons of England were galled by the weight of his yoke. In Nor- mandy they had been almost independent of their duke, but the modified feudalism of England subordinated them di- rectly to King William's hand. Appealing to the English- men against the king's oppression, Roger, son of William Fitz-Osbern, and other Norman-English earls revolted, but the royal forces put them down without difficulty (1075-1076). The next outbreak was in Normandy. William had prom- ised that his eldest son, Robert, should have the duchy for his own in case the English expedition were successful. But King William would not fulfill the promises of William, the duke. " I shall not strip till I go to bed," was his answer to The Norman Conquerors. 87 his son's reminder. There were always enough discontented barons to follow such a leader as Robert to rebellion, and the war which son declared upon father was prolonged through three years (1077-1080), when a reconcilation took place, Robert being appeased by being named heir of his father's Norman dominions. The king's worst foes were those of his own household, the sons of his old friends, and his own half-brothers. One of the latter, Odo of Bayeux — that Nor- man abbey whose pictured " tapestry " still shows the features of the Conqueror and his knights — had been intrusted with un- usual power. He was bishop and earl, but he was ambitious to be pope, and would have backed his claims with an En- glish army had not the king unhesitatingly seized him, in spite of " his sanctity " as a bishop, and cast him into a dungeon. Denmark, which from this time sinks below the horizon of our history, gathered an armament for the in- vasion of England (1085), but it came to nothing, bribes, gales, and the fame of William's power uniting to undo it. It was at about this period (1086) that the Domesday Booh was compiled, and a great assembly on Salisbury Plain ordered every free man to swear direct and immediate allegiance to the king as his own sovereign. The object of the inquiry, which Domesday Book records, was threefold: " (1) To give a basis for taxation; (2) to serve as an authority by which all disputed land-titles might be settled; and (3) to be a census and muster-roll of the nation." At the royal command census-takers went to the head men in every shire, borough, parish, and manor, and asked these questions: " What is the name of your township ? Who was lord thereof, bishop, or abbot in the reign of Good King Edward ? How many thanes, how many freemen, and how many serfs are there ? How many acres and what were they worth in the Confessor's days ? What property has each freeman ? " etc. The answers were collected by the royal clerks, and written down in the book called Domesday, which still 88 An Outline History of England. exists, giving us an invaluable statement of the condition of the kingdom of England in the year of our Lord 1086. This was the closing event in England of William's reign. The next year saw his miserable death in his fatherland. At war with his feudal lord, the French king, he took and burned the town of Mantes. A fire-brand from a blazing building caused William's horse to swerve, throwing his corpulent rider heavily upon the pommel of his saddle. The internal injury soon threatened death. At Rouen, the capital of his viking ancestor Hollo, the Conqueror breathed his last. Many prayers and much confession did his thick lips mur- mur. Eldest son Robert was to have the Norman inherit- ance ; England he had wrongfully conquered, and he could not bequeath it, he said, but he hoped God would permit his second son, William, to rule the island realm ; for Henry, the scholarly son, there was a certain treasure of five thousand silver pounds; the remainder of his goods the priests and monks should have for the poor and the Church. So, deploring his wicked deeds, and boasting of his better acts, his spirit left him. His sons hasted hither and yon to secure their inherit- ance, and the monarch's remains were thrust into a humble grave in the Norman church of Caen. William II., called Ruf us (" the red "), lost no time in reaching England. Lanfranc, the archbishop, the most in- fluential man of the kingdom, pronounced in his favor, and the assembly of nobles finally elected him king. There were dissenting voices, however. The barons holding estates from Duke Robert and King William were displeased to serve two masters. In Normandy they were almost independent of the chivalrous Robert ; in England, they were mastered by the fierce and tyrannical "red king." For Ruf us had much of the Conqueror's ability. He was bold in design, prompt to act, and a stranger to fear. But he lacked his father's self-control, and for the great man's purity of life he ex- changed an extravagance and profligacy heretofore unknown The Norman Conquerors. 89 in England. His uncle Odo, released from custody at Will- iam's death, conspired with the barons to place Robert in the red king's seat. This threw William upon the old En- glish element for support, and well did they give it. With an English army he quelled the earlier outbreak, and a later plot, which sought to place his cousin Stephen on the throne. Three parties we find in the England of those days — the king, a foreigner ; his barons, rich and powerful, but rebellious against the overshadowing authority of their sovereign; and the mass of the common people. From the interaction of these forces sprang English liberty. A king hard-pressed by his barons would concede liberties to his people in return for their assistance, and the barons, tyran- nized by the king, would unite with the people to force the king to terms. By such indirect means the problem of English freedom came to solution. Among the sins which haunted the visions of the expiring Conqueror were the extortions and avarice of his closing years. In this form of misrule his son outstripped him far. The in- herited treasure the king's wild way of life soon dissipated, and his ministers were ordered to swell the revenue. They had recourse to a new form of tyranny. The English Church owned a large share — some say one fifth — of all the landed property in England. Bishops and abbots were feudal princes like the secular barons, and did military service for their lands. As they were unmarried monks their estates were not hereditary, and vacancies caused by death or re- moval were filled by the king. William's chief adviser at this time was the bishop of Durham, one Ranulf, called Flambard ("the fire-brand"), a wily but ignorant Norman priest, who had worked himself high in the Church and in the king's favor, although he was unscrupulous, and cared not a whit for the religion of which he was a minister. Fol- lowing his advice, the king allowed vacant abbacies and bishoprics to go unfilled for years together, their revenues 90 An Outline Histoby of England. meanwhile being collected for the royal use. In this way the highest offices in the Church lay vacant, and the organi- zation ran a ruinous course. Even the see of Canterbury had no head for four years after Lanfranc's decease. But an illness, which dragged William to death's door in 1093, seemed to his superstitious mind a judgment for his wicked- ness, and he compelled Anselm, abbot of Bee, in Normandy, to become archbishop of Canterbury. In his own way this Anselm was a worthy successor of his friend Lanfranc. But their ways were diverse. Both were high-minded men, profoundly learned, and devoted to the Christian Church ; but the latter was a man of the world as well as of the cloister, and could lead and control by his will the rough, unlearned Norman nobles as well as the gentle scholars who listened to his gracious Avords. Anselm's world was one of books and meditation, and lay far from that of the head- strong William, whose recovered strength was put to its first use in a close-locked struggle with the quiet but unflinch- ing monk. The question at issue was the supremacy of king or pope, and Anselm placed the pope's authority above the monarch's. After four years of obstinate debate the arch- bishop withdrew to Rome, and William greedily resumed the rich revenues of Canterbury. Neither side gained much real satisfaction from this trial of strength, but the noble example of a single freeman resisting the encroachments of a king was not lost upon the nation, which had some questions of the same kind accumulating for settlement at no distant day. During the quarrel with Anselm concerning the right of the pope alone to consecrate an archbishop the king's hands had not been idle. Malcolm, king of the lowland Scots, was the center of the old English spirit. His subjects were mostly of English blood, his wife was Margaret, a prin- cess of Cerdic's house, and his territories adjoining the hold- ings of the north country nobles suffered from inroads of the The Norman Conquerors. 91 robber barons, and from the establishment of the earldom of Cumberland with the strong fortress of Carlisle to overlook the border. Malcolm's invasion of England failed, however, and was followed by a civil war, which brought Edgar, Mar- garet's son, to the Scottish throne (1097). Into Normandy Rufus had marched as early as 1091, and agreed with his brother Robert that on the death of either the dominions of both should be united under the survivor. But this treaty was never fulfilled. In 1096 Duke Robert, his viking blood inflamed with love of adventure, and his religious enthusiasm stirred by the news that the Mohammed- ans had captured Jerusalem, joined the counts and barons of France and Italy who made the First Crusade. To equip his quota for the expedition he borrowed £6,666 of his brother William's ill-gotten gain, pledging his duchy of Normandy in payment of the loan. While the duke was in Palestine the king made friends of the Norman nobles, and ruled Normandy so well that he quite supplanted Robert in the affections of his subjects. At home the king's acts of oppression multiplied. His history is a record of vice and gross licentiousness. " Never day dawned," says one gloomy historian, "but he rose a worse man than he had lain down ; never sun set but he lay down a worse man than he had risen." Yet William the Red was no savage. The castles and churches that he built are noble structures, as he may testify who is familiar with the ancient portions of the Tower of London and Westminster Hall. The Conqueror did heartily love the tall deer, said a writer who knew him. The chase was his chief sport, and in Hamp- shire he cleared the tenants from a vast range of farm-lands and woodlands to make the deer park, which still retains its first name, "the New Forest." The evicted English cursed the king for his cruelty in taking their lands, as well as for the cruel forest laws, by which he kept the game for his private pleasure, and they declared that the New Forest 92 An Outline History of England. would be fatal to his line. Indeed, his son Richard died there, and another Richard, son of crusading Robert. But William Rufus feared nothing. He was a mighty hunter, and often rode with his bowmen after the deer-hounds. But one day, when he had ridden afield flushed with wine, the forest curse fell upon him. His huntsmen found him dead under a tree with an arrow in his breast. No one knows whose bowstring drove the arrow to its mark. Dying unshriven, he was buried without Chris- tian services at Winchester, the old West Saxon capital, and even after his dishonored body rested in the earth the tower of the abbey church above it fell in ruins, betokening, so wagged the English tongues, God's righteous wrath. Prince Henry himself was on that merry hunting party after the deer-hounds, and when they told him of his brother's death he spurred his horse to Winchester, seized the royal treasure, and demanded the crown. By the old. agreement Robert was the rightful successor, but Robert had not yet returned from the Holy Land. Henry's promptness gained the day, and in the words of his proclamation, " by God's mercy and the common counsel of the barons of the whole realm of England," he was crowned king. William's rule had been so hateful and his own title was so doubtful that the new king made a high bid for popularity. A paper, or " charter," was granted by the monarch to the nation. He pacified the barons by releasing them from many of the feudal assessments on their manors ; better laws — those of Edward the Confessor — were provided to the common peo- ple, and the Church was promised immunity from the unjust depredations of the preceding reign. As an earnest of good intentions, the king recalled Anselm from Rome, and, him- self a native of England, took to wife the Saxon Edith, henceforth called Matilda, the daughter of the king of Scots and great-grandchild of Edmund Ironside. His fondness for the islanders was such that the Normans gave the royal pair The Norman Conquerors. 93 the Saxon nickname " Goodrich and Godiva." Henry I.'s surname, Beauclerc (" the Scholar "), was not won by any mar- velous achievements in learning, but by the contrast between his tastes and those of his father, the iron-willed Conqueror, and his brothers, the dashing Robert, and William, the red king. Until his coronation, Henry had lived a life of pleas- ure on his estates in Normandy; but throughout his reign he exhibited the force and wisdom of his race. Order was his first law, and he cared less for fresh conquests than he did for the submission of his father's subjects to his own undis- puted will. In 1101 Duke Robert invaded the island, claiming his in- heritance, and many barons did him homage and led their men to his camp, but Henry, supported as William had been by an English army, and wielding a powerful weapon in Anselm's threat of excommunication against the rebels, bought peace. Robert gave up England, and kept Normandy, re- ceiving a yearly cash payment from the king. The peace was brief. Henry's vengeance pursued the rebel barons — chief among them Robert of Belesme, Earl of Shrewsbury — till they sought refuge in Normandy, there to plot his destruc- tion. Even into his brother's dominions he followed them twice, defeating the Normans in 1106 at Tinchebrai, and capt- uring their duke. From this time until his death King- Henry was master of all the Conqueror's dominions. Robert died a prisoner at Cardiff, and the efforts of the French king to re-instate his son William in Normandy were baffled. If the union of England and Normandy was the event of Henry's reign, the quarrel with Anselm and the quest for an heir were its absorbing political questions. The ecclesiastical struggle was not unlike that of Ruf us's reign. Both pope and king claimed the right of " investiture " (the ceremony of pre- senting to the newly elected abbot or bishop the staff and ring of their sacred office). Should the pope gain this right he would be enabled to annul the king's appointments. Should 94 An Outline History of England. the king retain the right he would be the real head of the Catholic Church in the island. In 1100 Anselm went into exile rather than yield, but in 1106 Henry recalled him and found means to compromise the matter, each side retaining a check on the action of the other. Henry's hopes for a successor were bound up in the person of his beloved boy William, " the Atheling," as the English called this son of a Saxon princess, and from the day when the White Ship bearing the prince went down (1120) in the Channel the monarch never smiled. No woman had yet ruled in England, yet the king compelled his barons twice in his life-time to swear allegiance to his daughter Matilda, the widowed empress of Germany. To save her Norman domin- ions from the neighboring counts of Anjou, he wedded her again (1 128) to the count's son, Geoffrey the Handsome, a gay Frenchman, whose habit of decking his cap with a sprig of common broom (planta genista) gave the name " Plantagenet " to a line of kings. The fruit of the union was a son, and before his death (1135) the king had the satisfaction of see- ing his nobles repeat their oath of fealty to Matilda and the baby Henry in her arms. The miseries of the next generation caused the people to look back with regret to the "good old times " when Henry I. was king. Yet he had not been a model ruler. Above all he was a despot. The reforms which he had promised and the smaller number which he had executed were made in the in- terest of better order and increased revenue for his own com- fort and enrichment. He seems to have been entirely reck- less of the lives and fortunes of his subjects. Yet it so hap- pened that his selfish policy produced internal peace and really improved the system of justice. The next reign was anarchy, but the little Plantagenet, whose birth we have just recorded, was destined finally to come to the throne, and in along and use- ful reign to develop the crude forms of his grandfather's time into the well-regulated government of Henry II. the statesman. Rise of the Barons. 95 CHAPTER VI. RISE OP THE BARONS. 1 135 A. D.-1216 A. D. FROM THE ACCESSION OF STEPHEN TO THE DEATH OF JOHN. In the story of the twenty years that followed the death of Henry I. it is easy to find justification for the iron rule of the Norman kings. The moment the scepter fell from Henry's grasp hopeless anarchy seized upon the realm. *Among the Norman barons who swore fealty to " the empress " and the little Plantagenet prince, was Matilda's cousin, Stephen of Blois. He was the Conqueror's grandson, a handsome, hearty fellow ready with sword or song. He was a favorite with his companions, and the common people ad- mired him for a liberal and chivalrous knight. Matilda and her proud Angevin husband were especially disliked in En- gland when Stephen offered himself without delay as a candi- * THE CONQUEROR'S CHILDREN. (Showing descent of Matilda and Stephen.) WILLIAM I.. " the Conqueror," reigned 1066-1087. 1 Duke Robert, 1 WILLIAM II., 1 HENRY I., I Adela, d. 1134. " RUFUS," r. 1100-1135. m. Stephen, r. 108M100. 1 Count of Matilda Blois and Chartres. "the Empress," 1 m. 2. Geoffrey, STEPHEN, " Plantagenet." Count of Blois, Count of Anjou. King of England, r. 1135-1154. HENRY II., r. 1154-1189. King of England, m. Eleanor of Aquitaine. 1 I I I Henry, RICHARD I., Geoffrev, JOHN, d. 1183. r. 1189-1199. d. 1186. r. 1199-1216. 90 An Outline History op England. date for the crown. His chief support seems to have come from the city of London, but he was crowned at Westmin- ster, and having secured the royal hoard, hired an army to de- fend his claims. Following Henry's brilliant example, he dazzled the nation with empty promises of reform. But good fellowship, knightly prowess, and fair promises brought no happiness to the English. The barons of the realm cared little for the rights of either claimant to the throne. What they were quick to recognize was that the accession of a wom- an or an easy-going courtier left them unbridled. The ad- ministration of the law grew lax. Bad barons built strong castles on their lands, whence they might sally to rob the traveler, or wage war upon the neighboring earl or abbot; even the good nobles — if such there were — must needs dwell in fortified houses to save themselves from the outlaws and robbers. Foreign invasion and civil war were added to the terror. David, King of Scots, espoused his niece Matilda's cause, and hacked and burned his way into Yorkshire, until checked at Cowton Moor, August 22, 1138, in the battle of the Standard, in which archbishops, barons, and people united. The discomfiture of the Scots was complete, the English con- quering under a standard which upheld a sacred wafer in a sil- ver box. With the next year came Matilda herself and the outbreak of civil war. Robert, Earl of Gloucester, one of the crudest men of these cruel times, was her chief partisan. Neighbors took sides and fought each other. The war was made an excuse for pillage, and whoever won the common peo- ple suffered. Their law-courts were closed, their property seized, their lives unsafe. The Church did nothing to help them, and, hopeless in their misery, they said, " Christ and his saints are asleep." The misfortune of the war was universal, and its favor rested now with Stephen, now with Matilda. The king was captured (1141), but was released the same year and besieged the empress in Oxford Castle, whence she DOMINIONS OF THE HOUSE OF ANJOU f Rise of the 13 aeons. 07 escaped by stealth in December, 1142. The Church, Arch- bishop Theobald at its head, finally delivered England. Its interference, in 1153, when young Henry Plantagenet had landed in England to enforce his demands for his mother's rights and his own, secured the treaty of Wallingford. Stephen was left to rule in England, pledging that Henry should reign after his death. That event befell in 1154, and tlenry II., the first Plantagenet king, was crowned king of England. Henry was already feudal lord of half of France. As the descendant of the dukes, he held Normandy and Brit- tany; from Geoffrey, his father, he inherited the counties of Anjou and Maine ; Gascony, Poitou, and Guyenne were the dowry of Eleanor, his wife. For these fiefs he did homage to the French king, but of England he was absolute lord. A thorough business man was this first of the Plantagenets. Though h^had bo^h Cerdic's blood and William's in his veins, he was neither Norman nor Saxon, and in his reign the marked distinction between the two races disappeared. French — and rather bad French at that — was the language of court and town. But French and English burghers and courtiers met on equal footing. The king chose his attend- ants and the officers of his government irrespective of race, and much work he found for them to do. For himself, he was never idle. " The hardest worker in the realm," men called him, as he turned from treasury accounts to diplomacy, from diplomacy to war, from war to statesmanship. There was need for such a hard-headed, practical man. Order must be brought out of the anarchy of Stephen's reign. He found the system of Henry I. clogged. The barons had stripped the monarch of most of the power which the Nor- man kings had reserved to the crown. To reduce them to their subordinate condition, the king ordered them to pull down the castles which they had built since Beauclerc's time. Then he took from the barons the right to try law- cases, which they had seized when the local and hundred o 98 An Outline History of England. courts were closed by civil disorders and neither the king nor his traveling deputies heard appeals. Not satisfied with restoring the government, he sought to conform all the busi- ness of the state to one system of which he should be the mainspring and center-point. Thus his reign marks a most important period in the history of English institutions. Among the clerks of the train of Archbishop Theobald — the peace-maker — the young king found one Thomas Becket, or a Becket, the son of a rich Londoner of Norman blood. The archbishop loved and trusted his clerk, and the king discovered in him the stuff for a firm friendship. He ad- vanced Thomas to the chancellorship, the highest civil office, and the two young men together worked upon Henry's plans of reform, and on occasions the chancellor (enormously en- riched by the king) fought beside his master in battle. In 1162 the death of the old archbishop left the see of Canter- bury vacant, and the king secured the election of Thomas a Becket to its honors. Henry proposed to introduce a serious change in the ecclesiastical system, and with his friend at the head of the Church he hoped to avoid such strife as had vexed Henry I. and Rufus in their controversies with Anselm. This change was no less than the subjection of the ecclesiastical courts to the jurisdiction of the king. Since the Conqueror two systems of law and two judicial bodies had existed side by side in England; the king's courts — from merest town-moot to the shire-court and the curia regis — and the bishop's court, which not only tried men accused of offenses against the church or canon law, but which had jurisdiction over every person who had taken the tonsure. The penalties in the bishop's courts were comparatively slight, and many a thief escaped hanging by claiming " benefit of clergy " (pleading some connection with the Church), and bringing his case be- fore the bishop. The king wished to restrict the ecclesias- tical courts to the trial of causes in which the Church was IlisE of the Barons. 99 especially concerned. At a great assembly of barons, abbots, and bishops, held at Clarendon, in 1164, the famous Consti- tutions of Clarendon were framed to cover this reform. They re-asserted the " customs " of the Conqueror, declaring the king's supremacy in the English Church, and they further- more established the king's right to decide in which court suits should be brought; to be represented by an officer at all ecclesiastical proceedings; and to hear and decide appeals from the bishop's decision. The man whom the king had made archbishop was more loyal to Church than to king; at first he wavered, but soon shaping his course he denounced the Constitution and fled from the kingdom to escape the tumultuous anger of the monarch. After six years of exile (1164-1170) the pope's threats forced the king to recall the primate. The two men acted a hollow reconciliation. There was nothing in it. Henry could find no patience for the rebel priest, and four knights who heard his ravings attacked the archbishop in his cathedral of Canterbury, and slew him on the altar-steps four days after Christmas, in the year of grace 1170. In later days pilgrims came in crowds to the shrine of St. Thomas, that " holy blissful martyr for to seek." The popular horror of the murder caused the king to aban- don some of the Clarendon enactments, although throughout his reign he held the power of the Church well in check. If the independence of the Church was to be feared, the arrogance of the barons was still more menacing. In the beginning the foresight of William I. had cut into their feu- dal state by requiring all freemen to swear allegiance directly to the king, instead of the Norman usage of swearing to a lord who, in turn, vowed fidelity to a duke, the latter doing homage to the king. Henry II. applied William's principle to military service. All tenants owed this, but the king allowed them exemption by paying him a tax called scutage. With the proceeds of these scutages he employed mercenary troops for his wars abroad. Thus the barons lost the private armies 100 An Outline History of England. of personal followers which had every- where in feudal coun- tries contributed to disorder. By the " Assize of Arms " (1181) all freemen were obliged to muster armed at summons from the king. Of more importance to England than the reforms in Church and army were those which were gradu- ally engrafted upon the law. These are embodied in several " assizes." That of Clarendon revived and extended the "frank-pledge," a police system by which small clubs of freemen were formed for mutual security. It provided, more- over, a grand jury which indicted reputed criminals and pre- sented them for trial by ordeal, by which " judgment of God" the old system of trial by " compurgators " was super- seded. In 1216 an order of the Church abolished the ordeal, leaving the word to our vocabulary, but replacing the judicial test by a petty jury, such as still remains the basis of English law. The "Assize of Northampton" (1176) gave currency and system to Henry I.'s hap-hazard plan of sending justices throughout the island to preside at courts in the king's name. Henry II. divided the kingdom into six such judicial circuits, and regularly heard appeals from their courts to himself in the council of his barons, the highest of all judicial bodies. From the committees of this cpuncil, appointed for especial branches of the law, arose the modern courts of King's Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas. Henry's reign was not entirely given up to administrative reform. The king was as active among his generals as he was among his clerks and justices. He was engaged in three futile wars with the Welsh, who had been only partial- ly subdued. After Becket's murder he went to Ireland, which now makes its first important entry upon the stage of English history. The island had been the scene of the utmost disorder for several centuries. Once the abode of learning and piety, it had fallen into a pit of ignorance and superstition. One Dermod, a fugitive king of Leinster, Rise of the Barons. 101 came to Henry and swore fealty to him in return for English aid in regaining his throne. About 1169 Richard of Clare, an English noble of ruined fortune, led an irregular expedi- tion to Ireland and conquered the south-eastern districts. To him went Henry himself, in 1171, perhaps to avoid the papal legates who came to curse him for the archbishop's murder. The next year he returned in time to meet the new legates, who brought absolution. Ireland, though now nominally an English fief, remained unconquered, save where Richard of Clare, called " Strongbow," lorded it over the wretched Irish. Henry managed the affairs of his kingdom better than those of his own household. His wife Eleanor, a woman of distinguishes 1 ability, hated him for his infidelity. His sons, Henry, Geoffrey, Richard, and John, were the heaviness of their father. The principle of heredity was not yet admit- ted, and the king was anxious about the succession. To secure the crown to his eldest son, Prince Henry, he had his barons swear allegiance to him, and in 1170 had him formally crowned. From this time " the Young King " was a source of continual strife. He claimed a share in the government, and demanded that a part of the inheritance, either Normandy or England, should be given to him forthwith. The king had already made his will, but refused to be his own executor. At his death Henry was to have Normandy and England and An j ou ; Richard's share was his mother's dowry, Aqui- taine and Poitou, and Geoffrey should be duke of Brittany. John, the youngest son, was omitted in the distribution, and men — perhaps his brothers began it — dubbed him John Lackland. Little John was the king's favorite, and he tried to save a portion for him by persuading the elder brothers to grant him certain castles and manors of their own. The surly Henry rudely objected, and leagued with King William of Scotland and a number of French and En- glish barons to wrest the sovereignty from his father. But that. father, once aroused, was irresistible; he scattered the 162 An Outline History of England. French armies like a whirlwind, capturing the rebels. Mean- while his lieutenants in England had found once more that the king's strength lay in the confidence of the English com- mons. The nobles were in revolt, but the royal army de- feated the Earls (1173) and captured William the Lion, King of the Scots. This sharp work was done while Henry was absent. The capture of William was announced almost im- mediately after the king had landed in Kent and made a humble pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canter- bury. Little blood was shed in punishment for this rebellion; but more castles had to come down and more baronial power had to be centered in the king. The king of Scots was not liberated until (1175) he swore on bended knee to hold his realm as a fief of the English crown. For the rest of bis life Henry lived chiefly on the Conti- nent. His possessions there were richer and more populous than in England ; and there, too, he might watch the course of his rival, the king of France, and keep an eye on his un- filial sons. England was ruled meanwhile by the king's jus- ticiar, Ranulf Glanville, one of the lawyers whose influence is apparent in the wise constitutional changes of the reign. In vain the king besought his sons to join hands for their common safety. The Young King Henry, who was eventu- ally to reign, urged the brothers to swear fealty to him now. Richard reluctantly obeyed, but a bloody quarrel rather than an alliance followed the act. The old king and Richard took arms to oppose the attacks of Geoffrey and the Young King. The latter's death (1183) ended his career of mischief. Three years later Geoffrey died also — his widow, Constance, soon after bearing him a son, Arthur of Brittany, to face a short and sorrowful existence. Richard and John Lackland survived. The experiment with one " young king " convinced Henry of the imprudence of crowning Richard. But this prince made close alliance with Philip, King of France, and together they attacked the king, now broken in Rise of the Barons. 103 spirit by disappointment and the rebellion of his heartless sons. In July, 1188, he left England for the last time. A truce was made, but it endured for a few months only. At its close Philip invaded Anjou (1189), and Henry, without resistance, gave up Le Mans, the town and castle of his birth. The city of Tours fell on the third day of July, and the sick and despairing monarch surrendered to Philip and acknowledged Richard's claim to the crown of England. The list of conspirators was placed in his hands, that he might forgive them. At its head was John, the child of his heart, and when he saw that name he turned his face to the wall, lamenting : " No more, no more ! Let all things go their way ! " Two days later he died at Chinon. The garrulous courtiers said that when Prince Richard passed the royal bier blood flowed from the nostrils of the dead king, showing that Richard's conduct had broken the heart within. Richard Coeur de Lion (Lion-heart) was born in En- gland, but until the Young King's death had little hope of reigning there. His father early gave him his mother's prov- inces, Aquitaine and Poitou, and there the prince practiced the arts of chivalry, with occasionally a fiercer tilt at the king of Spain, or some fellow-vassal of France. Personal bravery was his commanding virtue. He was a burly, red-faced man, fond of rich armor and brilliant trappings. England never knew him well, and some doubt his ability to speak or write a single sentence in English ; but the fame of his exploits filled all Christendom, and long after his death Richard of En- gland was a name to terrify the Turks. The romance of his life has caught the fancy of the world, and the extravagance and licentiousness which marred his habits are forgotten. Queen Eleanor held England for her son until he came from France. No united power disputed his title to the throne of his father, and the realm was in such excellent order that he was able to fling himself immediately into 104 An Outline History of England. preparations for the enterprise which lay so near his heart. For Richard was on fire with crusading fervor. The em- peror of Germany and the king of Sicily were already off for the East, and both Richard and Philip of France had taken the cross and were eager to join them in Palestine. Money was the king's pressing need, and he obtained it by selling privileges. Scotland bought back the independ- ence that its king had forfeited to Henry II., bishops paid roundly for their titles to the lands of the bishoprics, earls for their earldoms, barons for their manors. The offices of justice and sheriff were made to yield their quota, also, to the enormous crusading fund. Before quitting the island he sought to insure peace and good government. To John, his brother, he gave six English counties, so that he lacked land no more, but he gave him no voice in the government. The administration was left to the chancellor, William Long- champ, and to the bishop of Durham, whom he made justi- ciar, and who, as legate, wielded the anthority of the pope. Fearing trouble, he bound John and his half-brother Geof- frey (not to be confounded with that brother Geoffrey, the father of little Arthur, the pitiful prince) to remain outside the kingdom for three years. Philip and Richard set out for the Holy Land in 1 1 90. They were delayed all winter in Italy, where their jealousies led to the brink of open war. In June, 1191, they reached Acre, where a Christian army had held a force of Saracens beleaguered for several years. The English king performed astounding feats of valor in the remaining days of the siege, which soon ended in the surrender of the city. Philip got his fill of cru- sading, and sailed for France. Richard pushed on toward Jerusalem, then in possession of Saladin, the most renowned and chivalrous of Mohammedan sultans. Discord between the English and French thwarted concerted action, and Richard in disgust signed a truce for three years, three months, and three days with the infidels, and turned his face Rise of the Barons. 105 toward Europe, where he had reason to believe his presence needful. John's term of absence was expiring, and Philip, now his enemy, was back in France. In his haste to reach England Richard was shipwrecked in the Adriatic and capt- ured by the duke of Austria, who placed him in the custody of Philip's friend, the German emperor, Henry VI. There he remained in an unknown prison for thirteen months, and a pretty story tells how Blondel, his minstrel, wandered through Europe, singing the king's favorite air under many a castle window, until Richard's own voice took up the strain and finished it. Richard was indeed needed at home. William Longchamp had quarreled with the bishop of Durham and assumed the full control of the state. Ability and loyalty William doubtless had, but his pride and arrogance set barons and Englishmen alike against him. The better to manage the former, he took from them their castles, even attacking the strongholds of Prince John, who returned to England at the expiration of his three-years' bond. Geoffrey, the half-brother, also came to England and leagued with John. The barons and bishops succeeded in driving Longchamp into exile, John being recog- nized as Richard's regent, and Walter of Coutances proving his own credentials as royal justiciar and papal legate in place of the banished prelate. John and Philip now intrigued to prevent the return of Richard, and great was their joy at the news of his capture in February, 1193. The English people were exceedingly proud of their ab- sent king, foreigner though he was, and they left no stone unturned in their efforts for his release. The emperor placed an enormous ransom upon him, and Philip and John put every obstacle in the way of raising it. But Queen Eleanor, the new justiciar, and Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canter- bury, put themselves at the head of the enthusiastic nation, and the sum was made up. The rich gave liberally, and the common people gave one fourth of their movable goods to 106 An Outline History of England. swell the fund. In a twelvemonth the money was paid over. The emperor kept his word, and Richard was set free. King Philip's messenger posted to John with the words, "Beware! the devil is loose." King Richard arrived in England in March, 1194, just in time to witness John's surrender to Archbishop Hubert and to pardon his brother and Geoffrey. He spent but sixty days in the island in this the last visit of his life, and he applied the time to the restoration of order and the levying of a tax to defray the expense of the war which he was about to carry on with France. On the 12th of May he sailed for the Continent, leaving Hubert Walter to govern the realm and raise funds to meet the heavy draughts of the campaign. The archbishop was a well- trained politician, a prudent ruler, and a statesman. But not even he could continue uninterruptedly to exact money from the English to support an unpopular foreign war. In 1198 a great council of notables — the usual bishops and barons — met his request for an extraordinary contribution with flat refusal, and he was glad to lay down his dignities in favor of a sterner man, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter. The money wrenched from Englishmen went partly for war, partly for fortresses, and partly to buy alliances with the enemies of France. Had Richard been able to unite his French dominions with his English heritage for a common and hearty attack upon Philip of France he might have won, but his continental duchies and counties cared far less for him than did his English subjects, who in turn felt no interest in the war. To protect Rouen, his Norman capital, he built that splendid Chateau Gaillard (the " saucy castle "), which Philip swore to take " were the walls iron," and Cceur de Lion vowed to defend " were its bulwarks built of butter." To crush the French monarch he and his stanch friend Long- champ intrigued with the Powers of western Europe. When the plot was nearly ready for execution death foiled it. In a private feud with the count of Limoges, over a treasure-trove Rise of the Barons. 107 claimed by the count's master, the king received his mortal hurt from an arrow shot from the castle wall (119W. So died Richard I. of England, forgiving, in his kingly fashion, the bowman whose shaft had struck him down. In the list of English kings since the Conquest there are many repetitions: four Williams, eight Henrys, six Edwards, four Georges, and two each named James and Charles, but John has had no namesake; no English queen has dared to christen a son by that hated name. Of John Lackland, the prince, the reader knows something — how his rebellion broke the heart of a kind father, and his treachery stole the kingdom from a brother in distress. The history of his reign has blacker stains, for this talented and fascinating monarch was foul in his life, and false to all men and women with whom he had to do. The period of his sovereignty, however, is . worthy of the closest study on three points — the permanent separation of England and Normandy, the quarrel between king and pope, and the signing of the Great Charter. King Richard died childless. By the Norman rules of in- heritance his next of kin was not his younger brother John, but Prince Arthur of Brittany, son of his elder brother Geoffrey, whose death has already been noted. Yet John claimed the crown of England, as the ablest and most worthy male of the house of Plantagenet, and Hubert Walter managed his election at London and coronation. From his father, Geoffrey, young Arthur inherited Anjou and other provinces which Henry II. had held as a vassal of the king of France, and the prince after receiving their allegiance lived at King Philip's court. John claimed these provinces for himself, and, with the advice and able assistance of his queen- mother Eleanor, used force to compel their submission; Philip left Arthur to shift for himself, and the boy, now fifteen years of age, fell into John's hands. A mystery shrouds Arthur's death, but his uncle's cruelty makes plausible the story that he was murdered at Rouen, either by John or by his royal 108 An Outline History of England. command. Philip, at least, credited the report and ordered John, as his vassal, to appear before the French barons and clear himself of the accusation. The sentence of the court was forfeiture. John was declared to have forfeited all his French fiefs. Philip's army executed the decree forthwith. The " saucy castle " was humbled. Normandy passively ac- cepted the French rule, and the entire English realm on the Continent, save a small district in the south of France, was seized by the French. John returned to England, now his sole possession. Soon after his arrival Archbishop Hubert, his faithful counselor, died (1205). The death of the archbishop of Canterbury inaugurated King John's disastrous conflict with the Church. There were several candidates for the primacy. The Canterbury monks had one, John named another, and the bishops of the province nominated a third. The parties took their dispute to Rome, where Innocent III., one of the greatest of the popes, threw out all three, and appointed an English scholar and cardinal, Stephen Langton (1207). The enraged king swore that the pope's man should never set foot in the king- dom. For six years he kept his defiant word in the face of the most awful power in Christendom. Innocent launched his three thunderbolts successively against him. First an interdict was placed upon the kingdom. All public religious services were forbidden. Churches were closed and all Church ceremonies save baptism ceased. The king retaliated by plundering the prelates who obeyed the pope, and by persecuting the Italian priests. Innocent then declared the king excommunicate, and his people were ordered to have no dealings with him. Still John was obdurate. Innocent's final act was the Bull of Deposition. The king was now a spiritual outlaw, and his vassals were released from their allegiance. To Philip of France the pope intrusted the execution of the decree, and that monarch eagerly prepared to invade England. John would have resisted even then had Rise of the Barons. 109 he not discovered that his English barons were deserting him. By a sudden change of front he yielded to Rome. On May 15, 1213, King John disgracefully surrendered his king- dom to the pope's commissioner, Pandulf, receiving it again as tributary vassal of Innocent III. Before the year's end he had thwarted Philip's plan of invasion, but his attempts to regain any portion of his father's lands in France were ended by the defeat of his allies at Bouvines (1214). King John had only two years to live, but one of them — 1215 — marks an era in the history of the world's struggle for freedom, for in that year the great charter of English liberty was drawn up and signed. At his coronation, and twice or thrice thereafter when hard pressed, the king had sworn to rule justly, after the laws of the best of his predecessors, but his promises were "false as dicers' oaths." They were made to be broken, and the oppressed barons secretly concerted measures for holding him to their performance. Archbishop Langton, of honored memory, added the influence of the Church to the strength of the nobility, and the common people, finding their natural leaders united and their sovereign faithless, turned against the king. Langton found among the rolls a copy of the charter of rights which Henry I. had granted. This for- gotten document he read to the barons assembled at St. Paul's Church in London, in October, 1213, proposing it as a basis for a new charter which should limit the power of the king and protect the rights of the people. After his discomfiture in France John turned and twisted to free himself from the coil of difficulties gathering about him. To dissolve the union of the nobility, to win over the clergy, to secure the interference of the pope, taxed every device of the king's remarkably fertile brain ; but Stephen and the men who believed the righteousness of their cause and knew John's worthlessness would not be put off or gain- said. They gathered an army and marched into London 110 An Outline History of England. (May, 1215). With not a single man of weight to stand by him, the king yielded at last. On the island of Runnymede, in Thames, between Staines and Windsor, he met the barons and signed with them the treaty which Ave reverence as Magna Charta, the Great Charter of England. This memo- rable event took place on the 15th of June, in the year 1215. The Great Charter was a plain and clear statement of the several rights and privileges which former kings had granted to the Church, nobility, towns, and common people of En- gland. It contained little or nothing that was new, but it expressed in definite shape the accepted principles of good government and provided means for applying them. It de- clared, "No freeman shall be seized, or imprisoned, or dis- possessed, or outlawed, or in any way brought to ruin, save by the legal judgment of his equals or by the law of the land." "To no man will we sell, or deny or delay, right or justice." No tax could be levied save by the authority of the great council — this accords with that maxim of lib- erty, " No taxation without representation." All privileges granted by the king to his tenants-in-chief were to be granted in like manner by these barons to their under- tenantry. Trade was relieved from excessive duties, the rights which the city and town corporations had acquired were to be re- spected. These and many other provisions make up Magna Charta. The novel feature of the paj)er was the appointment of a committee of twenty-five barons to insure its execu- tion. But John did not dream of executing it. He was the pope's man now, and the weapons which had been fleshed upon him were at his disposal against his enemies. At his suit the pope annulled the charter and absolved the king from his share in its enactment. The barons rebelled, and the pope struck at them blow after blow. Excommunica- tion was followed by interdict, and the king hired an army of continental ruffians to chastise them until they cried for Rise of the Barons. Ill mercy. Pandulf declared Langton suspended from his epis- copal authority. The barons raised such forces as they could muster, and begged Louis, son of Philip of France, to rid their island of its monstrous monarch. Louis landed in May, 1216, with an army. John was in the north fighting the king of Scots. After a victory he marched southward to meet the new foe, but in crossing the sands of the Wash in Lin- colnshire a hia;h tide swallowed his treasure and left him weakened in the presence of his enemies. Death overtook him before the dauphin's army. Fever — some whisper poison — ended his wretched life at Newark, October 19, 1216. 112 An Outline History of England. CHAPTER VII. THE PLANTAGENET KINGS. 1216 A. D.-1327 A. D. FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY III. TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD II. William the Conqueror and his son, the Red King, were pure despots; they believed that absolute power in the hands of a monarch was the best form of government. To estab- lish this system they broke through the feudal rules of France and made all England, noble and commoner, swear allegiance to the sovereign. The king of France ruled his barons — when he could ; they in turn governed the people. These two kingdoms developed very differently. Centrali- zation in England ended in a constitution, by which the royal power was hemmed in on every side, and the common people acquired the practical direction of the government. In France a succession of powerful kings beat down the power of the barons and consolidated authority around the throne, until in the eighteenth century — when England was ruled by an elective Parliament — Louis XIV. could truth- fully say of France, " The State ? I am the State." The preceding chapter outlined the progress of liberty in En- gland. The administration and judicial system which Henry I. had devised for the sake of order, and which Henry II. had broadened and strengthened for similar reasons, had proved so acceptable that its neglect by John threw the kingdom into revolt — a rebellion so serious that at the death of the king half his barons were in arms against him and had leagued with Louis, son of Philip of France, to drag him from his throne. Led by Stephen Langton, the barons and bishops had forced the king to sign the Great Charter, The Plantagenet Kings. 113 but before his death, in 1216, he had renounced his assent to it and had secured a decree from the pope annulling the document altogether. Affairs were in this woeful case when the death of John left his nine-year-old son, Henry of Winchester, to face the exasperated nobles and the ambitious dauphin. Probably had the king lived he would have lost the crown, but his death removed the most serious grievance of the rebels. Patriotism detached some from the French prince; the pros- pect of more independence during the boy king's minority doubtless caused more to fall away. The barons were fight- ing to compel the king to observe his pledge of good govern- ment; opportunity now offered for the patriots and nobles to rally round an infant, and in his name to set up the system which his false father had spurned. A small but able band of John's friends, chief among them William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke; Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, and the papal legate, espoused Henry's cause and had the little fellow crowned king at Gloucester. In his name they re-issued Magna Charta, omitting tempora- rily several sections. William Marshall, a tried and faithful friend of John, assumed the regency as " governor of the king and kingdom." In 1217 he beat the French and En- glish at Lincoln, and before the year's end he had cleared Louis out of the island. Henry was accepted as king by the remnant of the rebels, and in his name the regent again re- issued the charter, from which the pope had withdrawn his condemnation. In 1219 Earl William died, having saved the country from Fiance and civil war. Peter des Roches, Pan- clulf the legate, and the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, together conducted the regency, and Henry was crowned again at Westminster by Archbishop Langton, whose share in the events at Runnymede was now forgiven and even applauded. Hubert was the great man of the triumvirate who exercised the king's power. Bishop Peter represented one dangerous 114 An Outline History of England. influence and Pandulf another. During John's reign the many royal castles and some of the chief places in Church and State had been given to Frenchmen like Peter des Roches. Against these Hubert proceeded with severity, and succeeded in reclaiming the property and authority of the king and driving out the foreigners. Moreover, the legate Pandulf represented the pope of Rome, to whom John had granted the kingdom. At the return of Langton the legate was superseded, and England's Church was left under the control of the archbishop of Canterbury. These were genu- ine triumphs for Hubert. In 1225, when the justiciar desired a grant of money to meet the expenses of a new war with Louis, now king of France, King Henry again, " by his spontaneous will," solemnly promised to respect the charter which his father had signed perforcedly. With how little sincerity Henry re-issued the charter in 1225 maybe learned from his course after 1227, when he be- came of age and began to exhibit himself in all his unfitness for kingship. He ruled in his own name forty-five years, and lost no opportunity to rid himself of all constitutional trammels, and to show his disregard of Englishmen and his faithfulness to the pope. Hubert de Burgh was j usticiar until 1232, shielding the people from oppression and incurring the hatred of the king. Henry, guided by Peter des Roches, filled the high places in the administration with foreigners — Frenchmen — but this could no longer be done with impunity. The days were past when England was the unresisting prey of foreigners, and the descendants of the Conqueror's Normans looked -upon Henry's French officers as intruders. Bishop Peter secured the deposition of Hubert de Burgh, and when Richard Marshall, son of the regent William, succeeded him as the head of the English party the wily Peter had him ac- cused of treason and destroyed. Though its leaders were cut down, the rank and file of the opposition stood firm. In J 235 Peter des Roches had to yield and leave the court, The Plantagenet Kings. 115 By the dismissal of both Hubert and Peter the king was gainer. He filled their places with insignificant men — mere clerks — who transacted the duties of chancellor, justiciar, and treasurer, but who had no power and exerted no influ- ence. The authority of these great offices the king reserved to himself. With stubborn disregard of the demands of his subjects, he laid upon them repeated taxes to support his petty wars with Scotland, Wales, and France, and to lavish upon the gorgeous tourneys and feasts with which he cele- brated the marriages of his family. To these expenses were added the great sums which he pledged to the pope. Before each fresh imposition the bishops and barons debated it in a great council — now first called Parliament. So far as they dared they resisted. The king generally gained their consent by promising to redress their wrongs. They we,re long in learning how vain were his pledges. They lacked a leader bold enough and patriotic enough to compel the king to keep his word at all hazards. Edmund of Abing- don and Robert of Lincoln among the bishops, Earl Ranulf of Chester and John's second son Richard, Duke of Cornwall and " King of the Romans," among the barons, were men of genuine nobility and pure patriotism, but they were not fitted to fight to the death for a principle as did Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who at last found the will and courage to grapple with the king. There are two Simons of Montfort in history. The elder Simon belongs to France, for whose king he led a cruel cru- sade against the Albigenses, poor peasants condemned by the pope for heresy. The youngest of his four sons became the English hero. He was a Frenchman who had become earl of English Chester, and had married Henry's sister Eleanor. Strangely enough, we find Earl Simon ranging with the English barons in their resistance to his brother-in-law King Henry. We find him in the front rank, too, his name not a w r hit less respected than that of the king's own brother. 116 An Outline History of England. Richard of Cornwall (1244). Whatever were Henry's feel- ings toward his sister's husband, he sent Earl Simon to gov- ern the Gascons (1248), who still remained his subjects in France ; but this period was one of constant bickerings. Gascon y, filled with the hot-heads of the south, complained of de Montfort's vigorous measures, while Simon and the king disputed over revenues and debts. In 1253 the earl returned to become the champion of the English. The royal tyranny grew worse yearly. In 1257 the king informed the Parliament that his second son, Edmund, was to be king of Sicily, and that he would consequently want a large sum of money. The barons cut the appropriation down to one third of the sum and granted it. In 1258 the king repeated his request. He had pledged his realm to the pope for a certain sum; if the barons would grant it he would govern henceforth in accordance with their wishes. The " Provisions of Oxford," drawn up in June of that year, ex- pressed the desires of the barons. They went beyond Magna Charta. The foreigners were to be sent out of the kingdom; the great offices, whose functions the king had monopolized, were to be re-established; the financial and ju- dicial arrangements of Henry II. were to be restored. Twenty- four men, twelve by royal appointment, twelve chosen by the earls and barons, were to carry out the reforms. A select council of fifteen was to meet thrice a year to advise the king. Two other commissions represented the barons and the Church. To all these acts Henry plighted his sacred word. England had now limited its monarchy and undertaken to establish a constitutional government. But the king, on whom much depended, was as false as the traitor John, and the barons and earls were jealous and discordant. The Pro- visions had been in force two years, when Henry, seeing the disunion of his enemies, renounced his oath and received papal absolution. The next year (1262) he turned about *The Plantagenet Kings. ilf and took the oath a second time. Prince Edward, the heir to the throne, was by this time old enough to be con- cerned in the welfare of his inheritance, and he feared lest Simon de Montfort, the directing spirit of the king's council, should usurp the title, as he had bade fair to usurp the powers, of the sovereign. In 1263 there was actual civil war, but in December the whole matter of dispute was referred to Louis IX. (Saint Louis), King of France. His award, the " Mise of Amiens," given in June, 1264, was for Henry. The Ox- ford agreement was annulled, the king's supremacy restored, and both parties exhorted to peace and good-will. Simon de Montfort refused to accept the decision, and con- tinued the war against King Henry, his son Edward, and his brother Richard. After two months of profitless castle- taking Earl Simon defeated the king's army at Lewes, and captured its three royal leaders (1264). A new Parliament, in which four knights from each shire sat with the barons and bishops, formed a new constitution, limiting the royal pre- rogatives still more than the Provisions. Three counsel- ors, of whom Earl Simon was one, were the actual rulers. By their advice the body known in history as " Simon de Mont- fort's Parliament " was summoned to meet in January, 1265. It is noteworthy, because here, for the first time in England, the towns were represented by members who sat along- side the earls, barons, and bishops who represented the feudal organization of the realm. It marked a significant step in the direction of government by the people. Earl Simon's triumph vanished in a moment. A quarrel with his colleague, the earl of Gloucester, re-opened the civil war. Prince Edward escaped and joined Simon's enemies. On August 4, 1265, a battle was fought at Evesham. Simon fell, and his party lingered, only to be beaten piecemeal. In 1267 the war was over. The king, though victorious, dared not revive the tyrannies of his early reign, but he sum- moned no commons to his Parliament and allowed no com- 118 An Outline History of England. mittee of barons to rule his actions. Prince Edward went to the Holy Land on a crusade (1270), and in his absence (1272) his father died, after the longest and one of the most wretched of English reigns. Henry III.'s reign covers more than half of the thirteenth century, one of the most brilliant epochs in the history of the world. A revival of religion in the Christian Church sent forth two orders of preaching friars. The Dominicans, or Black Friars, and the Franciscans, or Grey Friars, were men who took the vow of poverty and consecrated them- selves to preaching the Gospel to the common people. They had at first no churches, and dwelt in no monasteries, but preached in the streets, and at the road-side crosses, living on the scanty alms of their hearers. These begging preach- ers did much to purify the life of the towns-people, and the more learned of their order were among the noted lecturers in the new universities. For it was during Henry's reign that Oxford began to be known in England, Scotland, Wales, and western Europe as a center of the world's learning. A few students, assembled in the previous century to listen to lect- ures on divinity and Roman law, formed the nucleus of this university, whither flocked young men from every nation, and where Roger Bacon (1214-1292), "the first name in the roll of modern science," taught and wrote. After two centuries of French Williams and Henrys the Saxon name of Edward re-appears in the list of English kings, and — without regard to the West Saxon Edwards, the " Martyr " and the " Confessor " — this son of Henry III. is known as Edward the First, or, in the jovial language of the camps through which he strode, "Edward Longshanks." Seldom was prince better prepared for his duties. Through- out his boyhood he witnessed the efforts of the barons to compel his father to respect the Charter; in his younger manhood he learned patriotism and military science from his faithful and brilliant uncle, Simon de Montfort, whose party The Plantagenet Kings. il£ he favored until he had reason to fear their usurpation of the throne. Commanding with the king at Lewes, he had driven one division of the enemy so far in his impetuous charge that the other divisions had time to defeat his father before his return. His maneuvers and bravery ended the war at Eves- ham, and his wisdom then took him on a crusade (the seventh) to Palestine, to allow the hot tempers of the king- dom time to cool before his return. At the news of his father's death (1272) Edward, then thirty-three years of age, vigorous in body and mind, returned to England. His career in the East had yielded no permanent success. In Italy he paid his respects to the pope, and in France he knelt in homage to King Philip III., as overlord of Gascony. It was 1274 when he set foot in England, and the crown of his Plantagenet fathers was placed upon his head. JMward I. reigned gloriously for thirty-five years, extend- ing the boundaries of England, exerting her influence over Wales and Scotland, and giving to the nation itself a pride and patriotism it never had known before. The Welsh war was already forward when Edward returned from Palestine. Wales was peopled by Celts of the Cymric branch, the remnant of the race which Caesar had found in southern Britain, and which the Anglo-Saxon invasion had driven into the west country. Strathclyde, Cornwall, and the lesser Celtic states had come completely under the earlier Saxon and the later Norman rule, but no English king had yet been king of Wales. The people were Christians of the old British type; they spoke the old Celtic language, and the songs of their bards kindled and fed a fiercer flame of patriotism than any that burned in an English breast. They were threatening neighbors for the West-of-England shires, which the Norman kings had sought to protect by granting to their border earls extraordinary powers. Thus the families of Mortimer, Bohun, Marshall, and Clare rose to dangerous eminence, and sometimes actually leagued with i20 An Outline Hjstory of England. the Welsh princes to make war upon each other, or upon the king. During Henry's troublous years the Welshmen had steered so cleverly that at its close their Prince Llewelyn refused to pay homage to King Edward. In 12 77 he was forced to admit the king's feudal supremacy, and peace was made, the prince marrying Earl Simon's daughter. But the treaty was soon broken. In 1282 Llewelyn and his brother David broke faith and invaded the western marches. Ed- ward made careful preparations for a campaign against them. The half-measures of the past fifty years had failed, and he now determined to make thorough work of the conquest. His great army crossed the border, defeated the prince and his brother, and received the submission of the Celtic chief- tains. It was long believed that by his orders the bards who had inspired the Welsh to resistance were ruthlessly massacred, but the story is not worthy of credit. In 1284 the " Statute of Wales " proclaimed the annexation of the principality to England, and from that time the two countries began to grow together, though the union was not complete until a much later day. Soon after the pacification of the west confusion arose in the north. The death of the Scottish sovereign left that throne vacant, with thirteen claimants wrangling for the seat. Over Scotland the English kings since William I. had claimed authority, but had no real power. The disputed title was, however, now left to Edward to decide. John Bal- liol and Robert Bruce were the leading candidates before the Scottish council which King Edward held in Norliam castle in 1291, and to the former, with the general assent of the Scots, the king awarded the crown. Balliol accepted the kingdom as a fief of England, and did homage for it in true feudal fashion. Yet both the Scots and their king fretted under this English lordship. They resisted Edward's decree that appeals from Scottish law courts should be settled in his own council, and they refused to obey his summons to fight in the The Plantagenet Kings. 121 English wars. In fact, Balliol made a secret treaty with Philip IV. of France. It was to invade France that Edward had ordered the Scottish barons to join his forces. The sailors of the English Cinque Ports (the channel towns Dover, Sandwich, Hastings, Hythe, and Romney) had quarreled with the Norman sea- men in the channel, and King Philip, as Edward's feudal lord, called him to account for his vassals' misdemeanors. Edward went not, but sent his brother, offending thus His Majesty of France, who at once laid hands upon Guienne, one of the fragments of English territory on the Continent. There would have been immediate war had not the internal af- fairs of England prevented. The defection of the Scots was the king's first care. He had learned of their alliance with France — the beginning of a connection which lasted until the eighteenth century — and demanded possession of their bor- der castles as a pledge of good faith. Balliol returned de- fiance. Edward's army sacked the border city of Berwick, captured Edinburgh, Stirling, and Perth, and received the surrender of the Scots' king. John Warrenne, Earl of Sur- rey, was left to pacify and organize the English rule in Scot- land. The conqueror took back with him to Westminster a sacred stone supposed to be the hard pillow on which the patriarch Jacob dreamed of the heaven-reaching ladder. Upon this stone in the abbey of Scone each sovereign of Scotland had been crowned. Edward had it placed in the English coronation chair which is still in use. When James VI. of Scotland became James I. of England, the Scots saw in the event a new proof of the sanctity of this rock. Earl Warrenne was rudely stopped in his work of organi- zation by William. Wallace, an outlawed Scottish knight. The baronage and the clergy obeyed Edward's lieutenant, who accordingly thought he had the country well in hand. But Wallace called upon the common people to regain the freedom which the aristocracy had surrendered. Such a tide 6 122 An Outline Histotcy of England. of national feeling had not been seen before in Scotland, and its first waves were resistless. In the battle of Stirling (Sep- tember, 1297) the earl of Surrey was put to rout, and he stayed not until he was on the safe south side of the border. Wallace was now hailed as "guardian of the realm," but Edward has- tened against him with an overwhelming force. Two abler generals had not met before on British soil than Edward and the outlaw Wallace. The superior strength of the English archers carried the day at Falkirk, in July, 1298. But not until 1304 did Edward consider the conquest of Scotland completed. Wallace was executed as a traitor, and the gov- ernment of his country was intrusted to a council of Scottish nobles. In the year before Edward's death (1307) the spirit of Scottish nationality flamed forth again, and a war was be- gun which won the independence of that kingdom. The stirring events of the west and north have thus far obscured the political and legal activities of Edward's reign — though the latter are even more important. In previous reigns we have noticed the germs of parliamentary govern- ment and of judicial institutions; in this we trace the devel- opment of both these principles. The king's justices were now divided, for judicial purposes, into three courts: Exchequer, for trying revenue cases; King's Bench, where criminal suits are heard; and Common Pleas, the court of private litiga- tion. A separate staff of judges was assigned to each divis- ion. As a source of revenue the Parliament of 1275 granted to the king an export duty upon wool — the first customs duty imposed on English goods. The Welsh and Scottish cam- paigns exhausted the royal coffers and frequent Parliaments were called to devise new means of raising money. At first the innovations of Simon de Montfort were disregarded, and only the barons and clergy were represented in these gather- ings. But the government was hard pressed for money which the towns-people and county-farmers could supply if they would, and so the reform came about. In 1 295 King Edward The Plantagexet Kings. 123 summoned the first perfect Parliament — " the clergy repre- sented by their bishops, deans, etc. ; the barons summoned severally in person by the king's special writ; and the com- mons summoned by writs addressed to the sheriffs, directing them to send up two elected knights from each shire, two elected citizens from each city, and two elected burghers from each borough." The right of the barons to be summoned to Parliament became hereditary, and these members, with the bishops, made up the House of Lords. The other members, knights and commons, formed the House of Commons, though in Edward's time, and long after, this division of Par- liament into two houses was unknown. It is not to be supposed that Edward granted these free institutions to his people from any philanthropic motives- Order and system were, in his mind, essential to good govern- ment, but it was no less essential that the king should be the source of all order and the center-point of the system. His obstinate persistence in subjecting the Church to his taxation involved him in a quarrel with Winchelsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, which was prolonged through several years, and which ended in 1297 by a compromise. In that year the king needed money and men for the invasion of Flanders. The bar- ons, discontented with the amount of power the king had cen- tered in himself, refused to follow him, and the clergy, backed by the pope and led by the archbishop, refused to be taxed. As the price of the submission of both orders, Winchelsey ob- tained a confirmation of the charters, and the promulgation of new decrees establishing the right of the people to determine all questions of taxation. This confirmation of the charters was repeated again and again, and twice a year the charters were to be read aloud in the cathedral churches, to remind the people of their political rights and obligations. The closing months of Edward's life are characteristic of the whole. He was now nearly seventy years of age, and his magnificent physique had been shattered by the mental and 124 An Outline History of England. physical strain of a busy life in camp and council hall. The government which he had inaugurated in Scotland had gone wrong. Robert Bruce, a grandson of the Bruce who had claimed the crown in 1290, headed a conspiracy to emancipate the nation. By combining strength with stealth he overcame the English interest, stabbing with his own hand John Comyn, the late regent, and being crowned King of Scots at Scone, in March, 1306. Around him gathered the elements which had made Wallace's rising momentarily successful; but his resources were small, and had Edward been young and vigorous the end might have been otherwise. An En- glish army beat the Bruce and drove him into seclusion in the Highlands ; Edward himself hurried north to assume the direction of affairs, but his infirmities bore him down, and on July 7, 1307, he succumbed, dying at Burgh-on-Sands, within sight of the Scottish border. Eleanor, his first queen, whom he loved devotedly, had died seventeen years before, her sole surviving son, Edward, being Prince of Wales and heir to the crown of England. England has not known an abler sovereign than the first Edward. His reign was not destitute of great men, but in history he towers above his earls and bishops as he over- topped them in life. Strong and steadfast in every crisis, living his motto, "Keep troth" [Pactum servo), he was a genuine national leader, a real king. Men have called him cruel, but his " massacre of the Welsh bards " is a falsehood, his treatment of Wallace and the Scots was in his eyes just judgment upon oath-breakers, and his expulsion of the Jews from the kingdom (1290) was in answer to an undoubted popular demand. Edward II., of Carnarvon, was king of England for twenty years (1307-1327). It was a gay and pleasure-loving gentle- man of twenty-three who succeeded to the kingship which his hard-headed father had given his life to strengthen. The defect in the system was immediately apparent. The burden The Plantagenet Kings. 125 of a centralized government, which the elder Edward had carried easily upon his sinewy shoulders, sent the son stagger- ing to his fall. Young Edward's devotion to a Gascon courtier, Piers (or Peter) Gaveston, was the first cause of his misfortunes. The old king had warned his son that the nobles would be jealous of Piers, and before his death he had banished the favorite, and pledged the prince not to recall him without the consent of Parliament. But his great father's admonition was lost upon the flighty young king, who immediately called Gaves- ton to England, made him earl of Cornwall, and, to the disgust of the English nobility, left this earl of a day regent of the kingdom while he went to France to claim the hand of Isabella, daughter of Philip the Fair. King and queen were crowned together (1308), the sovereign swearing " to keep the laws and righteous customs which the community of the realm shall have chosen, and to defend them and strengthen them to the honor of God, to the utmost of my power." The barons' opposition to Gaveston showed itself forth- with. The Scottish war was allowed to drop out of sight, and the king devoted himself to the protection of his unworthy favorite. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster ; Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln ; and Guy Beauchamp, Earl of War- wick — the proudest barons in England — led the attack. Two months after the coronation Piers was in exile, but the shifty king had him again at court the following spring. A revo- lution followed. The Parliament of 1310 took the govern- ment out of Edward's hands and gave it for one year to a commission of twenty-one " Ordain ers." The "ordinances" proposed by this body in 1311 provided for the banishment of the foreign favorites, and the limitation of the king's authority by the barons in Parliament. Edward accepted these laws, but broke them at the first opportunity. The exasperated earls again took the law into their own hands, captured Gaveston, and the earls of Warwick and Lancaster 126 Ax Outline History of England. had him beheaded in June, 1312. This left Thomas of Lancaster the leading man in the kingdom. The king was powerless. Edward I. used his last breath in marching into Scotland to chastise Robert Bruce. The accession of Edward II. was Scotland's opportunity. The English commanders won iso- lated successes, but no comprehensive plan of subjugation was made or followed. The fugitive Bruce, encouraged, says the tale, by the perseverance of a spider, spinning and re- spinning its torn web, resumed his efforts. The English garrisons, left unsupported, surrendered the Lowland castles, until in 1314 Stirling, the only English stronghold left, was itself at the point of yielding. Edward tried to relieve the post, but his army had no confidence in his military ability, and Bruce's Scotchmen beat the king's knights at Bannock- burn, June 24, 1314. This signal victory gave Bruce the absolute sovereignty of Scotland. The earl of Lancaster was now almost supreme in England, but his use of his high position made him powerful enemies. The weak king, crav- ing support, adopted Hugh le Despenser, father and son, granting them such wealth and honors as his restricted means allowed. All the old jealousy of Gaveston was aroused against the new recipients of royal favor. The lords assembled in Parliament sentenced the two Despensers to forfeiture and exile (1322). The king nursed his chagrin for a few months and then broke forth. An insult offered to his queen by Lady Badlesmere furnished a pretext for rais- ing an army; and once at the head of troops Edward discov- ered some of his father's energy. He caught at the chance to rid himself of Lancaster's control. The royal army took the earl in battle at Boroughbridge, and he was condemned and executed as a traitor, though the English people gener- ally honored him as a saint. The victorious king clung to the Despensers, and annulled the ordinances which had been forced on him in 1311. He even fought a campaign against The Plaxtagexet Kings. 127 the Bruce which ended disastrously, and in 1323 a truce for thirteen years brought peace to England and Scotland. Lancaster's death left the national party without a leader in England, and for a few months the Despensers amassed wealth unchallenged. The thunder-cloud which was to blast them gathered on the eastern shore of the Channel. The ac- cession of a new king in France, Charles IV., made it neces- sary for Edward to pay feudal homage for his small conti- nental holdings. But his mentors dared not trust him out of their hands, nor to accompany him, for England would rise in their absence, and there was more than one whetted dag- ger for them in the French court, swarming with English ex- iles. In 1325 the queen, herself a French princess, went over and persuaded her husband to send their son and heir, Prince Edward, to her. Mother and son straightway turned against the king. Roger Mortimer, an English lord who had escaped Lancaster's doom, directed operations, and hired troops for the invasion of England. They landed in September, 132G, the queen proclaiming herself the liberator of the realm from the king's false counselors. The Londoners joined her, and the king, after a weak resistance, abandoned the struggle. The Despensers, elder and younger, died on the gallows. A Parliament at Westminster (January, 132V) declared the king faithless and unworthy to rule, and the broken-spirited monarch confessed that it was so. He resigned the crown in favor of his thirteen-year-old son, Edward of Windsor, whose mother, guided by Roger Mortimer, reigned until the death of the king. The ruined monarch was confined in Berkeley castle, where he was murdered September 21, 1327. 128 An Outline History of England. CHAPTER VIII. ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 1327 A. D. -1422 A. D. FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD III. TO THE DEATH OF HENRY V. The reign of Edward II. had come to a wretched end (1327) — the Scots plundering the northern marches, the French trespassing upon the English continental province, the old king a prisoner, the new king a lad, and the regency controlled by Queen Isabella and the outlawed Roger Morti- mer. The regents had all power, but small wisdom or ability. They made peace with Scotland (1328), signing away at Northampton whatever feudal rights Edward III. might have been entitled to in that kingdom. Scotland was free, and Robert Bruce was its king. This disgraceful treaty of Northampton aroused the En- glish nobles against Mortimer, but he was too strongly in- trenched in the government to be dislodged easily. His destruction came when least expected. Edward was eighteen years of age in 1330 — old enough to feel keenly the shame of the situation. By a secret passage he made entrance, with an armed band of his close friends, into Mortimer's presence in Nottingham castle, and seized the offender, who, once be- reft of authority, was quickly sentenced by the lords in Par- liament, and hurried to a traitor's death at Tyburn. The queen-mother passed the remainder of her life in retirement. Edward III. assumed personal direction of the govern- ment. The condition of Scotland was his earliest care. The death of Robert Bruce left the throne to a child, and Edward Balliol, gathering a band of English adventurers, had himself crowned at Scone. His renewal of the allegiance to the king England and France. 129 of England lost him his crown; the Scots would not have him to reign over them. Edward of England fought man- fully to reinstate him, but succeeded only in winning the Low- lands and the border city of Berwick. When the outbreak of war between France and England called off the English forces, David Bruce redoubled his efforts and Scotland was soon liberated under his scepter (1342). The war between England and France, whose din drowned out the petty Scottish campaigns, was the famous Hundred Years' War, which lasted, with interruptions, from 1336 to the middle of the fifteenth century, from Edward III. to Henry VI. It opened with the claim of Edward to the crown of France ; at its close Henry was master of the sin- gle French town of Calais. The waters of the Channel and the fields of France furnished battle-grounds, and England was not once invaded by her enemy, though their allies, the Scots, did break over the northern border. The struggle ex- tended over the reign of five English kings, made famous the names of Edward the Black Prince and Joan of Arc, and included the bloody battles of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. This war, continuing through four generations, did much to deepen the national enmity between the people of the two kingdoms. The first Plantagenet kings held wide domains in France, acquired by inheritance from their Norman and Angevin ancestors, and by dowry of their French wives. The weak- ness of John had let most of these lands slip, and for several reigns previous to the accession of Edward III. Aquitaine, in southern France, with a narrow coast-strip in the north, alone remained. Of these the French kings were covetous. They had designs, moreover, upon the Flemish cities Ghent, Antwerp, and others, whose manufactures of wool commended them to the especial favor of sheep-raising England. With these existing grounds of hostility little was needed to bring the two nations to actual war. Edward furnished a pre- 6* 130 An Outline History of England. text.* The death of Charles IV. of France gave him some reason for asserting his right to the vacant throne, for Isa- bella, his mother, was sister of the late king, and there was no direct male heir. The lawyers, however, declared that by the law of the Salic Franks, who founded French royalty, no female might wear or transmit the crown. Edward was accord- ingly passed over, and Philip VI. of Valois succeeded peace- fully in 1328. Seven or eight years later, when Philip was crowding in upon the English holdings, and aiding the Scots of David Bruce, Edward re-asserted it and abandoned the Scottish war for this greater contest. Such European alli- ances as were possible he made, and with such German sol- diers as he could buy of their hireling princes he recruited his ranks. In the great sea-fight off Sluys, in June, 1340, he won the first of his French successes, and indeed the brilliant record of the royal navy has few more terrible triumphs. The king's son Edward, feared in France and loved in England as the Black Prince, was the hero of his father's wars. The campaign of 1346 was his first in the field, and on August 26 he — a youth of sixteen — commanded the right wing of his father's army in the battle of Crecy. Philip, with a superior force, made the attack. There was a striking difference between the two armies, as there was indeed be- tween the two countries. France was wealthy, populous, and •EDWAHD'S CLAIM TO THE FRENCH CROWN. (French sovereigns in italic.) (1.) PHILIP III., THE BOLD, reigned 1270-1285. I I (2.) PHILIP IV, Charles, the Fair. Count of Valois. I 'I III | (7.) PHILIP VI. (3.) LOUIS X., (5.) PHILIP V., (H.)CHARLES IV., Isabel, of Valois, d. 1316. the Tall, the Fair, wife of Edward II. r. 1328-1350. (4.) JOHN L, d. 1322. d. 1328. of England. | d. 1316. | (8.) JOHN II., (7.) EDWARD III. THE GOOD, of England. r. 1350-1364. England and France. 131 in the full flower of feudal splendor, and the men who fought under her lily banner were the proud barons and their retain- ers and mercenaries. England was poor in purse and popu- lation, but comparatively free; her soldiers were the stout yeomen of the shires, accustomed to draw their cloth-yard arrows to the head, and learning to fight for their country rather than for a feudal lord. On this day, for the first time in history, they had a battery of field-cannon for use against the knights. The battle was a slaughter: the boy Edward fought with the skill and bravery of a veteran, While his most mighty father on a hill Stood smiling, to behold his lion's whelp Forage in blood of French nobility.* The French lost 1,200 knights and 30,000 footmen, more than the whole English army. King Philip fled in dismay, and King Edward, embracing the prince, exclaimed, " Fair son, my son you are in truth, for loyally have you acquitted yourself to-day ! " In the autumn an English army at Neville's Cross routed the Scottish king, David Bruce, whom his French allies had set on to invade England in the absenee of its chief defender. In France the English power widened steadily ; after a year the beleaguered port of Calais Mas starved into surrender. Its stubborn resistance and its villainous reputation as a re- sort of Channel pirates exasperated the king. Edward prom- ised to spare the people if six leading citizens should give themselves up to him. Five patriots followed Eustace St. Pierre, who volunteered to be the first of the six, and the chroniclers tell touchingly how the king's fierce anger melted under the warm tears of his queen, Philippa, who besought her lord to show mercy " for the sake of the merciful Lord Christ." So the Calais people went scathless, but their town did not go free until two centuries later, when its loss stamped its name upon the hard heart of Queen Mary. * Shakespeare, King Henry V., Act i, Scene ii. 132 An Outline History of England. The intercession of the pope brought about a truce, which both countries willingly accepted. But in 1355 the struggle was renewed. The Black Prince sallied foith from Aqui- taine, pillaging the pleasant country of central France, which had never known the sight of war. The amount of the plunder was enormous. It sufficed to fit out another army in the following year, at whose head the prince ravaged the valley of the Loire, and gained the road to Paris. The new king, John, called " the Good," rallied 60,000 to block the way. Edward, with 8,000 English and Gascons, was en- trapped at Poitiers, and offered peace and a restoration of his conquests rather than to risk a fight. John was sure of his prey and scorned the terms. The battle of Poitiers was fought September 19, 1356. By a reckless attack the Frenchmen threw away the advantage of superior numbers; and the skillful disposition of the English and their fierce charges won the day for the Black Prince. King John was taken captive and was exhibited to the Londoners in the triumphal pro- cession, over which England went wild with enthusiasm in the spring of 1357. For two years more France was a prey to anarchy and Edward; then the regents consented to the treaty of Bretigny, which marked the close of the first stage of the long war. King John was to be released on the pay- ment of 3,000,000 crowns in gold. King Edward renounced his empty claim to the throne of France and the duchy of Normandy, but he was confirmed in the possession of Aqui- taine, Poitou, Guisnes, and Calais, and it is to be noted that he held these lands henceforth independently as king of England, not as a vassal of France like his predecessors. The peace of Bretigny was unbroken for nine years. The Black Prince remained on the Continent as duke of Aqui- taine, but his ambitious spirit could not be bridled. Since his own province was quiet he sought activity elsewhere. The Spanish kingdoms were broiling in civil war. Dom Pedro the Cruel, of Castile, found an able ally in the England and France. 133 English hero, who won for him the battle of Navarete (1367), and replaced him upon his throne. The expenses of this campaign were a burden on Aquitaine, and the emissaries of the French passed in and out among the people inciting them to rebellion. In 1369 France and England grappled again, but young Edward had won his last great battle. Broken in health, despairing of his own succession, and fearful lest his brothers should bar his son Richard from the throne, his old energy was turned into impatience and cruelty. His capture of Limoges was disgraced by a bloody massacre, but he made no conquests — indeed, he did not hold his own — and soon his sickness and the interests of his son Richard recalled him to England. His brother, John, Duke of Lan- caster, famous from his Flemish birthplace as " John of Gaunt " (Ghent), led an English army into France, but the French king's Fabian policy exhausted the English treasury and prevented a decisive battle. John accomplished noth- ing. City after city of Aquitaine admitted French garrisons, and by the end of 1371 only two important towns, Bordeaux and Bayonne, remained to England of all her wide realm .in southern France. Within fifteen years the results of Crecy and Poitiers had vanished, and the bloody campaigns of the Black Prince had produced nothing but misery and lasting hatred between England and France. The reign of the third Edward has other claims to atten- tion as important as the French wars. Within this period of fifty years Parliament acquired the form which it still wears. There was a time when its four orders — the clergy, barons, knights, and citizens — met separately, each considering the matter of especial interest to their order. But after the Parliament of 1341 the prelates of the Church and the specially summoned barons or " peers " met as one body, while the elected members, both the knights of the shires and the borough or town representatives, met as another. So arose the Houses of Lords and Commons. 134 An Outline History of England. Three times within this reign the kingdom was swept by a murderous disease. In 134S, 1361, and 136& the " Black Deatli " appeared in the English towns, and from them spread through the kingdom. No pestilence of modern times can be compared to it for destructiveness. More than one half of the three or four million inhabitants of England are known to have perished. Such a diminution of the population had a deep influence upon society, and particularly upon Cu condition of the laboring classes, as the troubles of the next reign indicate. The plague and the wars with France told terribly upon the strength of England. All classes suffered, but the clerg}^ least of all. Their lands and houses, constituting a large share of the best property in England, were free from ordinary taxation, and their prelates and dependents had not to offer themselves as targets for French bowmen. The jealous baronage, led by John, Duke of Lancaster, attacked the privileges of this class. John, a younger brother of the Black Prince, Avas ambitious, tyrannous, and cruel. In his father's later life he gained control at court and filled the high offices with laymen, ousting the bishops and abbots whom the king had raised to these positions. The incom- petence of the new men and the failure of the French cam- paigns brought about an alliance of the clergy under William of Wykeham and the commons. The last act of the Black Prince was to side with the people against his brother. In the Parliament of 1376 the commons had the audacity to pro- test against John's extravagance and mismanagement ; for the first time in English history two of the royal ministers were accused, convicted, and condemned ; the court was purged of its unpopular courtiers, and Alice Perrers, the favorite of the king, was banished. These and other re- forms w r on for this Parliament the designation " the Good." No sooner was it dissolved than John of Gaunt resumed control, reversed its enactments, restored the favorites, and England and France. 135 made a fresh assault on William of Wykeham and the clergy. Prince Edward died June 8, 1376, and Parliament acknowledged the succession of his little son, Richard. In June of the following year died Edward the Third. The intense hatred of Frenchmen which pervaded En- gland in this century had one permanent effect. Until now it had been doubtful what language would prevail in the British Islands. Caesar had found a Celtic dialect there, and had introduced the Latin tongue. The Anglo-Saxon migra- tion had driven the Celtic people into Wales and Scotland, and had established the Anglo-Saxon, or old English, language so firmly that the great infusion of Danes among the people of the islands left but an inappreciable number of Danish words. The Norman Conquest in the eleventh century brought in the French language, and made it the common speech of the court and the aristocracy throughout the time of the Nor- man and Angevin sovereigns, while the Latin, now corrupted and fallen from the classical standards, was the language of the Church and literature. Beneath this Norman-French upper-crust the masses of peasantry and common people clung to their English mother-tongue. Its disuse by learned men suffered it to pass through many changes, and the Anglo- Saxon of King Alfred's time would not be intelligible to the Englishman of the time of Edward III. By the close of the fourteenth century it had changed in form and substance, and its vocabulary had been largely swollen by words from the French and Latin. No important books had until now been written in this dialect, which was ridiculed by the upper classes. But the Hundred Years' War made all things French still more obnoxious. English began to displace other tongues in the schools ; in 1362 courts of law began to use English, "because French had become unknown." William Langland, who wrote a homely poem, " The Vision of Piers Plowman," wrote in English, that it might be more widely read. The poet Gower, and his contemporary, Chaucer, 136 An Outline History of England. who died in 1400, used the common country speech for their compositions. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and the prose pamphlets and translated Bible of John Wiclif practically settled the question that the new English should be spoken and written by Englishmen. John Wiclif, sometimes called the first Protestant, was educated for the Catholic priesthood, attained great learning, and became a famous teacher in Oxford Univer- sity. His study of the Scriptures convinced him that the Romish Church in England was not performing its proper work. Its clergy should preach the Gospel and lead Christ- like lives ; he found them amassing fortunes, misusing the ecclesiastical courts, and seeking temporal rather than spiritual influence, To inculcate his own doctrines he sent out " poor preachers," clad in russet gowns, to labor among the lowly. His active mind did not stop at this reform ; he denied the right of the pope to levy taxes upon England. The tribute which King John had pledged his kingdom to pay was thirty-three years in arrears, and Parliament boldly refused to pay it more. Wiclif applauded and defended this defiance of Rome. John of Gaunt, in his quarrel with William of Wykeham and the clergy, was thus brought for a time into sympathy with Wiclif, and protected him from the archbishop's condemnation for heresy. Repudia- tion of the worldly ambition of the Church led the free- thinking priest to an examination of its doctrines, and thence to his denial (1381) of the dogma of " Transubstanti.ition." To explain his position he wrote a host of tracts, in English, copies of which, even before the invention of printing, made their way among the people, and helped the " poor preach- ers " to found the Christian sect called " Lollards " (meaning psalm -singers), the forerunners of the English reformation. Wiclif died in retirement as parish priest of Lutterworth, his later years being devoted to his grandest work, the translation of the Bible into the tongue of the common England and France. 137 people of England. He died on the last day of the year 1384, reckoned a great man in his own day, and now esteemed anion o- the first men of Christendom. Several sons of King Edward III. grew to manhood : (1) Edward, the Black Prince, who died just before his father, leaving a son, Prince Richard; (2) Lionel, Duke of Clar- ence (the poet Chaucer's patron), who died in 1368, leaving a daughter, Philippa, the ancestress of the earls of March ; (3) John " of Gaunt," Duke of Lancaster, the ancestor of the Lancastrian kings ; (4) Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, from whose line sprang the Yorkist kings in the next century, and (5) the Duke of Gloucester. Richard II. ascended the throne at the age of eleven (1377), his uncle of Gaunt being in the prime of life. England was in miserable condition, resulting from the war-taxation and the ravages of the plague. Moreover, the people, of whom little has yet been said, were fairly astir. The three Edwards had brought the nation to a consciousness of its unity and its independence of any foreign power ; the development of Parliament had admitted a new class to a share in the government, and the spirit of Wiclif and his Lollards was invading the stolid country-folk, and teaching them to test for themselves their social and political system. A change had in due course come over the condition of the lower classes. Slavery no longer existed, and serfage and villeinage in its various forms had nearly passed away. The serf, or villein (who had lived upon his master's land in re- turn for certain labor performed), had been released from this obligation, and now paid a certain compensation in cash or kind for his holding, in place of the old manual labor. The Black Death appeared at the time when many villeins were winning, and many thought they had already won, their free- dom from this degrading service. The great land-owners saw their laborers dying off like sheep. There was no one left to tend the flocks or reap the grain, which rotted in the 133 Ax Outline History of England. field. To secure herdsmen and harvesters the land-owners obtained from king and Parliament, in the years following the plague, certain "Statutes of Laborers," requiring all landless men and women to work at a fixed low wage for any employer who should demand their service; and the laborer was forbid- den to leave his parish in search of better employment. The proprietors, at their wit's end for labor, re-asserted their claims upon those villeins and serfs who had gained at least partial freedom. The sons and grandsons of freedmen were hauled before the justices, and compelled to serve the family to which their ancestors had been bound. Wide- spread discontent and frequent local outbreaks mark the history of these days. The protest of Wiclif against the wealth of the Church was taken up by his disciples and forced to its full extent. Socialistic ideas circulated among the hard-working peasants, who saw the nobles and bishops gorgeously arrayed, while their tenants perished with hun- ger. John Ball, " a mad priest," as a courtier called him, seemed sane enough to the crowds of Kentishmen who listened to his sermons. Equality was his gospel, commu- nity of property the burden of his homilies. "When Adam delved, and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? " was a text with which he roused the jealousy and envy of his countrymen against the aristocrats. In 1380 Parliament levied a poll-tax on all Englishmen, and the next summer the poor farmers and artisans, excited by the injustice which they had suffered, broke out in the rebellion known as the " peasant revolt." Easily remem- bered jingles in the common country-people's English passed from mouth to mouth, giving the signals for the rising, and it seemed as if the whole nation had risen in one day. Wat Tyler and John Hales, with 100,000 Kentish farm-hands at their backs, marched into Canterbury and dismantled the archbishop's palace, seized London, burning John of Gaunt's " Savoy house," and breaking into the Tower, and killing the England and France. 139 archbishop and the poll-tax commissioner. On the north bank of the Thames was another host, from Essex, bent on the same mischief, killing lawyers and burning deeds, char- ters, and law-papers as they advanced. King Richard, a courageous lad of fifteen, fronted the Essex men and sent them home with promises that serfage should exist no more. Two days afterward Richard dealt with Wat Tyler's men at Smithfield. The lord mayor stabbed the peasant leader for insulting his king, and Richard proclaimed himself captain of the rioters. They heard with joy his pledges of redress, and then dispersed. Little did the insurrection profit. The king and nobles raised armies, and stamped it out without mercy; seven thousand of the poor peasantry were put to the sword or sent to the gallows before autumn. Parliament at its next session, a Parliament wherein sat scarcely a man (save the borough members) who was not a landlord, de- clared that the king had no power or right to fulfill his promises to give away their property. So villeinage and serfage remained lawful, but the natural causes which had been at work before the pestilence soon revived, and by a rapid and peaceful revolution free labor took the place of the ancient form. Although Richard played such a prominent part in the suppression of the peasant-rising, he left the government to his uncles, the dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester, for eight years afterward. Their rule was inefficient. They waged a fruitless war with France and Spain, spending the money and strength of the nation and winning nothing. The king's party, led by the earl of Suffolk, strove vainly to overturn the regency, but Gloucester's " merciless Parlia- ment" of 1388 exiled or executed the counselors of the young king. The next year the vane of fortune swung round, Richnrd secured the reins of power in his own hands, and for eight years guided the nation steadily and well, making peace with France, establishing the semblance of 140 An Outline History of England. order in Ireland, and real prosperity at home. But this era of good government was a preparation for such faithlessness as he had exhibited to Wat Tyler's rebels. In 1397, having divided his uncles, Lancaster and Gloucester, and gained the support of the former, he threw off his disguise, punished his enemies, and grasped at absolute power. Gloucester died in prison ; of his friends the Arundels, the earl was beheaded, and his brother, the archbishop, banished. A submissive Parliament, awed by the king, or in his pay, consented to these tyrannies, granted him a life revenue, and appointed a commission of eighteen men to act in the place of a Parliament. Parliament was dissolved, and the king, co-operating with this small executive committee, entered upon a career of absolutism that soon wrought his ruin. Richard ruled henceforth with little respect for the rights of nobles, clergy, or commoners. To rid himself of two dangerous lords, Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, and the ambitious Henry of Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, he banished them from the country (1398). A few months later old John of Gaunt died, and his son, the exiled Henry Bolingbroke, succeeded to his title, duke of Lancaster, though the king kept John's rich estates for his own use. Henry complained of this injustice and set about to recover his rights. The king, his cousin, was absent in Ireland when Bolingbroke landed in Yorkshire (1399) with other exiles, who made com- mon cause against the tyrant. The nobles of the north, Percy of Northumberland and Neville of Westmoreland, joined Henry. His uncle Edmund, Duke of York, regent for Richard, turned from the setting to the rising sun. Upon the king's return he found himself defenseless in the presence of a great army. No one would fight for the tyrant, all men flocked to the Lancastrian standard. Henry at first demanded his own inheritance and a share in the kingdom; but this did not long appease his appetite for power. A Parliament at West- minster declared the king incapable of reigning, and decreed England and France. 141 his deposition. The nearest heir in direct descent was the boy Edmund Mortimer, great-grandson of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, an elder brother of John of Gaunt. But his tender years and few friends defrauded him of a hearing, when the victorious Henry of Bolingbroke, now in his forty-fourth year, demanded the crown by right of descent, and by right of re- covery from the evil government of Richard. Parliament accepted Henry as the lawful sovereign. The wretched Rich- ard was imprisoned in the castle of Pontefract, where not long after he died, or was murdered. He was the eighth and last of the Angevin kings in the direct line. The House of Plantagenet now divides among the descendants of Edward III.'s younger sons, the dukes of Lancaster and York. It was in Richard's reign that the statute of Praemunire, originally framed in Edward III.'s time, was re-enacted. This was one of the twists by which England shook off the hand of the pope. This law made it a grave crime for any person to bring into England any bull or letter of excommunication from the pope without the consent of the king. Henry IV.* (1399-1413) was the first of the Lancastrian kings, and as he had his own right to the throne to vindicate he could afford neither idleness nor oppression. He was under obligation to the northern nobles, who had helped him to win the crown, and to the archbishop, who had put it on his head. But the friendship with the Percys soon turned to open war. The earl of Northumberland, with his son, Harry Percy, called " Hotspur," from his dashing border raids, had expended THE DESCENT OF HENRY IV. EDWARD III. _J I j i i " i Edward William. Lionel, John Edmund the Black Prince, Duke of Clarence, of Gaunt= Kate of Langley, d. 1376. I I Swynford. Duke of York. | The House of HENRY IV. | I RICHARD IT., Mortimer. Bolingbroke, The House The House of deposed 1399 by r. 1399-141£jL_ of York. Henry IV. I ' Beaufort. The House of Lancaster. 142 An Outline History of England. blood and treasure in guarding the frontier against the Seots. For this the king did not reward them. Harry Percy had mar- ried into the family of the Mortimers, and thus become related to Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, already mentioned as Richard's lawful heir. Wales revolted in 1400 under Owen Glen dower, who claimed descent from the old Celtic stock. Hotspur, Mortimer, and Glendower leagued against the king, and were beaten by him near Shrewsbury, in 1403, where young Percy lost his life. His father continued in revolt for several years. Glendower retreated to the strongholds of the Welsh mountains, and resisted the English until his death (1410). If the king, as the Percys charged, broke faith with the barons, he kept it with the bishops. The lords of the Church could not disregard the practical tendency of the Wiclifite doctrines. Little as the abbots and deans may have cared for purity of doctrine, they had a very sensitive regard for the rights of property, which were recklessly assailed by the level- ing Lollards. The first year of the fifteenth century (1401) is memorable for the passage of a Statute of Heresy. King Henry had already urged the regular clergy to put a stop to the preaching of the " simple priests " of Wiclif 's sect. This act of Parliament gave the Church authority to arrest heretical preachers, teachers, and writers, to imprison them, and, on their persistent refusal to abjure their errors, to burn them alive in a public place, that the people might see and be ad- monished. The bishops were eager to begin their persecu- tion. William Sautre and John Badby, a priest and a lay- man of Lynn, were the first martyrs of the reign — the leaders in a procession of Englishmen, Catholic and Protestant, who furnished food for persecuting flames for two centuries. Henry's reign was brief and full of trouble. On May 20, 1414, he died in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey, leaving his kingdom to his son, Prince Hal, who cuts a merry figure with Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare's play England and France. 143 of Henry IV. Henry V. of Monmouth (1413-1422) had been a main-stay of his father's reign, and the stories which tell of his youthful roisterings can scarcely rest on solid foun- dations. He was twenty-five years old at the time of his father's death, and had already approved himself a soldier in the war with Wales. Comely of face and figure, brave and skillful in war, and ambitious to restore the military rep- utation of England, Harry of Monmouth became a popular hero like Richard Lion-heart and Edward the Black Prince, and the exploits of Richard in Palestine, and of Edward at Crecy and Poitiers, are matched by Henry's deeds at Agin- court. The Pollards troubled the first months of the reign. Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, an able soldier, a friend of the king, and a leading man in the realm, turned Wiclifite, and tried to protect his fellow-believers. He was denounced as a traitorous demagogue, and some of his actions per- suaded Henry that he was plotting the destruction of the king and the chief men of the council. Cobham was taken and burned, and many Lollards perished with him. Nearly the entire reign of Henry V. was occupied by his campaigns in France. His conquests mark the second period of the Hundred Years' War. Since the peace of Bretigny was broken there had been no serious fighting between the two nations, though there had been as little settled peace. At Henry's accession France was plunged in a civil war. The king, Charles VI., was insane, and his nobles were fight- ing for the mastery of the government. Henry immediately asserted his claim to the French crown, basing his demands upon the right of his grandfather, Edward III. That he had not the shadow of justice on his side is evident, but ambition he had and wonderful ability. Before he sailed from England he had discovered and crushed a conspiracy to dethrone him in favor of his cousin, Edmund Mortimer. In 1415 he crossed to Calais with 144 An Outline History oir England. an army, intending to engage in turn with the contending factions. But at his approach contention ceased, and it was a united host far greater than his own which faced his bow- men at Agincourt, October 25, 1415. His peril was greater than that of Edward at Poitiers, for his men were sick and starving, and the enemy awaited his charge instead of forfeit- ing their advantage by making the attack. The words which Shakespeare puts in Henry's mouth on the battle-field are much like those which the king really spoke. Before the combat the earl of Westmoreland had wished that some of England's idle warriors might be in their ranks. Not so the king: "No, my fair cousin: If we are marked to die, we are enow To do our country loss ; and if to live, The fewer men the greater share of honor. God's will! I pray thee wish not one man more." The battle was long and stubbornly contested. But at Agincourt, as at Crecy, no weapon could withstand the cloth- yard shafts from the English long-bows. King Henry fought in the thick of the battle, and had his helmet split open by a French sword. His intrepid courage inspired his men to ex- ploits almost beyond belief, and the sun set upon a plain strewn with 11,000 French corpses. The English had won the field. They had won scarcely more. The victorious army was so small and so ill provisioned that it was folly to continue the campaign. The king went home to England. In 1417 he re- turned with well-digested plans for the conquest of Normandy, and a strong force to carry them into execution. In two masterly campaigns he had won back the chief towns and castles of this fair duchy, when a sudden turn in French politics threw open the doors to a more splendid triumph. Duke John of Burgundy, the most powerful noble in France, was murdered by the party of the Dauphin Charles, son and England and France. 145 heir of the lunatic king, Charles VI. John's revengeful son and successor, Philip " le Bon," master of the king's person and household, betrayed his country to King Henry. By the treaty of Troyes (1420) Henry of England was made regent of France during the life of Charles VI. and heir to the French crown at his death. To cement the union Henry took Catharine, the princess-royal, to Avife. The country north of the Loire owned him as regent, but in the southern provinces the disinherited Dauphin Charles maintained a prolonged but ineffectual struggle for his rights. At King Henry's death (August, 1422) his son, a babe of nine months, was acknowledged King Henry VI. of England and heir of France. Two months later the mad Charles died also, and the baby king of England was formally proclaimed king of France. In his will Henry V. named his two brothers, Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, and John, Duke of Bedford, as regents of England and France respectively. 7 146 Ax Outline History of England. CHAPTER IX. LANCASTER AND YORK. 1422 A. D.- 1485 A. D. FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VI. TO THE DEPOSITION OF RICHARD III. The enormous power which Henry V. had wielded was jeopardized by his death. Even the arrangements which he had made for the management of the two kingdoms were not fully respected. John, Duke of Bedford, was allowed to retain the regency of France and to continue his brother's struggle with the Dauphin, hut the other brother, Gloucester, was intrusted with the empty honor of "protector," the government of England being really conducted by a council of lords — Church and lay — directed by Gaunt's son, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester. Parliament retained little influence in the realm, and the commons almost none. The baronage had grown rich from the plunder of France, and the Church from the taxes of England. Through their representatives in the council these two classes exercised almost absolute authority, and the liberties which the rise of the commonalty had brought almost within reach of the English nation vanished. The dauphin, whom the national party in France crowned at Poitiers as King Charles VII., inherited but a small share of his father's dominions. By the provisions of the Treaty of Troyes (1420) he inherited nothing, the whole realm passing to the English House of Lancaster, whose armies al- ready occupied two thirds of France by virtue of Henry V.'s conquests, and his alliance with the great dukes of Burgundy. This English rule could not be popular, and the private grudge of the Burgundians against the French royal family Lancaster and Yoek. 147 was destined to die of itself, or to be smothered by other interests. Whenever Burgundy withdrew her hand from England's friendly grasp the English power in France must inevitably fall. Such was the French situation when John of Bedford was installed as regent. In diplomatic and mili- tary skill John was scarcely inferior to the late king, his brother, and could he have depended, as did the latter gen- eral, upon the united support of the nobility at home he might have given some degree of permanence to the English domination of France. The new French king was weak in mind, and appalled by the disaster which had befallen his kingdom. The South, which remained true to him, and the patriots who clung to the royal line drew little inspiration from his feeble efforts to expel the foreigners. The Scots and Milanese who were sent to his assistance were terribly beaten at Verneuil (1424). After this battle, affairs in En- gland and a temporary defection of the Burgundians tied Bedford's hands for the space of three years. In 1428 active hostilities were renewed. Orleans, the finest city remaining to Charles, was invested by an English army, and after a year's siege was on the point of capitulation when — one of the most marvelous events in history — a peasant girl saved the city and the nation. Joan of Arc — " Jeanne Dare " is her real name — was the daughter of a laboring man of Domremy, a hamlet on the borders of Lorraine, in France. She was three or four years old when Henry of Monmouth's yeomen routed the French knights at Agincourt, and she was in her eighteenth year when the miseries of her nation called her from her father's cottage to the camp of her rightful king. She had been a quiet, thoughtful child, and in dreams and visions by day and by night she had held conversations with saints and angels. Mysterious " voices " told her what to do. When she grew to young womanhood and heard the neighbors tell of the war and the degradation of France, the voices whispered to her that the 148 An Outline History of England. King of heaven had chosen her, the peasant girl of Domremy, to deliver the king of France from his enemies. Her father's threats could not make her disobey the sacred call. The priests and the captains who tried to stay her shrank back before her unquestioning faith in her mission. Jeanne was not the only superstitious person in the realm, and her faith bred faith in others around her. They brought her to Charles, to whom she said : " Gentle sir, I am Jeanne the Maid. The heavenly King sent me to tell you that you shall be crowned in the town of Rheims, and you shall be lieuten- ant of the heavenly King, who is the King of France." Rheims was then in English hands, and it was difficult to believe her words ; but it was even more difficult to doubt her calm confidence, and the maid was furnished with the armor and the troops that she required. By a bold maneuver she entered Orleans and brought succor to the besieged. At the head of the garrison she sallied forth and captured the English forts beyond the walls, liberating the city from its long constraint (1429). The French soldiery reverenced her courage and saintly purity; in the English camp her name was at first a by-word, but after her successes they feared the " Maid of Orleans " as a witch, declaring that her guiding " voices " were of the devil. Jeanne's victories seemed indeed magical to the Englishmen, who had considered themselves invincible; but they overlooked the simple fact that the hero- ism of the Maid had at last kindled the patriotism of the people, and the force of the nation was rapidly gathering to the support of the dauphin. Before the end of the year Charles was crowned in the cathedral of Rheims, and Jeanne, her mission accomplished, begged to be allowed to go home to the sheep pastures of her native Lorraine. But the king, who had found her useful, refused her request. She remained with the army, but her successes were less marked now, and in 1430 she fell into the hands of the Burgundians, the foes of France and Bedford's friends. Their duke sold her to the Lancaster and York. ]49 English, who held her for a year a prisoner in Normandy, and afterward tried her for witchcraft and heresy. She asserted her innocence and purity to the last. When the judges gave sentence against her she appealed to "her Judge, the King of heaven and earth," saying: "In all my doings God has been my lord." They condemned her to be burned to death. The French kinor miorht well have given his crown to ransom her, for without her he would have been crown- less, but the ingrate let the sentence take its course. In 1431, before she was yet twenty-one years old, Joan of Arc, pray- ing aloud and crying " Jesus !" with her last painful breath, was burned in the city of Rouen. Four years after Joan's martyrdom England's grip upon France was loosened. The duke of Burgundy joined King Charles. The regent Bedford died in the same year (1435), and the area of English influence on the Continent grew less with every campaign. The duke of York, as regent, en- deavored to save a portion of the realm for Henry, but in vain. Henry Beaufort, cardinal and bishop of Winchester, upheld the hands of the English generals, and after his re- tirement the earl of Suffolk continued his policy. Still the English lost ground. In the year 1450 the last Norman town surrendered to France, and in 1453 the defeat of Lord Talbot, of Shrewsbury, won Gascony also. The Hundred Years' War was at an end. England lost not only her recent conquests and re-conquests, but all her lands in France, except the town of Calais, were taken from her. Very little had Henry VI. to do with the events which have been recorded in this chapter. During the first twenty years of his reign he was under guardianship as a minor, and the last ten were marked by long periods of idiocy which disqualified him for government. He was married to Marga- ret, Princess of Anjou, but until 1453 he had no heir, and a vigorous controversy raged over the matter of the succes- sion. Out of the disputed claims of the ducal families of 150 Ax Outline History of England. Lancaster and York, called from their badges the "Red Rose " and the "White," sprang the thirty years (1455-1485) of civil uproar, which are known as the Wars of the Roses, and to whose history we have now come. The vexed question of the royal inheritance will be better understood by refer- ence to the genealogical table of the descendants of Edward III. (p. 150.) For three generations the crown had been in the family of Lancaster — the three Henrys being son, grandson, and great-grandson of John of Gaunt. Concluding that Henry VI. would die childless, the Lancastrian party looked to Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, grandson of John of Gaunt by his mistress, Catherine Swynford. Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, was his principal rival. Richard had double claim to the inheritance if he chose to press it. From his mother, Ann Mortimer, he received the rights of the earls of March, the descendants of Edward's third son, Lionel, and from his father he inherited the claims and titles of Edmund, Duke of York, Edward's fifth son. The ille- gitimate Beauforts had once been debarred from the throne by law; if, therefore, the Lancastrian king had no children Richard Plantagenet would be his lawful heir; meanwhile his prior claim as earl of March was kept in reserve. The contest opened, therefore, with Edmund Beaufort, the Lancastrian Duke of Somerset, and Richard Plantagenet, Yorkist, striving for recognition as heir to Henry VI. In 1453 a son, Edward, Prince of Wales, was born to the king and Margaret, his queen. This offered a peaceful settlement for the quarrel by annulling the claims of both parties, and had Henry been able to rule in his own name the nation might have escaped the civil wars ; but his malady increased, and the periods of lethargy through which he passed made it necessary for the helm of the State to be in a steadier grasp. Duke Richard was appointed protector of the realm — he seems to have had the favor of the people — during Henry's incapacitation. Queen Margaret with an eye to her son's Lancaster and York. 151 xx o o c e o 1 p Ft 2c • o a Kg" P»? 2 83 Kffl 2 II" • o > o. £ ;■ sis *% s ' 2 2 !a»S £ r 3 ; : 3- r s-o g> » j S? C 2 I s •Jo- s' S3.* w « s 5 2 i_i «r >-' El H P s»r^ a D O D K o W C W?3 s G P. 55 O so g» %%* P- 2, 3 -s ft b' *2 3. • 2 c SO o Q P to GO =j ~ CD wr — g H S a <-< B I M N » tr tt 3£ Si a i a |s& U©3. to _o £gf- O 2 § 3-ts S s-toi* 1 2 ©a to S w ca is 152 An Outline History of England. future supported the Lancastrian, Edmund Beaufort. The king's disease came and went; in his periods of sanity he resumed the government, and, guided by Somerset, took harsh measures against York. The strength of the Yorkist party lay in the earls of Salisbury and Warwick. In 1455 the royal army was beaten by Richard and the two earls in the first battle of St. Albans, and Edmund Beaufort was slain. Richard resumed the regency, and the king relapsed into imbecility. At his next recovery, in 1458, there was another revolution. The Yorkist party defended itself, and in the battle of Northampton, 1460, captured the king. Elated by his victory, and encouraged by his full pos- session of the throne, Richard now asserted his immediate claim to the crown as the descendant of Lionel, John of Gaunt's elder brother. This Parliament refused to allow in full, but it was decided that the duke of York, and not the prince of Wales, should succeed Henry at his death. This called the Red Rose into the Held. A new duke of Somer- set had succeeded Edmund, and with him stood Lord Clif- ford in the struggle for the inheritance of Prince Edward. They cut the Yorkish forces in pieces in the battle of Wakefield (1460). Duke Richard died on the field, and the earl of Salisbury on the scaffold. The duke's son, Edward, and Salisbury's son, the earl of Warwick, con- tinued the Yorkist resistance. Unchecked by defeat, they occupied London, gathered a great army in the east, and in the early spring of 1461 (March 29) met the Lancastrian army on Towton Field. Twenty thousand bloody corpses were strewn on the snow-covered field at sunset, where the banner of the Red Rose had floated at dawn. The fiercest battle that had been fought in Britain in four centuries was won by Edward. The pitiable king fled to Scotland with his stout-hearted queen and her little son, while Parliament and citizens alike hailed Edward of York as king. In June, 1461, he was crowned as King Edward IV. Lancaster and York. 153 Edward IV. was a strong man, handsome and brave, but with much of the tyrant in him. With parliaments he had small patience, and under him that body lost the strength which it had been accumulating since the death of Simon of Montfort. For several years he did not once summon the lords and commons, managing by various unconstitu- tional devices to raise, without legal taxation, the money which the prosecution of his ambitious schemes required. The estates of the conquered Lancastrians were forfeited to the crown ; subsidies were granted and collected for wars which were never fought ; and when Parliament was called together no more the king invited the rich citizens of London to give of their substance " benevolences " into the royal treasury. A royal invitation was a command, and these reluctant offerings were not withheld. Beyond all these sources of revenue Edward was a money-maker in a manner new to English sovereigns. The world was awak- ening from the sleep of the Middle Ages. The crusades had increased communication between the east and west, and trade had followed in their wake. The king became a mer- chant, owning and freighting a fleet of ships whose voyages turned fresh streams of gold into his treasure chests. In this fifteenth Christian century Europe was all astir. Medieval customs, the feudal system, the tem- poral supremacy of the Catholic Church had passed their prime, and the old order was ready for a change. In Italy art was blossoming forth into its most perfect flower. In the courts of western Europe a Genoese sailor was showing a set of curious maps, and begging for means to discover a new world. John Gutenberg, a German, was cutting types for the first printed book ; and in every university and many a monastic library there was wide-eyed wonderment at the treasures of Greek and Latin literature which, long preserved in Constantinople, had been dispersed at its capt- ure (1453). Arts, sciences, learning — intellectual activity of 154 An Outline History of England. every sort was born again. The Wars of the Roses held England back from the general advance. Her artists were rude imitators, she had no poets, her first printers served their time in continental offices, and Columbus was sent with rebuffs from London to the court of Ferdinand and Isabella. King Edward's wars did not end with his accession. The great Lancastrian lords had lost their lives and their lands in the hour of defeat, but the great allies of York claimed un- usual favors from the duke of whom they had made a king. The earl of Warwick, "the king-maker," himself, was Edward's most rebellious subject. After Towton battle the unconquerable Queen Margaret had roused the Lancastrians to other futile efforts for her son. To these the battle of Hexham (1464) had put an end, and Edward felt encouraged to show his independence. He offended Earl Warwick and the Yorkist lords by marrying Lady Elizabeth Grey, and heap- ing favors upon her relatives of the house of Lancaster. To strengthen his seat on the throne he betrothed his sister to Duke Charles the Bold, of Burgundy, the leading peer of France. The ambition and jealousy of the duke of Clarence, Edward's brother, furnished Warwick with a center for his plots. Clarence married the earl's daughter (1469), and the allied nobles seized the person of the king. But their propo- sition found no supporters. Edward, soon released, and mov- ing quickly, pressed the conspirators so hard that they were forced to new treasons for their safety. Queen M irgaret, ready for any alliance which should benefit her husband and the prince of Wales, promised the earl that her son should wed his daughter. Thus the remnant of the strength of Lancaster joined with the main-stay of the house of York to ruin Edward. Surprised by this sudden turn, the king escaped to France, while the distracted Henry VI. was brought from his prison for a few weeks of feeble grandeur. But the subtlety of the king-maker was surpassed by Ed- ward. Charles the Bold had furnished assistance, and his Lancaster and York. 155 own conduct after landing in England rallied an army to his standard. Henry, the lawful sovereign, had been restored, and Edward declared that with the king he had no quarrel. His royal rights and title he would waive ; only for his dukedom of York would he fight. This specious statement made the way easy. Even his brother, Clarence, took part in this vindication of the house of York. The Lancastrians lacked a leader. King Henry was king only in name ; Prince Edward was a youth of seventeen ; and the traitor Warwick, the strongest man in the party, had so identified himself with the Yorkist cause in the past that half his pres- ent host mistrusted his sincerity. Edward IY. alone was kingly, and he was soon the only king. He struck his ene- mies before they could unite; Warwick's army was routed at Barnet in April, 1471, and three weeks later Margaret was defeated at Tewkesbury, and her son, the prop of the house of Lancaster, either fell in the fray or was mercilessly murdered at its close. On May 22 the husband and father, Henry VL, died in his prison. No direct male representa- tive of the house of Lancaster survived. Edward IY. resumed the crown unchallenged. For twelve years he reigned securely. There was a brief war with Scot- land, and for a longer period there were rumors of war with France. The king renewed the claims of Edward III. to the throne of that kingdom, and when that cloud of war had blown over, his negotiations with Louis XI. for a marriage between the dauphin and the English princess, Elizabeth, blew up another thunder-head, which, however, held no lightning. Diplomacy was the king's best weapon, and by its means he kept his kingdom from serious foreign wars, and gave it the peace which was needed after the disorder of the civil strife. His brother Clarence, whom he feared, was convicted of treason and put to death in London Tower (1478) — drowned in a butt of malmsey, said the babblers of that time. If Edward supposed that the death of Clarence 156 Ax Outline History of England. insured his son's succession he was in grievous error. An- other brother remained, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, whom many believed guilty of the blood of Henry VI., and upon whom the sudden death of Edward IV., April 9, 1483, drew dark suspicion of poisoning. The king left four children — Edward, Prince of Wales, henceforth Edward V.; Richard, Duke of York, soon to be smothered in the Tower; Elizabeth, afterward queen of Henry VII., and Katharine. Again the accession of an infant gave opportunity for usurpation. Edward was in his thir- teenth year and incapable of reigning in person ; his uncle, Richard of Gloucester, gained possession of the boy and his brother, and seized the government by force. To give his usurpation a legal gloss he obtained a decree from a council of friendly nobles, declaring that the marriage of Edward IV. and the Lady Elizabeth Grey was invalid, and their chil- dren, therefore, were illegitimate and powerless to inherit. That his elder brother, Clarence, had been condemned as a traitor tainted the blood of that family, and thus Richard of Gloucester remained the next male heir of the house of York. Two months only were needed to consummate this iniquity ; the duke hurried his nephews (Edward V. and Richard of York) to London Tower, and they were never seen again. They were doubtless murdered there — smoth- ered, one story has it — by their uncle's order. In June, 1483, the usurper was crowned as King Rich- ard III. But not by deeds of blood alone could the king hope to establish himself firmly upon the throne. The partisans of Lancaster were his natural enemies, and the best men of York were shocked by his heartless murders. The king was keen enough to see that he must make real con- cessions to the nation for very security's sake. His brother, Edward IV., had erred on the side of tyranny. By neglect- ing Parliament, and by forced benevolences, he had habitually overstepped the bounds which had hedged the English king Lancaster axd York. 157 since the barons brought King John to book at Runnymede. By abandoning these forms of misrule Richard might still gain favor. He need have been in no ignorance of his subjects' wishes. The people of London declared in petition: " We be determined rather to adventure and to commit us to the peril of our lives and jeopardy of death, than to live in such thralldom and bondage as we have lived a long time heretofore, oppressed and injured by extortions and new im- positions against the laws of God and man, and the laws and liberty of this realm, wherein every man is inherited." This and like addresses to the throne were effective. Parliament was assembled ; the oppressions and exactions of the late king were censured, and new and better laws were enacted. But this mildness failed to save Gloucester, secure though he deemed himself to be. The Princess Elizabeth, his niece, represented all that was left of the house of York, and her the king determined to wed. Another marriage had been planned for the maiden prin- cess. A representative of the house of Lancaster still lived. This was Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. His grand- father, Owen Tudor, was a Welsh gentleman of little impor- tance in history had he not married Catharine, the widowed queen of Henry Y. From this marriage sprang the earl of Richmond, Edmund Tudor, who, with his father's eye for an advantageous marriage, wedded Margaret Beaufort, of the ducal family of Somerset. Thus Henry Tudor, son of Edmund and Margaret, had in his veins, from his mother and his father's mother, the Lancastrian blood of John of Gaunt. As the last of the Lancasters he was an object of suspicion to the Yorkist kings, and prudence prompted him to reside in France rather than in his own earldom. The Lancastrian politicians joined with those Yorkist partisans who had no stomach for Richard's usurpations to marry Henry Tudor to Elizabeth of York. Before the marriage could be compassed the conspiracy was discovered, and 153 An Outline History of England. Buckingham, one of its leaders, was beheaded for his share in the plot. But Henry of Richmond kept beyond the king's reach until 1485, when dispatches from England informed him that the plans were ripe. Upon his landing Richard per- ceived how insecure was his own footing in the island. In all parts of the kingdom there were Lancastrian risings, while the friends of York, for the mosrt pat, rose with theirs or remained quietly in their homes. The last battle in the struggle of the Roses was fought, August 22, 1485, on Bos- worth Field, in Leicestershire. King Richard's men deserted him in the face of the enemy ; he had no chance of flight, but —with the bravery of his Plantagenet blood — he sold his life at the cost of many, and fell in a vain attempt to kill the Tudor. The Red Rose triumphed over the White that day, as the White had vanquished the Red at Tewkesbury fourteen years before, but the union of the Red and White in the marriage of Henry and Elizabeth ended forever the strife of Lancaster and York. At Richard's death Henry of Richmond was accepted by Parliament as Henry VII., the first of the Tudor kings. The Tudor Monarchs. 159 CHAPTER X. THE TUDOR MONARCHS. 1485 A. D.- 1547 A. D. HENRY VII. AND HENRY VIII. The five sovereigns of the House of Tudor occupied the English throne from Henry Tudor's accession in 1485 to the death of Elizabeth Tudor in 1G03. Within this period of one hundred and eighteen years the kingdom passed through a series of radical changes in its internal government, in its relation to Ireland, Scotland, and the continental nations, and in its connection with the Church of Rome, and with the New World, which in 1485 was only a fancy of a penniless Italian dreamer. This century marked the transformation of the medieval English nation into a modern State, and the change was accompanied by a splendid outburst of those intellect- ual forces whose beginning had thrilled western Europe while the island kingdom stagnated under the curse of civil war. This era of national growth in wealth and culture did not tell with equal force upon the development of free govern- ment. The Tudors were a strong-willed family of mon- archs, who opposed at every turn the efforts of their subjects to limit the authority of the crown. The checks which had gradually been placed upon the absolute power of the king were essentially these, some of them as old as Magna Charta itself : 1. No new tax might be imposed upon the nation without the consent of a Parliament in which nobles, clergy, and commoners were represented. 2. The consent of such a Parliament was requisite for all new laws and all changes in the old law. 3. Without legal warrant no man 160 An Outline History of England. might be arrested and deprived of his liberty. 4. Accused persons were entitled to speedy trial by a fair jury in the county where the offense was committed. 5. All crown officers were liable to jury trial and punishment for injuries committed upon persons or property, even though such in- juries should result from obedience of the king's orders. These five safeguards secured to England the most liberal government in Europe. It is true that they had not always been respected by tyrannous kings, but it is equally certain that they were so well established that the king who broke through any one of them branded himself as an oppressor. Edward IV. had tried to evade some of these limitations, and by force and guile had succeeded in strengthening his posi- tion at the expense of Parliament. Richard III., as we have seen, angled for a short-lived popularity with the bait of constitutional reform. Henry VII., when firmly seated on his throne, returned to Edward's policy, and worked with steady purpose to upbuild the personal power of the sovereign. Henry's first care was to make firm his seat. As the repre- sentative of Lancaster he might serve as a rallying center for a party, but his descent was by a devious line, and his claim to the crown of England as his inheritance was absurd. He was king by force of arms as truly as Richard had been king by treason and murder, and the one had no clearer royal title than the other. Parliament decreed that Henry VII. and his heirs should rule England ("and France," as the empty title still read), and on this Parliamentary act, backed by the incontrovertible arguments of conquest and possession, the king's position rested. The remnant of the family of York was a possible source of disturbance. The two sons of Edward IV. were dead, by Richard's order — or as good as dead — in the Tower dungeons. Elizabeth, their sister, the king married, uniting the blood of Lancaster and York. The young earl of Warwick, son of the " malmsey " duke of Clarence, and grandson of the King-maker, was cousin and The Tudor Moxarchs. 161 next of kin to Edward V. ; him Henry hurried to the gloomy Tower. Such havoc was made among the Yorkist princes that the party was in straits for a standard-bearer. In this exigency two remarkable impostors appeared in England, reviving for a little the withered rose of York. The first of these " pretenders " was one Lambert Simnel, who claimed to be that earl of Warwick whom Henry held in prison. He gathered a band of Yorkist exiles in Europe and landed with them in England, in 1487, to claim the king- dom as the heir of his cousin, Edward Y. Men of note be- lieved him to be Warwick, and gave their lives in battle for him at Stoke, where he was defeated and captured. The impostor was made a scullion in the royal palace. Little daunted by his fate, Perkin Warbeck, another claimant, more successful in his pretensions and more wretched in his end than Simnel, took up the banner of the cause. He claimed to be that Richard, Duke of York, whom the red-handed Richard III. had smothered in the Tower with his brother, Edward Y. Warbeck is said to have been a Fleming of low birth, but he bore a marked resemblance to the prince he claimed to be and his personal charm won powerful support. Profiting by Simnel's experience the managers of the fresh pretender showed their prize in foreign courts before bring- ing him to England. For a time he imposed upon King Charles VIII. of France, and on the duchess of Burgundy, aunt of the real Duke Richard. King James IV. of Scot- land gave him substantial aid, and in 1496 Warbeck and the Scots' king invaded England. The invasion came to noth- ing. Warbeck was captured in the following year and placed in the Tower with Henry's other enemies. His re- peated attempts to escape made him a dangerous prisoner, and in 1499 he and his fellow-prisoner, Warwick, whom Simnel had personated, were put to death. The White Rose was blasted. While dealing with the perils that threatened his line the 102 An Outline History of England. king was pursuing that definite course of strong government which characterized his house. The existing checks upon the royal authority, which have been enumerated here, were as galling to the Tudor sovereigns as they would have been to the Norman conqueror. Parliament sat infrequently in the last thirteen years of Henry VII. Yet the kingdom had ample revenues, and the king amassed a private fortune independently of the consent of the lords and commons. Certain commercial duties — tonnage and poundage — were granted him for life by an early Parliament, and these in- creased in profit with the rapid extension of English com- merce. Wars with France proved as profitable to Henry as they had been to Edward IV. Money for the campaigns was obtained from the people, but no battles were fought. The English money went into the royal treasury, the French king at the same time paying for the privilege of peace. As the landlords had revived forgotten bonds of servitude when the BTack Death had depleted the labor market, so Henry, lacking the tax levies which only Parliament might impose, revived ancient feudal rights of the crown over the land-owners, and compelled the payment of fines and dues which had been in desuetude for generations. Nobles paid dearly for exemption from the support of armed retain- ers, this method of punishment yielding profit to the king, and depriving the feudal lords of the private armies with which, in the past, they had intimidated the royal power. The development of the art of warfare further strengthened the monarchy. In the simpler days, when bow and arrow, ax and spear, served for offensive armor, a force of peasants was match for a troop of knights, and many a battle went by preponderance of numbers. Gunpowder, first employed, per- haps, in the battle of Crecy, revolutionized the science of war. The Lancastrian kings owed much of their success in France to their cannon. The castles of the nobles, which were so many strongholds against the king in case of civil war, were The Tudor Monarchs. 163 at the mercy of the royal artillery, and the long castle sieges of the early reigns do not appear in the records of the Tudors. Landless merchants and other men of wealth had to share their gains with the avaricious Henry. " Benevolences," the forced contributions levied by Edward IV., and renounced by Richard III., were revived, and collected with especial zeal. Morton, the royal officer who was charged with their collec- tion, was so persistent in his search for wealth that men came to speak of " Morton's fork." They said that if a man lived extravagantly he was mulcted of a benevolence on the ground of evident wealth, and if he sought to avoid this fate by unostentatious way of life the sheriffs pounced upon him as a miser who must divide his hoard with the king. It would have been impracticable for the sovereign to use the ordinary jury-courts as a means of enforcing these proj- ects for raising money; an impartial jury would have re- sisted such acts as tyrannous. So the king had recourse to a court composed of high officials and members of his council. This court — sometimes called "Star Chamber," from the decorations of its meeting-room — heard cases concerning fraud, libel, feudal privileges, forgery, perjury, riotings, etc., and was in this reign and the next an instrument of the most hateful tyranny. Its judges being appointed by the crown, and no jury being present, the court was a facile tool. Henry VII. died in 1509, leaving to his son, Prince Henry, undisputed title to the throne, and a treasure of £2,000,000. Besides this son there had been another, Arthur, and two daughters. Arthur, the eldest prince, had married Catharine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Spanish patrons of Columbus. He soon left her a widow, and the spe- cial dispensation of the pope was needed and obtained for her marriage with Prince Henry (1509). The Princess Margaret found a royal husband in James IV. of Scotland, and so in after j^ears became grandmother to Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary Tudor, the youngest of Henry's daughters, also wedded 164 An Outline History of England. a king, Louis XII. of France. After his death she married an Englishman, Charles Brandon, and so became grand- mother of another noble and more pitiable girl, Lady Jane Grey. It will be well to bear these several marriages in mind, for the history of the sixteenth century in England has much to do with wedding, divorcement, and rival claims to the succession. Henry VIII. — " bluff King Hal " — was eighteen years old when he came into his father's noble inheritance in 1509. He was in ruddy health, tall, and fair to see, excelling in every manner of English sport and not ill-trained, in the learning of the schools. In his veins the blood of Edward III. was again united after long separation in the families of Lan- caster and York. From his father he received a splendid treasure and a peaceful and prosperous kingdom, whose long quiescence, stagnation indeed, was now giving placa to an unprecedented activity in letters, art, and science. His father, moreover, bequeathed to him a vigorous mind, a stubborn will, and a recklessness of life and law which served him well in his thirty-eight years of absolute rule (1509-1547). The popular favor which greeted the new king was strengthened by an act which augured ill for the security of personal rights. Empson and Dudley, two officers who had aided Henry VII. in his harsh forms of tax-collection, were put to death upon a trumped-up charge. Henry thirsted for war as a means of asserting England's place among the continental powers, as well as for the glory which personal success would bring to him. His marriage with Catharine of Aragon determined his place in the strug- gle which was vexing Europe. After the expulsion of the English from their French possessions the French kings had steadily gained in power at the expense of their great feuda- tories. France was now well consolidated, and outranked all other kingdoms in wealth and military power, having just conquered and annexed a large share of Italy. To hold her The Tudor Monarchs. 165 in check was the object of the Holy League, which was formed about the year 1511 by Ferdinand of Aragon, Queen Catharine's father, with the pope and the Venetian repub- lic. In 1512 Henry joined with his father-in-law, and the following year the Emperor Maximilian added his weight to the column which pushed the French back from Italy. En- gland's active share in the military operations of the league was unimportant; but her alliance against France at this im- portant juncture curbed the arrogance of that proud mon- archy. In 1513 Maximilian and Henry drove the French cavalry from the field of Guinegate so swiftly that the day has ever since been called " the Battle of the Spurs." In the same year the Scots, always on the side of France, were beaten at Flodden Field by Earl Howard of Surrey, and their king, James IV., was slain. Peace with both countries fol- lowed — a peace which the diplomatic ability of Thomas Wolsey prolonged for seven years (1514-1521). Wolsey was the son of a wealthy commoner of Ipswich. By fidelity and adroitness he worked his way up in the civil service of the State and into the heart of the king's favor. Henry gave him rich offices in the Church, he became bishop of Lincoln and archbishop of York. Like his early pred- ecessor Lanfranc, he was politician first and prelate after- ward. He now (1513) took charge of the foreign policy of England and formed a passive alliance with France, where Francis I. began to reign. Ferdinand of Aragon died, and his famous grandson, Charles V., succeeded to the kingdom of Spain. With kings like these to deal with Wolsey needed every resource, and his master indeed spared none. The pope sent the commoner's son a cardinal's hat and a legate's commission. This placed him at the head of the English Church. He was already foreign minister, and as chancellor of the realm he controlled the judicial machinery of the nation. In his personal revenues, the magnificence of his palaces, the splendor of his household, he was little behind 166 An Outline History of England. royalty itself. All this authority was devoted to Henry's aggrandizement. The development of Charles V.'s power aroused a new ambition in King Henry's breast. Charles was a nephew of Queen Catharine, and had now, as German emperor and Spanish king, possessions which surrounded and over- shadowed those of France. With such an ally the house of Tudor might regain the crown of France which Edward III. had claimed, Henry V. had won, and Henry VI. had forfeited. The conquest seemed easy, and Charles came to England in person to urge his royal nephew to action. Francis foresaw his peril, and in an interview with Henry near Calais sought to recover his friendship. The gorgeous preparations for that royal visit christened it "The Field of the Cloth of Gold." But the interview was fruitless. Henry, Charles, and the pope again joined hands in secret against Francis — Charles promising to marry Henry's only child, the Princess Mary, his own cousin though she was. Mary was formally recognized as heir to the English throne, and Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, a distant scion of the stock of Edward III., was beheaded on a charge of treason (1521) in order to clear the way for Mary Tudor's accession. The approach of a foreign war perplexed the cardinal. Dur- ing seven peaceful years he had succeeded in governing En- gland and raising sufficient revenue without a single session of Parliament. Now a Parliament, with all its spirit of inter- ference in the king's business, must be called to vote money for the war. Parliament (1523) voted less than half the sum demanded. In 1525 the government asked for the hated " benevolences." Never had the burden fallen so heavily or been more stoutly resisted. Bold voices were heard pro- testing against the lawless extortion. Bolder hands drove the king's agents from their towns. The levy failed. Mean- while the war was raging. Charles was winning victories from Francis and spending Henry's hard- wrung gold for his The Tudor Monarchs. 167 own benefit. England " went out shearing and came back shorn ; " she helped to pay for humbling France, but lost her money for her pains. Charles repudiated his pledge to marry Mary Tudor, and Henry in dismay transferred his friendship to his former foe, the king of France. The course of events has now brought us to the central event of Henry's reign — his divorce from his first queen. This single act led to the fall of Wolsey, the eleva- tion of Cromwell, the quarrel with the pope, and the final separation of the Church of England from the Church of Rome. The royal pair had been married by special per- mission of the pope — for their relationship otherwise pro- hibited the union. Catharine was some years older than her husband ; her sons were all dead, and it was unlikely that she should leave him any other heir than the Princess Mary. The king was naturally anxious concerning her succession, for no woman had yet reigned in England. He now (1525) suspected that the death of his sons showed that the marriage was accursed ; he had moreover been attracted by the wit and beauty of Anne Boleyn. a lady of the queen's house- hold. Superstition or passion prompted him to put away his wife, but serious obstacles confronted him. A pope had blessed the union, and only a papal divorce might dissolve it. The pope, Clement VII., was under the thumb of the Emperor Charles, and dared not disgrace that monarch's un- happy aunt. The queen protested that she had been a true and loyal wife and could not be put away without sin. In 1529 an Italian, Cardinal Campeggio, was sent by the pope to judge the case with Cardinal Wolsey, but before the court could give sentence the pope stopped the proceedings and transferred the case to Rome. Maddened at this turn of affairs the king stripped his favorite of his offices, honors, and wealth (1529), and would have brought him to the block on charge of treason, but disease claimed the broken-spirited man before he reached his prison. He died at Leicester in 168* An Outline History of England. 1530. Among his last words being those which Shakespeare put into verse: " Cromwell, Cromwell ! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies." The great cardinal's real successor in the royal favor was Thomas Cromwell, a man of obscure origin who, after a strange variety of employments, had attached himself to Wolsey's fortunes and clung to his master to the end. He combined shrewdness with audacity to a degree which made him the ideal minister of an absolute ruler like Henry, who fixed his mind on definite objects, and suffered no earthly obstacle to block his path. The opposition of the pope now shut the king from his dearest wish — divorce and a new marriage. Cromwell audaciously advised the king to disavow the pope's authority, and to annul the divorce himself At first the monarch shrank from such a step, and by the advice of Cranraer, whom he was rapidly advancing to the archbishopric of Canterbury, he called upon the universities of Europe to pronounce upon the validity of his marriage with his brother's widow. By unblushing bribery he ob- tained a favorable opinion from a portion of these scholars, although the best men were unanimous against the divorce. This flimsy indorsement served the purpose. Archbishop Cranmer pronounced the divorce (May, 1533). The king had already (in January, 1533) married Anne Boleyn, the gay maid of honor. By this act the pope was openly defied. He declared the king excommunicated; and annulled the divorce; but Henry's will, upheld — if indeed need were — by the statesman Cromwell and the prelate Cranmer, was inflexible. His Par- liament of 1534 passed the acts of Supremacy and Succession, the former declaring the king to be the " only supreme The Tudor Monakciis. 169 head on earth of the Church of England," the latter disinher- iting the Princess Mary, and making Elizabeth, the new-born daughter of Anne Boleyn, heir to Henry's throne. Hence- forth no appeals from English ecclesiatical courts should be decided in Rome ; the papal revenues from English churches were stopped, and the king became what the pope had been since St. Augustine entered Canterbury, the spiritual and temporal master of the English Church. To Thomas Crom- well, as vicar-general, the king deputed his limitless eccle- siastical power. Refusal to accept the Act of Succession was treason, and this act included recognition of the validity of the divorce, an admission which a devout Catholic could scarcely make. The act became in Cromwell's hands a weapon of persecu- tion. With it he convicted the leading Catholics of treason. Sir Thomas More, the chancellor, was among the earliest, as he was among the noblest, victims. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was beheaded for obedience to his conscience (1535). Cromwell was not content with striking here and there a leader among the opposite party. He served his king with a zeal surpassing that which the dying Wolsey lamented. The Church which Henry had now separated from Rome by law must be thoroughly subservient to the king. Its reve- nue, its courts, its offices, its lands, its very doctrines must be at his disposal. The power delegated to the vicar-general was sufficient to accomplish this design. Fresh enactments gave the monarch the appointment of all bishops, and a new and startling movement brought its property and revenues under royal control ; this was the dissolution of the mon- asteries. Several hundred of these monkish cloisters existed in the kingdom. They had originated in a fervent desire to spread the Gospel and cultivate holiness of life. For a long period they had fulfilled their design, and through the Dark Ages they 8 170 Ax Outline History of England. preserved whatever was preserved of art, science, and litera- ture. But most of them had lost their high aims. The monks of the sixteenth century were rich and worldly. By pur- chase and bequest they had acquired one fifth of the soil of England, and the pursuit of wealth and luxury had super- seded the quest for heavenly things. Popular report said that the convents were the abodes of luxury and vice. The commissioners whom Cromwell sent to investigate the affairs of these religious houses reported to Parliament in 1536 that a minority of the cloisters were well managed, but that drunkenness and vice prevailed in two thirds of the number. These latter were in general the smaller estab- lishments, and these (376 in number) were now suppressed, their revenues being turned into the royal treasury. The few larger abbeys remained untouched while the many small houses were broken up. It seems that many ot the latter were prized in the communities in which they had existed. In the north of England the monasteries were in favor with the common people, and the bitterness caused by their abolition became a revolt. Robert Aske, a young Catho- lic lawyer in one of the northern counties, headed a rebellion called "The Pilgrimage of Grace " (1536), and many Catho- lic lords and Yorkist nobles openly or in secret abetted this uprising. Thirty thousand armed men protested against the arbitrary rule of Cromwell, the separation from Rome, and the disinheritance of Mary. Henry's minister dealt with the rebels as Richard II. had dealt with Wat Tyler and the in- surgent peasantry of Kent and Essex. The army at his dis- posal was weak, but at his promise to comply with the chief points in their demand the " pilgrims " dispersed joyfully to their homes. Then Cromwell gathered force and swept through the north with an avenging sword. He broke his pledges of reform (1537), and hunted the rebels to exile or death. The lords and abbots fared worse, and a long line of noble names was added to the list of traitors hanged on Tyburn gallows. The Tudor Monarciis. 171 Such displays of tyranny aroused the English spirit to resist. But the civil wars and the jailers and headsmen of Henry VII. had left few men or women of the Plantagenet family to whom the disaifected subjects might offer the abused crown. One of the surviving Yorkists was Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, a grandson of Edward IV. He lived in an atmosphere of plots; for every man who hated Henry Tudor hoped for better things under Henry Courtenay. Exeter, w T ith bis brother, Lord Montague, and his mother, the countess of Salisbury, were executed in 1539 for treason. At the same time a new campaign was begun against the monasteries which remained. The abbots, fearing the conse- quences of delay, surrendered their estates to the king — some had already fallen to him by the treason of their occupants. To the monks thus deprived of their homes pensions were granted. Some of the Church lands were sold, others granted to favorites of the king — all went to increase the holdings of nobles and gentry, and to strengthen these classes against a restoration of monasticism. Not all the violence which accompanied the abolition of the monasteries arose from the mere separation of the Church from Rome, or the edict against religious establish- ments. A more powerful influence was working in the minds of Englishmen. The Church which had been cut loose from Roman rule was about to cut loose from Roman doctrines. The belief as well as the organization of the clergy was to undergo a change. The Protestant reforma- tion was at hand. By the year 1546, the date of Luther's death, Protestant- ism had reached its fullest extent on the Continent. This reform had its influence upon England, where Wiclif's Bible and Lollardy had prepared the soil for good seed. The early years of Henry VIII. 's reign coincided with the period of the greatest excitement over the Lutheran revolt, and in the controversy of those times the king was the ally 172 An Outline History of England. of the pope. As his sword was at the pope's service in the Holy League, his pen was also wielded in the war of words. In 1522 Henry put forth a book in defense of Catholic doc- trine, for which the pope dubbed him " Defender of the Faith," and which called out Luther's remark, " When God wants a fool he lets a king teach theology." This was in 1522, before the divorce question set all old notions aside. Wolsey was a faithful Catholic, and he attempted by persecu- tion to prevent the spread of the new ideas in England. Nor- folk and More, his immediate successors, continued this part of his policy, but Cromwell reversed it. What the vicar-general believed we cannot say, but his influence certainly favored the Protestants. His ally, the primate Cranmer, was instilled with Lutheran doctrines, though he did not desire to force them on the Church in opposition to the royal will. For a time the king let himself be ruled by the vicar-general and the archbishop. In 1536 Coverdale's edition of the English Bible, which William Tyndale had translated, was not only published in En- gland but by royal command appointed to be read in the churches (1538). Two years before new articles of religion were set forth, by the king's own hand, prescribing what Christians should believe. They simplified the Roman for- mula, but retained its most important features, lagging far behind the radicalism of Luther and the Swiss and French reformers. Henry himself was no Protestant. Only neces- sity had forced him to break with the papacy, and he hated Luther as soundly after the divorce as before it. The outrageous conduct of the people, who vandalized the abbey churches and insulted the priests at mass, caused the king to draw back from all reforms of doctrine which looked toward Protestantism. In 1539 the " Six Articles," the hate- ful " whip of six strings " for the correction of Protestants, was enacted in accordance with his wish by Parliament. It declared six points of doctrine, the denial of any one being The Tudor Monarchs. 173 heresy; the heretic punishable with death on the second, if not the first, offense. The six strings were : 1. Transubstan- tiation — the dogma that the blessing of the priests at com- munion transforms the bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Christ. 2. Communion in only one kind (bread) for laymen. 3. Celibacy of the priesthood. (Luther and his preachers were married.) 4. Inviolability of vows of chastity made by monks and nuns. 5. Necessity of pri- vate masses. G. Necessity of confession of sins to a priest. The heavy penalties consequent upon infraction of these ar- ticles were kept off by the hand of Cromwell. But Cromwell, though yet strong, was beset by enemies. The despoiled monks, the subjected clergy, the proud nobles, who chafed at the supremacy of a man of common birth, all strove to poison the king's mind against him. As Cromwell's advice in regard to the divorce of one queen was the means of his rise, his recommendation of another hastened his fall. In 1536 Anne Boleyn, whose family were of the Protestant faction, incurred the king's disapproval; a subservient Par- liament declared the marriage void by reason of her unfaith- fulness. She was executed as a traitor, and her widowed husband solaced himself next day by marrying Jane Sey- mour. She died in 1537, giving birth to a son, Edward, who became heir to the throne, his half-sisters, Mary the Catholic and Elizabeth, having been debarred from the succession on the ground of illegitimacy. For three years the sovereign lived single, taking his fourth wife, in 1540, on the word of his minister Cromwell. This marriage was one of Cromwell's prudent measures to gain a political alliance with the Prot- estant princes of Germany. The lady was a German of noble family, sister of the elector of Saxony. But she was tall, coarse, and ill-featured — " a Flanders mare !" the rough king said when he first saw his bride. Her homely face was Cromwell's death-warrant. Henry withdrew his support from the man who, as he thought, had tricked him. The 174 An Outline History of England. Catholic Howard, Duke of Norfolk, the leading noble, accused the vicar-general of treason. Conviction, without a hearing, and execution followed in a few days, and in July, 1540, one of the strongest heads that ever directed English affairs fell beneath the axman's stroke. As for poor Anne, the king soon cast her off, and married in her stead Catherine Howard, a niece of the cluke of Norfolk. From the death of Cromwell (1540) until shortly before the death of the king (1547), the Howards — Norfolk, and his son, the poet Surrey — were the chief ministers of the govern- ment. Henry himself was personally supreme in the king- dom, and exercised through his ministers greater powers than had been wielded by any king since Magna Charta. Parliament met, it is true, with considerable regularity, but neither House dared, or cared, to run counter to the will of the sovereign. In the House of Lords the power of the Church had been crushed; for the mitered abbots sat there no longer, and the bishops were the nominees of the king. The temporal peers were equally submissive. Gibbet and block had removed the men who might have led an opposi- tion, and grants from the Church lands had bound the others to their royal patron. A new landed aristocracy had been founded by the distribution of the broad acres of the monks, and far more of the leading families of England date their prominence from the conquest of the English Church by Henry than from the conquest of the island by William the Norman. The commons were scarcely behind the lords in their obedience to the wishes of the sovereign, for the members of the lower house knew the color of Henry's gold, and had shared in the plunder of the convents. Thus constituted, Parliament, established as a check upon royal authority, became a tool of tyranny. The king's own court of Star-Chamber was not so quick to pass sentence on his enemies as this Parliament, whose bills of attainder — at an hour's notice, and without a hearing — tried, condemned, The Tudor Monarchs. 175 and sentenced to confiscation and death whomsoever the king would destroy. The duke of Norfolk was a Catholic and a papist, but none dared whisper to the king the possibility of restoring the papal authority in the English Church. Henry had not gone far toward Protestantism, but he had settled this one point for- ever: that no Italian pope should supplant an English king in any department of Church or State. On the Continent his sympathies were with the pope against the Protestants. Reform in the Church he undoubtedly desired, and to some extent he carried his desire into execution. The serv- ice in English churches was pruned of certain superstitious practices ; the litany and prayers were revised and printed in English, and, with some restrictions, the English Bible was recommended to the people as the ground of their faith and life. The king and the men who stood with him against the Lutheran reformation hoped that a universal council of Christendom might peacefully incorporate these moderate changes in the Roman Church, and thus stay, if not close, the schism which was rending the Catholics of western Europe. In 1543 Henry is again found in alliance with the emperor Charles V. for a war with France. Leagued with Charles he hoped to sway the proposed Catholic council to his moderate schedule of reform; but the council held at Trent in 1545 was a disappointment. It denounced with unmeasured vehemence the heresies of England, as well as those of the German reformers, and it upheld without apology the super- stitions and errors against which Luther had raised protest, and which the English had abandoned. The Council of Trent determined that there should be no compromise between Rome and Protestantism, and Henry's hope faded when the emperor took sides with the pope. But the theologians had no terrors for the English king. He refused to retrace a single step which separated him 176 An Outline History of England. from the papacy, nor would he advance further toward the Protestantism which was growing around him. While lines between the two parties were being more strictly drawn, the Howards and Bishop Gardiner leading the Catholics, and Cranmer and Latimer showing more of the Protestant color, King Henry stood by himself, leaning toward neither faction. Anne Askew and three others, who denied the first of the six articles, were burned for their heresy; but on the other side Bishop Latimer, the most powerful preacher in England, the royal chaplain, was acquitted of heretical guilt. Shortly before his death the king changed ministers again; the Howards went to the Tower, and the Seymours, the earl of Hertford at their head, came to the council-board. The earl of Surrey died a traitor's death, but Norfolk remained alive in prison when the king, Henry VIII., breathed his last, January 28, 1547. Catherine Howard had already been exe- cuted for unwifely conduct, which was accounted treason, and the king had taken a sixth wife, Catherine Parr, who outlived her much-married lord. The wars of Henry's later years had been of slight im- portance. In Scotland the authority of the pope was still acknowledged, and the influence of France was ever present to keep alive the old hatred of England. Henry VII. had married his daughter, Margaret, to James IV., King of Scots, in the hope of forming a bond of peace and friendship be- tween two kingdoms of common race and interests; but the Scots continued to take their orders from France. James V., whose army invaded England in 1542, was the son of Henry VIII.'s sister Margaret, but the blood-bond counted for nothing in the war which followed. After the disgrace- ful conduct of his cowardly troops at Sol way Moss he re- turned to Scotland to die. Undismayed by the failure of his father's policy, the English king made peace with Scot- land, one condition being the marriage of James's little daughter, Mary Stuart, with his own son by Jane Seymour, The Tudor Moxarchs. 1*77 Prince Edward. Had this been consummated the union of the t\v r o kingdoms might have been anticipated by fifty- years. But it was not to be. The French party in the north- ern kingdom defeated the negotiation, and Henry renewed the war, sending Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, to ravage the Lowlands, a commission which was unsparingly performed. An invasion of France ensued, to punish that nation for its work in Scotland. The campaign ended, how- ever, without important acquisitions. In this reign Wales was incorporated with England (1536), and no distinction held henceforth between Welshmen and Englishmen. 8* 178 An Outline History of England. CHAPTER XL THE LATER TUDORS. 1547 A. D.-1603 A. D. FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH. Three children of Henry VIII. survived their father. Mary, daughter of Catharine of Aragon, was the eldest; Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn's daughter, was next in age, and Edward, the nine-year-old son of Jane Seymour, was the youngest. The question of the succession had sorely vexed the king, and at his request Parliament had made several separate settlements. Mary was first made heir, but the divorce made her an illegitimate child and destroyed her claim. Then Elizabeth was chosen, but by her mother's " treason " her claim also was forfeited. Finally the king was empowered to determine for himself the line of inheritance. He named his son as his successor, and, in case Edward should die with- out issue, directed that the inheritance should pass in order to the Princess Mary, the Princess Elizabeth, and then to the heirs of Henry VII. 's daughter Mary Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk. The will furthermore appointed a commission of sixteen men to govern the kingdom until Edward should attain his majority. Unwilling to commit the government wholly either to the Reformation or to Rome the king had shrewdly mingled the two English parties in the composition of this council of regency, but the ambition of one of its members, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, frustrated the plans of the king. Seymour was in sympathy with the Reformation. He was Queen Jane Seymour's brother, and uncle of Edward VI., and he was executor of the royal will. Making the The Later Tudors. 179 best of his advantages he excluded Gardiner, the strongest of the Catholics, from the council, gained possession of the person of the boy-king, and had himself declared duke of Somerset and " Protector of the Realm." Under this title he exercised full royal power in the name of his nephew, Edward VI. To complete the work which King Henry had under- taken in Scotland was Somerset's first duty. The mar- riage treaty which was to unite King Edward with Mary Stuart was yet unfulfilled, and the benefits which would ac- crue from its fulfillment seemed to warrant every exertion to attain that end. The safety of England was continually imperiled by the near neighborhood of Scotland, the friend of France and Rome. The Protector led an army across the border to enforce the marriage treaty, and defeated the Scottish lords at Pinkie, not far from Edinburgh, September 10, 1547. Much renown his victory gave the English arms yet the campaign must be reckoned a failure, for Queen Mary did not fall into English hands; on the contrary, she was well guarded by the Catholic party, who took her to France (1548) and destroyed the hopes of the duke by betrothing her to the dauphin, afterward Francis II. England had only a few trophies, some useless prisoners, and a heavy debt to show for the blood and treasure spent in the war. The Protestant party was unchecked throughout the reign of Edward VI. (1547-1553). Somerset was its natural leader and Cranmer his willing assistant in all matters of Church reform. In Henry's time the archbishop, though in- clining toward the new doctrines, had allowed himself to be governed by the king's will, and had not permitted his Protestantism to injure him in the king's favor. He had married a wife in Germany, taking example by the Lutheran priests, but at sight of the whip of six strings he igno- miniously deserted her. Yet Protestant he was by sympathy and belief, and the accession of Edward, relieving him of his 180 An Outline History of England. fears, left him free to bring the English Church into con- formity with the reformed doctrines. Other bishops — the learned Ridley of London, the eloquent Latimer of Worces- ter — and such theologians as Bncer and Peter Martyr, aided Cranmer by their labors. The historian Hallam sums up in six paragraphs the innovations which were forced upon the English Church in the reign of Edward VI. 1. English supplanted Latin as the language of the serv- ice. Prayer, homily, and hymn were henceforth in a speech understood of the people. From the Romish missal and breviary, with such excisions and additions as the revised creed required, Cranmer translated the first Book of Common Prayer (1548), the prayer-book (with slight re- visions) of the English Church to-day. 2. Statues, paintings, windows, and altars which were connected with the churches, and which the ignorant popu- lace had regarded with a veneration which approached idolatry, were now destroyed, and ceremonials, such as the use of incense, tapers, and holy water, were abrogated. 3. The adoration of the saints and the Virgin Mary was forbidden, the doctrine of purgatory was denied, and prayers for the souls of the dead were given up. 4. Auricular confession was made optional. Henceforth the believer might or might not confess his sins in the ear of the priest and receive absolution. This liberty soon put an end to the use of the confessional in England. 5. The Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation was abandoned, and " the doctrine of the real presence of the body and blood in the bread and wine of the communion- table was explicitly denied." 6. Lastly, priests were allowed to marry. By the repeal of the six articles the whip of six strings Avas broken. The harsh laws against Lollardy were erased from the statute books, for the leaders of the Church now held the beliefs for whi.h Wiclif's followers had been The Later Tudors. 181 persecuted. Forty-two articles of religion were set forth in 1552 by Cranmer, embodying the principles of the Refor- mation. The omission of three has left them the thirty-nine articles which still contain the Anglican creed. These changes were forced down into the Church from the top. A few statesmen and prelates, the merchants of London and the large towns of the east, the scholars of the universities, were heartily in favor of the reform, but there was no such feeling among the peasantry. They wanted back their old priests, the mysterious ceremonies, Latin chants, and wonder-working relics which had been the attractive part of their religion. With the destruction of the monasteries, now followed by the suppression of several hundred chantries and colleges, hard times had dawned for the peasants. The new land owners living in London were more exacting than the monkish landlords. Moreover a new industry was supplanting the husbandry which had employed the peasant farmers. The value of En- glish wool, rising steadily with the growth of cloth manufact- ure in Flanders, turned the English plow-land into sheep farms. Many tenants were evicted from their small holdings to make room for these pastures, and much land which had lain common was seized by the manor lords and inclosed for private use. Wages dropped as the price of food mounted higher. It was natural for the ignorant to believe — as their priests doubtless told them — that these miseries were caused by the new religion. This they did believe, and became riotous in their demonstration against their " heretical " rulers. In Nor- folk a tanner, Robert Ket, led a formidable insurrection against the landlords, whose sheep-ranges had crow r ded honest industry out of existence. It was not the duke of Somerset who crus'hed Ket's revolt. The Catholics — a quiet but numerous party in the council — had always opposed him, and when the Norfolk revolt broke out his enemies combined 182 An Outline History of England. to give the chief command to their colleague, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, son of that magistrate Dudley who had perished with Empson in the first months of Henry VIII. Warwick's energetic campaign against the rebels strength- ened him with the council, which on his return deposed Som- erset for misgovernment and gave the protectorate into the hands of Duley now (1550) duke of Northumberland. The king himself remained in the background while his protectors and archbishops were revolutionizing the Church. Though a mere boy, and consumptive, Edward was wonder- fully precocious. Books and study, especially the ponderous theological works with which the age abounded, gave him strange delight. He loved to listen to the sermons of the sharp-tongued Latimer, and in what way he could he was zealous to bring in the Reformation. By his order eighteen grammar schools were founded in English towns, and the old house of the Grey Friars in London was given up to Christ's Hospital for the famous school of the Bluecoat boys. It is useless to speculate to what lengths Edward's Prot- estantism would have carried him had he been spared for long life. At the age of sixteen his frail constitution yielded to his disease. On July 6, 1553, he died, leaving no issue. Foreseeing the king's untimely end, Northumberland had formed a plan for the succession. By the terms of Henry's settlement, the Princess Mary — thorough Catholic and papist though she was — stood next after Edward. This daughter of Catharine had refused to accept the new tenets and practices, and had clung to the religion of her father with true Tudor obstinacy. The Protestants recognized that she, if queen, would show them no favor. More concessions might be ex- pected from the Princess Elizabeth, but Northumberland had a private advantage to serve. By his advice Edward changed the order of succession. Both princesses were set aside as illegitimate, and the crown was assigned to the descendants of Henry's sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk. The heiress thus The Later Tudors. 183 chosen was Lady Jane Grey, a beautiful, intelligent, and high-spirited Protestant girl. Lord Guilford Dudley, son of Northumberland, had lately married her, and by her acces- sion the son of the cunning Protector would doubtless mount the throne beside his bride. The death of Edward brought these plots to light. Mary heard of them and by flight eluded the Protector's grasp, and rallied her friends to her support in Norfolk. Lady Jane was astounded at the news that she was queen of En- gland. Northumberland proclaimed her, and she bore the title for ten days (Juno 10-19, 1553). But she had no real support save the personal following of her father-in-law. He raised an army to disperse the forces which gathered about Mary Tudor, but even before a battle his men deserted to her and left him almost alone. With tears of disappointment on his cheeks he tossed his cap in air at Cambridge, hailing J)Iary as his and England's queen. The sovereign entered London with acclaims. Lady Jane and her husband were placed in the Tower, and Northumberland, guilty of high treason by his own admissions, was beheaded. The Catholic bishops whom Edward's ministers had deposed were restored to their cathedrals. Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer were in their turn deposed^ and the two latter cast into prison, Bishop Gardiner became chancellor and leader of the council. Mary's heart was set upon a complete restoration of the papal power in England. She w x as her father's daughter in the firmness of her will, but otherwise she was the true child of her Spanish mother. Her cousin, the king and emperor Charles V., of Spain, who had once promised to marry her, was her political mentor. He was now too old to wed, but his son, Philip of Spain, was a candidate for Mary's hand. The emperor's experience taught him the temper of the English people and he counseled his zealous cousin to proceed with moderation. Much as the country-folk of England might long for the old religion the towns-folk were attached to the 184 Ax Outline History of England. new, and the landed proprietors who had been enriched by the spoil of the abbeys would resist any thing looking toward resumption of Church property. The counter-revolution was therefore cautiously begun. The first backward step was the restoration of the religious system to its condition at the death of Henry VIII. The anti-Lollard legislation was revived; the six-stringed whip became for the second time the test of orthodoxy. Masses were said in the churches and Cranmer's prayer-book gave way to the Latin missals and breviaries. Priests who had married were hooted out of their parishes and efforts were made to rehabilitate the saints and Virgin in the popular re- gard. In general this reaction took place quietly; in some quarters it was hailed with delight, for the populace had not kept pace with the bishops, and the orders to believe this doctrine and deny that dogma had fallen upon uncompre- hending ears. So far the queen was satisfied with the prog- ress of her reign; the wise emperor counseled her against forcing her people to accept the pope's supremacy again or to give back the lands and revenues which they derived from the distribution of the property of the Church. As long as she was content with this moderation Mary retained a measure of popularity. It was the project of the " Spanish marriage " which first turned her subjects from her. The emperor urged the queen to fortify her position by marrying his son Philip, heir to his possessions in Spain, Italy, and the Low Countries. Philip was a Catholic of the bigoted strijje, and Mary's union with him would insure the supremacy, of the pope in England, and might eventually found a Catholic league, which should overpower the Prot- estant princes of Germany, and heal by force the schi-m in Christendom. All English Protestants who lived in the hope of better times ahead, all English patriots who dreaded the interference of foreign pope or king in England's government, all selfish lords and commons whose share The Later Tudoes. 185 in the Church lands bound them to uphold the system of King Henry VIII., were united against the proposed match. There were isolated risings against the marriage in the western counties, and in Kent fifteen thousand men gathered under Sir Thomas "Wyatt and swooped down on London. The qneen had few troops, but she had the dauntless blood of a Tudor, and her personal courage called twenty thou- sand Londoners to her defense. " Stand fast against these rebels," she cried in her harsh, man's voice. " Fear them not, for I assure you I fear them nothing at all." Wyatt was captured and beheaded. There had been talk of putting Lady Jane Grey in Mary's place ; her execution, with that of Lord Dudley, her husband, dispelled such treasonable rumors. Some of the rebels had cheered for the Princess Elizabeth and Edward Courtenay, and Mary thought best to lodge them in the Tower. The emperor thought the scaffold a fitter place for them, but Mary's English advisers dared not tempt English loyalty too far, and after a time Courtenay went abroad, and Elizabeth, in the seclusion of Chaucer's Woodstock, studied with Roger Ascham, and romped with the country squires. The suppression of the rebellion gave the queen confi- dence to go forward. Parliament consented to the marriage, and in midsummer of 1554, Philip of Spain married his En- glish bride at Winchester. But .the council, though impo- tent to prevent the union, had influence enough to rob it of its most threatening consequences. The Spaniard was called by courtesy King of England, but the jealous parliament never crowned him, and denied his right to the throne in case the queen should die childless. Mary's policy unfolded rapidly. To restore the realm again to the bosom of " Mother Church " was her cherished aim, and this she was able to accomplish. Parliament re- versed the sentence of treason which Cromwell had obtained 186 An Outline History of England. against Cardinal Pole, the English nobleman whom the pope had now named as his legate in England. This was fol- lowed by a formal declaration in favor of reunion with Rome. Queen Mary, Philip, and the lords and commons of England went down on their knees in the presence of the legate on the day of St. Andrew, November 30, 1554, and, humbly confessing their sin of schism and rebellion, received the Church's absolution and the blessing of the pope. Save for the dismantled abbeys, whose lands were not restored, the English Church now stood where it had been before Luther dreamed of "justification by faith," or Henry Tudor cast off the pope's authority that he might wed the lady of his love. The history of the latter half of Mary's reign is a sad tale, in which the queen is not the least pitiable figure. In ac- cordance with her will to serve the pope she undertook to eradicate the Protestant stain from her fair land. The sur- viving leaders of the Reformation in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. paid dearly for their acts. Bishops Hooper and Ferrar were condemned for heresy and burned. John Rogers, who had helped Tyndale translate the Script- ures, died exulting in the flames. Rowland Taylor, vicar of Iladleigh, pious and beloved, was a lamented victim. The learning of Bishop Ridley and the wit of Latimer availed them not. The two perished in one fire, in Oxford, Octo- ber 16, 1555. The gray-haired Cranmer had double claims to hatred, for he not only stood first among the reforming clergy, but it was his decree which divorced Henry VIII., and by that degradation broke the heart of Queen Mary's mother, Catharine. The archbishop, right at heart, perhaps, but sadly deficient in manly resolution, renounced his faith to save his life. But Mary was relentless. Six times the wavering Cranmer avowed and disavowed his heresy, but when they bound him to the stake his spirit grew stronger, and thrusting forth his right hand he held it steadily in The Later Tudors. 187 the hottest flame, exclaiming, " This hand wrote the recan- tation, and it shall be the first to suffer punishment." These names were not alone among the English martyrs. Smithfield fires burned often in 1556 and 1557, and in other market-places throughout the kingdom men and women gathered to see how the heretics would die. They died with honor, and their heroism did more than pamphlet and preacher to spread the faith for which they suffered. " Play the man, Master Ridley," the dying Latimer had been heard to cry to his fellow among the fagots. " We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out." And so they did, these martyr bishops and the two hundred men and women of lesser station, whose execution fixed upon the persecuting Bishop Bonner and the queen the horrid title " Bloody." Protestantism grew with each new act of repression, and the miserable queen saw the failure of the terrible policy by which she had hoped to purify her people. The queen's husband, Philip, whom she loved almost fierce- ly, cared nothing for her, and on receiving his European in- heritance from his father (1556) had quitted England, where he was thoroughly detested. Mary's most fervent prayer had been that she might bear a son who should maintain the Catholic cause; she was childless and hopelessly diseased. The pope, whom she wished heartily to serve, would not be pacified without money and the restoration of the Church lands. The portion that remained in the possession of the crown she did restore, but to reclaim from her powerful sub- jects their lands would have been to stir up a rebellion in which all that she had gained for Rome would be swept away forever. Gardiner, her best adviser, was dead, and Cardinal Pole, his successor, was deemed a heretic by Pope Paul IV. and stripped of his churchly honors. Philip yielded once to his wife's desire for his return. His stay was brief, and only added misfortunes. She prom- 188 An Outline History of England. ised aid for his French campaigns, and sent the earl of Pem- broke over with 10,000 men, who assisted in the capture of the town of St. Quentin. But the English were too weak to defend even their own. Calais, the last remnant of the En- glish empire on the Continent, was taken by the French in January, 1558. "It was the chiefest jewel of the realm," said Mary. But wretched administration at home had left her without means to undertake its recapture. Its loss was not a serious blow to England, but it shamed the queen to lose territory which had been English for so many years. "When I die you will find Calais written on my heart," was one of the pitiful outbursts of the closing months of her life. Her body spent with sickness, her spirit bruised by her terrible disappointments, with scarcely a friend in the world, poor Queen Mary died November 17, 1558. Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, immediately succeeded her half-sister Mary. From 1558 until 1603 she was queen of England. Woman as she was she was no puppet-queen; she chose her ministers with remarkable sagacity, and with no less wisdom she took part in their councils, and gave her opinion upon Aveighty matters of State. In her father's time her vigorous health and brill- iant mind had made her, though but a girl, a favorite at court. During the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary she had held aloof from religious and political controversies, devoting herself with unusual energy to serious study of ancient and modern languages and to archery, horsemanship, and the chase — the sports of young men of her own age. This busy student of Greek was likewise a woman of the world ; fond of the pomp of courts, coveting finery, having gowns by the hundred in her wardrobe, and with all her per- sonal vanity craving the flattery of her courtiers. She had the* stature and shoulders of her burly father, the voice of a man, and a coarse manner of speech which was not then deemed so unladylike as it would be now. She never married, and The Later Tudors. 189 though her favorites were many, and she took small pains to conceal her fondness for them, her adoring people called her "the virgin queen." Elizabeth's character was peculiarly adapted for the situation which confronted her when she as- cended the throne, and which faced her during the first thirty years of her reign. She was a hard, cold, intellectual woman, devoid of strong attachments and prejudices, shrewd of dis- cernment, and full of tact in devising and applying policies. It would seem impossible for an English monarch of any other stamp to have piloted the kingdom through the perils which beset it at Queen Mary's death. Elizabeth was accepted as queen without openly expressed dissent in any quarter of her realm. But this circumstance gave no augury for the future. Although there was no En- glish rival for the crown, the outlook, both in England and on the Continent, boded a stormy reign. Mary's popish policy, with the bitter persecutions into which it had carried her, had not exterminated Protestantism, but it had aroused a lively hatred between the partisans of the old and the re- formed religion. The new queen could not readily join either religious party without giving offense. Under her Protestant brother, Ed- ward, Elizabeth had accepted the forty-two articles of Cran- mer, and at Mary's accession she had with as little difficulty conformed to the Catholic service. For herself she had no vital sympathy with either, and it was her aim to continue the moderate system which her father had established. On one point, however, her mind was made up: the Church of England, Catholic or Protestant, must be united. Circum- stances which the imperious queen vainly tried to control forced her more and more to the side of the reformers, and she was obliged to make changes in her father's creed ; and the most tyrannical measures of her reign were those by which she strove to force the reformed doctrines and usages upon her reluctant subjects. 190 Ax Outline History of England. The key-note of Elizabeth's purpose was struck by the re- peal of the laws which had established the Catholic religion and lighted the fires of persecution. The Church's independ- ence of the pope was re-asserted, and all priests were ordered to conform to the new rules. The prayer-book of King Edward and Cranmer was revised and made the common book of de- votion. Parker, a man of her own conservative views, was made Archbishop of Canterbury. Under his direction relig- ious matters settled themselves peacefully, or would have done so had it not been for the religious condition of Europe. Philip II. of Spain, whose marriage with Mary had thrown England into a paroxysm of fear, had inherited the possessions of his father, Charles V., and become the strongest monarch of his time. He was king of Spain, and afterward of Portu- gal, of Italy and the Netherlands, and the precious metals and rich merchandise of India, Africa, and America supplied his treasury. On sea and land the Spanish forces were the most formidable in Europe, and a succession of able generals directed their movements. The king, who exercised absolute power over this vast realm, was a bigoted Romanist, the chosen champion of papistry. The Church was reviving from the shock of the Lutheran attack. The limits of Protestant ter- ritory were now pretty well defined, and they have scarcely been altered since. Northern Germany, the Scandinavian countries, Holland, and to a certain degree England and Scotland, no longer looked to the pope for guidance. There had been Protestants in Italy, but Philip's hand was there upheld by the Inquisition, and the " heresy " vanished before him. A new fervor inspired the priests and princes of Catholi- cism. The " Society of Jesus," better known as " Jesuits," founded by Loyola, devoted itself with a complete consecra- tion, unmatched since the early days of the Church,' to the task of redeeming the world from heresy. In the Spanish Netherlands the iconoclasm of the Protestants, followers of The Later Tudors. 191 John Calvin of Geneva, went to such extremes that Philip was obliged to send an army against them. France, which ranked next to Spain among Catholic lands, was weakened by the incompetence of its king, and by the religious wars upon the French Protestants, or Huguenots, as they were called. The Catholics of Scotland, few in numbers but ably led, could count upon the support of France, at whose court their queen, Mary Stuart, had lived from her infancy. The circumstances above narrated determined Elizabeth's course. She could not be a Catholic, for no English Catholic would recognize her, Anne Boleyn's daughter, as the lawful successor of Mary Tudor. Philip offered her his hand in the hope of impressing England into the troop of Catholic countries which he had united to the Spanish crown. She put him oft* for a year, and then denied him — her people had had enough of Spanish marriages. Then he sought a po- litical alliance with her until he might take by force what he might not win by favor. But France feared his am- bition, and France, too, sought an alliance with the queen. Catherine de Medici, the queen-mother, offered her first one prince and then another (Anjou and Alencon) in marriage, but Elizabeth, after puzzling coquetry, rejected both, for a league with Catholic France was almost as threatening to the peace of England as would have been a connection with Spain. Still another arrangement was possible. William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, Elizabeth's secretary of state and most trusted adviser, favored an open war. He wanted England to rally all the Protestant states and factions, and as their champion take up the gauntlet that Philip had thrown down. But the frugal queen startled the council with the rough cry, " No war, no war! my Lords! " She preferred diplomacy and cunning. Through the confusion of the time the queen's eye saw England's need of peace, and she determined to post- pone as long as possible the inevitable war. Meanwhile, she 192 An Outline History of England. stealthily sent aid to the Presbyterian lords of Scotland, who were struggling against a French regency, shrewdly hindered Philip in his war against the Dutch, and afforded scanty sus- tenance to the Huguenots. So long as she could keep the Catholics of Spain, France, and Scotland from joining hands against her, she was safe, but the task demanded all her ingenuity. Of all her perils that from the north was the most menacing. Mary Stuart was the grandchild of Margaret, the elder sister of Henry VIII., who had married James IV., King of Scotland. Henry had striven to unite his son Prince Ed- ward with the baby-queen, but neither he nor Somerset, who succeeded to his policy, could compel the Scots to carry out the marriage treaty. Mary's mother was a French princess, and the vigorous French party in Scotland took the little girl to Paris and educated her at the French court. She married a prince, who held the scepter for a single year (1559-1560), as King Francis II. of France. Mary was a sincere Catholic, and she was in the control of Catholics who laughed at Elizabeth Tudor's title to the English crown. They argued that the divorce from Catherine and the Boleyn marriage were alike unlawful, and that Mary Stuart, and not Eliza- abeth Tudor, was the rightful heir. The French courtiers addressed Mary as " Queen of England." At the death of Francis his beautiful widow, then in her twentieth year, quitted France to cast her fortunes with her Scottish countrymen (1561). At her coming a new crop of perils sprang up about Elizabeth. The personal charm of Mary — a wonderful mingling of beauty, courage, and intel- lect — united the factious Scots in her support. They be- lieved her promise to allow both forms of worship, and they stood by her in her demand for recognition as the successor of the unwedded Elizabeth. The English queen dared not admit the claim, for the prospect of another "Mary the Catholic " would have endangered her own safety. Neither The Later Tudors. 193 dared she select any successor, nor give hopes of a succession by marrying one of her many suitors. For England's sake she must remain unmarried and let her hand be used as a king-piece in the deep game of statecraft which she played. Mary Stuart's presence in Scotland, looking south, brought trouble for the English Catholics, who had hitherto suffered little for their religion. A number of bishops and a few score of parish priests had left their cathedrals and churches, rather than adopt the book of common prayer and the other adjuncts of the reformed service, but most of the clergy had accepted the changes without demur. In 1562, however, when Mary's plans seemed to augur success, and the Catholic prospects brightened, the pope lent his aid to increase Eliza- beth's perplexities. Unwilling as yet to pronounce her sen- tence of excommunication and deposition, he tried gentler means. He forbade Catholics to attend any church in which the prayer-book was used (1562). Parliament first fined all who refused to attend, and in 1563 passed the "Test Act," which compelled all persons holding office in Church or State to swear to obey the queen rather than the pope. At the same time the forty-two articles of Cranmer's creed were cut down to the "thirty-nine articles," which, with slight revision, still remain the English standard of belief. Thus Elizabeth had been forced from the ground on which her father stood to the advanced position of Edward. Mary Stuart caught a new inspiration from the news of Catholic oppression in England. She had not asserted her own religion in Scotland, but she now gained strength w^ith English papists by marrying her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who, next to Mary herself, was the presumptive heir of Elizabeth. The fruit of their union was the boy James Stuart, who eventually united on his own head the crowns of the two kingdoms. His birth brought fresh anxieties to Elizabeth, while it doubled the courage of the Catholics. 9 194 An Outline History of England. But Mary proceeded toward her aim with suicidal recklessness. Her husband, Darnley, a vile fellow at best, had won her loathing by murdering, in her own palace, one David Rizzio, an Italian, in whom she trusted much. Before the next year closed the house in which her husband slept was blown to pieces with gunpowder, and Darnley's body was found near the ruins. " Black " Bothwell, for whom she had a guilty love, was accused of the murder, and many be- lieved that Mary was not innocent. Bothwell's trial was a farce, and his marriage with the queen, which followed close- ly upon his acquittal, ended their career in Scotland. A na- tional uprising drove Bothwell from the kingdom. Mary was deposed and imprisoned at Lochleven, and her babe was crowned as James VI. of Scotland, with her half-brother, James Douglas, the Protestant earl of Murray, regent. After a few months she fled from her captors, and would have renewed the struggle, but was outwitted by Murray's vigilance. By an act which proved her genius she turned, and entered England (May, 1568), not with an army, but as a queen in distress, seeking to be restored to her Scottish throne. What to do with the Queen of Scots was the question which puzzled the English government for nineteen years to come. The regent Murray was gladly rid of her, and re- fused to take her back unless she would submit to trial for murder and adultery. This she declined to do, and England could not force a Catholic sovereign upon a country so thoroughly Protestant as Scotland had become under the fierce preaching of John Knox and the Calvinists. Mary next demanded safe conduct to the Continent. But from France or Spain she would have plotted with advantage against England. At that very moment the duke of Alva, a general of Philip of Spain, was massacring the Protestants of the Low Countries with a merciless zeal which has left his deeds the standard with which such acts of horror are The Later Tudors. 195 compared. His presence gave hope to the English Catholics, menaced the Huguenots, and challenged English Protestants to succor their suffering brothers in the faith. Elizabeth could do nothing with safety, and she did nothing whatever. She would not give up Mary for Scottish trial, nor try her in England, nor conduct her into France, nor set her on her throne, nor admit her right, or that of her son, to succeed to the throne of England. She shut her up in Bolton castle and held her a prisoner. Conspiracies soon came to light among the Catholic nobles of England, who found the royal captive a personal center for their plots. The pope launched his most terrible weapon, the Bull of Deposition (1569), absolving Elizabeth's subjects from their obedience. In 1570 the duke of Norfolk, who had previously proposed marriage with the Queen of Scots as the prelude to a papist rising, became involved in a new plot: Philip II. was to send 10,000 men of Alva's army to aid in putting Mary in Elizabeth's seat. This conspiracy, known from the name of its agent as " Ridolfi's Plot," was discovered by Lord Burleigh's detectives. Its English accomplices were arrested, and Norfolk was beheaded (June, 1572). As the excommunication inspired Elizabeth's enemies, it aroused her also to more stringent measures against all persons refusing to worship in the legal manner. These recusants were of two classes. Besides the Romanists, who objected to the reforms in the service, there were the Puri- tans, who complained that the reform stopped too soon. They accepted the teachings of John Calvin and the extreme Protestants and were dissatisfied because the English Church retained the rule of bishops, the surplice for the priests, and relics of the Roman ritual. These people did not wish to withdraw from the communion, but they were clamorously in favor of purifying the Church of which they remained a part. For their efforts in this direction they got the derisive 196 An Outline History of England. nickname "Puritans." Puritans and Catholics were alike excluded from Elizabeth's scheme of uniformity, and the Court of High Commission, which she created in 1583 to try ecclesiastical causes, soon had its docket crowded. Punishment by fines and imprisonment failed to check Puritanism. Toward the close of the reign it advanced a stage farther, and the extreme Puritans stayed away from church altogether, worshiping by themselves out of doors, and in dwellings, barns or warehouses. They were called Separatists and Independents, and some of these sects gained peculiar names or denominations, as the "Brownists," who fol- lowed the Congregational teachings of one Robert Brown. While the rise of new sects showed activity in one school of religious thought, the work of the Jesuits in En- gland exhibited the zeal of the opposing party. The Catholic leaders perceived that their religion must eventually lose its hold upon the mind and heart of the common people, for the old priests were with few exceptions conforming to the re- formed order or being displaced by Anglican clergymen. The universities had come so thoroughly under Protestant influence that they no longer recruited the priesthood. Ac- cordingly zealous English Catholics founded a school at Douay on the continent — another was soon planted at Rome — for the training of Englishmen to preach the Catholic re- ligion in the island. These "seminary priests" were men of unusual, even fanatical, enthusiasm for the work to which they devoted their lives. It was declared treasonable to land or shelter the new teachers. Parsons and Campian were the first Jesuits to brave the law (1580). They traveled in disguise, preached in secret, and did effectively reclaim Catholics of high and low degree who would otherwise have drifted into con- formity. The strict enforcement of the laws against them deterred them no more than Mary's burnings had dismayed the Protestants. Campian died a traitor's death, and several The Later Tudors. 197 hundred priests and teachers suffered a like fate, and were revered as martyrs, even as their persecutors reverenced Latimer and Ridley and the other stout-hearted victims of Smithfield and Oxford lires. After the death of Norfolk Elizabeth had respite for a brief time. Her cousin Mary remained in custody, still proud and hopeful, renouncing none of her claims, and still the hope of all Catholics who yearned for the liberation of England. Strange news came from the Continent. A dozen dangerous years had passed and Elizabeth had until now staved off the necessity of answering that hard question of a royal mar- riage. Neither France nor Spain could yet free its hands from home affairs long enough to deal out to England the chastisement which the pope had ordered. France, after a long struggle with her Huguenots, had given them peace, and raised Coligny, their hero, to a hii^h place in the gov- ernment. In 1562 the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day had renewed the war, by the slaughter of from 25,000 to 100,000 French Protestants. In the Netherlands Alva had made the land sweat blood and gold until, in 1572, the Dutch of both religions under William of Orange ("the Silent") united to gain their independence. Thus both France and Spain were plunged into new wars, while England throve in consequence of the turmoil abroad. As the nation grew in wealth and in unity it was swept by new enthusiasms. The cheap books which had followed the invention of printing, the resultant mental awakening, the penetrating force of the Reformation which stirred all men to their depths, all these were bearing fruit in a gen- eration of brilliant Englishmen. Great exploits were re- warded at Elizabeth's court, and among her courtiers were many doers of great deeds. Although there was no open war with Spain there was the bitterest hatred and the overhang- ing certainty that, once freed from its entanglements in Hol- land, the whole force of the Spanish monarchy would descend 198 An Outline History of England. upon the Protestant island. This was enough for the young Englishmen, who could not sit quietly at their school-books while the " sea beggars " of Holland were harassing the Spanish galleons. Philip's possessions in America were so wealthy and so vast that they formed a rich and defenseless prey for English buccaneers. They plundered the cities of the SpanisTi main, captured the treasure-ships, darted into Spanish harbors and cut out rich prizes under the guns of frowning forts. Sir Francis Drake, one of the boldest of these lawless sailors, had faced worse perils than Philip's gibbet. His was the first English ship in the Pacific Ocean, and his little vessel was the first to make the long voyage around the world. Men of like daring were Davis and Frobisher, who explored the icy channels of America in vain quest for a " north-west passage " to India. John Hawkins, slave-trader, was another, and one of the queen's favorites. The depredations of men like Drake hastened the out- break of war with Spain. The queen accepted the inevit- able. The Netherlander were fainting in their struggle against the strongest State in Europe. William, their hero, was dead — killed by an assassin (1584), and France and Philip had formed the "League" (1585), to keep the Huguenot, Henry of Navarre, from the French throne, and to put an end to Dutch Protestantism. The union of the two Catholic countries terminated England's neutrality. However reluctant to risk the fortunes of war, the instinct of self-preservation, which had maintained a nominal peace for nearly thirty years, now prompted the queen to vigorous action. Two kingdoms would turn upon England the moment their bloody work in Holland was completed. Before the end of the year 6,000 English troops landed in the Low Countries under command of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, the handsome but worthless courtier to whom Elizabeth showed favor. But the gay man of courts fared ill against Philip's general, Alexander, Duke of Parma. The Later Tudors. 199 Town after town was taken by the Spaniards, and after the defeat of Zutphen, Leicester came home in disgrace. On the field of Zutphen fell that pure and courteous knight, Sir Philip Sidney. Every east wind which brought ships across the channel bore tidings of danger to Elizabeth. Her succors had not helped the Hollanders; Henry of Navarre, to whom she paid a begrudged subsidy, could scarcely hold his own against the League; and there was rumor, and unmistakable evi- dence, too, of new conspiracies among the Catholic refugees upon the Continent. Sir Francis Walsingham, the queen's secretary, scrutinized this news searchingly; his spies were every where, and little escaped his vision. There were con- spiracies and conspiracies, but the center of each, willingly or unwillingly, was the royal prisoner, Mary Stuart. In 1556 the threads of a Catholic plot, of which one Anthony Babington held the English end, were found and followed up. Yet Walsingham gave no sign until the evi- dence of Mary's guilt was complete. Babington was appre- hended and executed; but Elizabeth hesitated to do violence to her Scottish prisoner. Due regard for her own safety left no alternative. A special court tried, condemned, and sen- tenced the Queen of Scots for treasonable connection with Babington's plot " for the hurt, death, and destruction of the royal person." Even then, although she had signed the death warrant, Elizabeth would not order its execution, leaving that duty to her secretary. On February 8, 1587, Mary Stuart was beheaded in the court of Fotheringay castle, bequeathing to Philip of Spain her enmity to Eliza- beth and her claims to the English crown. Philip was ready to move. For months his fleets had been building and assembling for the conquest of England and the Netherlands. Drake, plunging into Cadiz (1587), put back the preparations, and, as the rough sailor said, " gave the Spanish king's beard a singe." But in 1588 the League had 200 An Outline History of England. won a notable triumph over the Huguenots, and the duke of Parma had arranged matters in the Spanish Netherlands so that he, with 17,000 men, could be spared for heavy work in England. In May, 1588, "the most fortunate and invin- cible Armada " — so the Spaniards named their fleet — set sail on its double errand of invasion and conversion. The pope gave his blessing to the expedition as heaven's chosen instru- ment for the chastisement and redemption of the apostate realm. The duke of Medina-Sidonia commanded the ar- mament, which was thus made up: " 132 ships, manned by 8,766 sailors and 2,088 galley-slaves, and carrying 21,555 soldiers, as well as 300 monks and inquisitors." The navy of England numbered 34 vessels, most of them light and lightly armed. But volunteers, who had proved their ability in storm and sea-fight, soon swelled the fleet of the admiral, Lord Howard, to more than twice that number. With him were Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins, and other hearts of oak, who were not unused to meeting Spaniards on the high seas. These gathered in Plymouth Sound to await the cautious enemy. At Tilbury fort the English volunteers, Catholic and Protestant and Puritan, mustered in throng- ing companies, and flung their caps in the air when Elizabeth Tudor rode among them, and with a few queenly words exhorted them to resist the foreigner : "Inra come among you, resolved in the midst and heat of battle to live or die among you all. I know that I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England too ! " On Friday, July 19, the Armada was sighted off the Lizard, and on Saturday Howard went out, not to meet but to follow the foe. Until July 27 the Englishmen hung upon the flanks and rear of the great crescent-shaped Spanish fleet, attacking straggling or disabled vessels and maneuvering for delay. On the 28th, at midnight, eight English fire ships bore down upon the Spanish vessels crowded in Calais roads. In the con- The Later Tudors. 201 fusion which ensued Lord Howard gave battle. All day Mon- day, the 29th, the English, reinforced by new arrivals, fought for their queen, their country, their religion. When their powder was almost gone the " invincible Armada " gave up the battle and steered northward with a fair south wind. Howard gave chase for several days; a great storm com- pleted the destruction. The coasts of Norway, Scotland, and Ireland were strewn with wreckage, for the Spaniards, cut off from retreat through Dover Strait*, made the home- ward voyage around Great Britain. In October Philip's shattered fleet dropped anchor in the harbors whence it had sailed in pomp five months before. Fourscore vessels and 20,000 men who sailed with the armada never came back. "I sent them forth," said the phlegmatic king, "against man, not against the ocean," and he thanked God for the power to send a larger armament. England returned heart-felt thanks to God for her deliverance. Philip's attacks on England were ended. His far-reaching plans remained unfulfilled. England now struck back at Spain. In 1589 Norris and Drake descended upon Corunna with a fleet and army; their small success was followed by a failure to take the city of Lisbon. With this fleet went Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, who, but twenty-two years old, had succeeded Leicester, lately dead (1588), in the favor of the maiden queen. Despite this useless expedition priva- teers continued to play havoc with Spanish commerce. While Philip's authority upon the seas declined he saw his other plans collapse. The popularity and finally the apos- tasy of Henry of Navarre to Catholicism gave him the crown of France as Henry IV., and shut out Spanish influ- ence. The death of the duke of Parma left the Netherlands unpacified, and so they continued until 1607, when their freedom was acknowledged. Philip himself was then nine years dead. He had died in 1598, at the age of seventy-one. The dispersion of the Armadi lifted a cloud that had 9* 202 An Outline History of England. hung over England for a quarter of a century. The undis- puted power of Spain was broken. Protestant England took her place among the leading nations of the world. The sagacity, the patience, the diplomacy, and finally the courage, of Elizabeth, Burleigh, Bacon, and Walsingham had foiled the domestic plots of the Catholics, had postponed and in the end repulsed the onslaught of Catholic Spain. Relieved of" her fears England sprang forward with an exultant bound. Men were eager for opportunities to win renown for their country and their queen. Essex, the new favorite, captured the Spanish port of Cadiz in the last years of Philip. Raleigh pounced upon one of the Azores Islands, and Elizabeth sent him to jail for the affront to her pet commander. Ireland rose in revolt. This kingdom, long divided and chaotic, had found a point of union. The English Parlia- ment had established by law the Protestant religion in Ireland. The Irish were absolutely opposed to the new faith, and the attempt to force it upon them pressed them into a com- pact nation. The corrective measures of England failed ut- terly. The colonies of Englishmen, who were settled upon confiscated lands, formed communities separated from their Irish neighbors by a fierce hatred. Spain aided, and the pope blessed, every insurrection of the Catholic Irish. Essex, who was Elizabeth's choice for every arduous task, was sent to quell the revolt of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone. His failure led to his disgrace at court, and his audacious attempts to save his head aroused the wrath of the aged queen. She approved the sentence of treason which was passed upon him, and he was executed February 25, 1601. Lord Mount joy, who suc- ceeded him in Ireland, firmly but mercilessly crushed the rebellion, and established English laws, language, and cus- toms at the point of the sword. The position of Parliament in Elizabeth's reign is worthy of mention. She did not neglect it altogether, as most of her Tudor predecessors had done, but it did not often oppose her. The Later Tudors. 203 Her Test Act excluded the Catholic members, who might have formed an obstructive force, and the common danger of queen and nation, and the prevalent belief that her policy was the best for all, doubtless smoothed her path. Moreover, her thrift and her love of peace spared her those constant appeals for money which always aroused the op- position of the people. Yet the national spirit, which grew with the successes of Elizabeth, asserted itself in the House of Commons. A part of the royal revenues was derived from monopolies of salt, wines, and other commodities. By patent from the sovereign the sole right to deal in these articles was granted to individuals or corporations, con- ditioned upon the payment of a " royalty" to the government. These taxes became so oppressive that in 1601 the Commons indignantly protested, and the queen gracefully yielded to them and revoked her patents. , Many charters for trade in America and in Asia were granted during this reign, and on the last day of the fifteenth century an association of London merchants was chartered as the East India Company, the corporation which con- quered, and for a time controlled, the British Indian Empire. In the last years of her life the famous queen became fret- ful and nervous; she who had known no fear kept a sword continually in her chamber, and at times thrust it through the hangings in quest of a concealed assassin. The counselors who had stood with her through the perilous passage died one by one in the years of triumph. Robert Cecil, son of the good Lord Burleigh, became her chief secretary, and he it was who told, from the signs which she made on her death- bed, that she would have as her successor James VI., King of Scotland, the son of her enemy, Mary Stuart. Elizabeth Tudor died at Richmond, March 24, 1603, in the seventieth year of her age. The reign of " Good Queen Bess " is reckoned the golden age of England. In the galaxy of great names which shine 204 Ax Outline History of England. upon its records, and amid the glories of its close, one is likely to forget the trials, the long-drawn suspense, of its first thirty years. Had space allowed this chapter might have been ex- tended with the literary history of this Elizabethan period. In his dramas Shakespeare exemplified the spirit of his time, and he makes his character, John of Gaunt, say of the England of Henry V. what every patriot thought of the En- gland of Elizabeth : " This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, derai-paradise ; This fastness built by nature for hereelf Against infection, and the hand of war ; This happy breed of men, this little world ; This precious stone, set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall. Or as a moat defensive to a house Against the envy of less happier lands. The Stuart Tyranny. 205 CHAPTER XII. THE STUART TYRANNY. 1603 A. D.-1649 A. D. FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TO THE EXECUTION' OF CHARLES I. By the will of Henry VIII. Elizabeth's successor was to be taken from the family of his younger sister, the Duchess of Suffolk; but at Elizabeth's death the late king's wishes were disregarded, and the royal council proclaimed the king of Scotland king of England also. James I. (James VI. of Scotland) was the only son of Mary Stuart and that Lord Darnley whose murder drove her from her kingdom. In his earliest childhood James Stuart had been titular king of Scots, and for a number of years he had been the real ruler of the northern kingdom. His Catholic mother had no voice in his education, which was thoroughly Protestant. Weak and ungainly physically, idle, and slovenly in manner, the king had a mind of considerable keenness. He was especially learned in theology — " the wisest fool in Chris- tendom," sneered Henry of Navarre — and was inordinately proud of his acquirements. A man of such parts — physical cowardice was a marked feature of his character, and a Scotch brogue marred his speech — cut a sorry figure in the eyes of the English people, which had been filled for fourscore years with the kingly figures of "bluff king Hal," and "good queen Bess." The Puritan agitation was the first subject which was brought to King James's attention. As he passed southward toward London (1603), the "Millenary Petition," signed by 1,000 Puritan pastors (in reality only 800), was offered to him. It urged him to revise the doctrines and rules of the 20G Ax Outline History of England. English Church so as to purify the ecclesiastical system from the lingering taint of Romanism. It will be remembered that the reformers of Edward VI. 's reign — Cranmer and his supporters — were the high officers of the Church, enlightened men, who introduced changes more rapidly than the com- mon people were ready to receive them. Hence the Catholic reaction under Mary had been easy. During the long reign of Elizabeth, two generations had lived. The Bible had be- come the one household book in thousands of families, and its influence had contributed to an enormous growth of the Puritans. The situation of Edward's reign was now reversed. The bishops, appointed by the crown, were conservative, pledged to maintain the established Church, and subject to rebuke and sharp discipline if lenient toward the Puritans; the people, on the other hand, with many of the lesser clergy, were strongly Puritanical, and to King James they came with their petition. The petitioners had their trouble and something worse for their pains. In 1604 the king summoned four Puritans to a conference at Hampton Court with eighteen prelates of the Church. This famous conference refused the reforms for which the petitioners prayed; and the king, after a savage de- nunciation of Presbyterian government (a bitter taste of which he brought from home), ordered the bishops to compel their clergy to conform strictly to the rules of the Church. Star Chamber court declared that signers of the great petition were guilty of misdemeanor, and ten of them were imprisoned. Three hundred Puritan preachers were expelled from their livings for failing to obey the rules at which their consciences rebelled. The measures against the "Independents" — those extreme Puritans who, despairing of reform within the Church, had Left it altogether — drove some of them out of the country, and one of these little bands of refugees, having so- journed a time in Holland, took ship in the 31ayflo>cer in 1620, to found a new England with "freedom to worship The Stuart Tyranny. 207 God." The translation of the Bible, King James's version, was authorized by the Hampton Court conference and pub- lished in 1611. The first Parliament of the reign assembled in March 1604, and its sessions marked the beginning of a new era. The dearest dogma of this theorizing monarch was " the divine right of the king to rule." He had declared his views upon this subject in Scotland, and he lost no opportunity to impress them upon his English subjects. He denied that the nation was the source of law and of kingly power. His authority, he declared, was from heaven, and his prerogative was above the law, which he might of his own will alter as the welfare of his people required. This was " Divine Right of Kings," a novel theory, and one which the nation would not tolerate. Its continued re-assertion, and the tyrannies that sprang from its practical application, led to a life-long struggle between the king and Parliament ; a struggle which the former be- queathed to his son and successor, and which ended in the execution of King Charles I. and the establishment of the English commonwealth. A spirit of resolute independence was evident in the first Parliament of James. He asked it to sanction a close union of England and Scotland, which had now separate govern- ments under the same king. This they refused, and the king, in turn, slighted their wish to concede the Puritan demands for reform. The first session of Parliament closed fruitlessly. The session of 1605 narrowdy missed a tragic opening. James had promised to relieve the Catholics of the heaviest burdens with which Elizabeth's reiem had weighted them, but his ear soon caught whispers of Catholic plots against him and he broke his promises. Another and a more deadly conspiracy was hatched in 1605. Robert Catesby and a few desperate papists planned to blow up the Parliament build- ings on the day of the joint assembly of the two Houses to hear the king's opening speech. The cellar of the building 208 An Outline History of England. was stocked with gunpowder, and all plans were in readi- ness to massacre in a moment king, princes, lords, and com- mons. Guy Fawkes, an Englishman who had served in the Spanish army, had charge of the details of the murderous project. November 5 was the day for the king to meet the two Houses; but the secret transpired at the last moment. On the evening of November 4 Fawkes was arrested among his powder kegs; the other conspirators incontinently fled. Fawkes and others were executed, and November 5, the day of the " Gunpowder Treason," was long celebrated by English Protestants. The question of crown revenues, for which Elizabeth's thrift had found ready solution, kept her successor in con- tinual trouble. His expensive household, his pensions, and his foreign diplomacy used up vast sums. The only lawful way by which an English king could raise money was by taxation voted by the representatives of the people in Parliament. James had found Parliament a two-edged sword, which he feared to handle. Without asking its consent he accordingly laid a tax, or "imposition," upon currants and tobacco. One Bate, an importer of currants, refused to pay, and was tried before the Court of Exchequer. The judges gave the startling opinion that the king, as regulator of commerce and foreign affairs, might lawfully lay and collect such customs duties. This angered Parliament. In 1610 James offered to relin- quish certain feudal rights of the crown, in return for an annual grant of £200,000. But the haggling over this * Great Contract" disgusted both parties, and the king dis- solved Parliament, hoping to pay his way by means of the hated impositions. But the way was hard, and after footing it for three years he summoned a second Parliament in 1614. The Commons refused to grant a farthing until the king should redress their grievances by renouncing the impositions and purifying the Church. After the deadlock had lasted a month James ordered the Commons to go home, whereupon The Stuart Tyranny. 209 the "Addled Parliament" dissolved without enacting a single law. Among the participants in that stormy session were John Eliot and Thomas Wentworth, memorable names in the history of the constitutional struggle of the following reign. Their first lesson in Parliamentary opposition was brief, and they did not soon learn a second ; seven years elapsed before the king's third Parliament was summoned. Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, and son of that Baron Burleigh who had given Elizabeth a life of faithful service, was the first adviser of the king, and the only real minister that James tolerated. Lord Bacon, his chancellor, gave his advice unheeded. After Cecil's death James cultivated favorites in the place of counselors. The first was a page of the court, one Robert Carr, a young Scot, who had neither ability nor character. James made him his companion and private secretary, loaded him with wealth and honors, and created him earl of Somerset. Within the space of two years Somerset ruined himself by his misconduct. The king's par- don saved his life, but another young man, George Yilliers, better known by his later title, duke of Buckingham, had gained the favor of the king. His wealth soon surpassed that of his predecessor, for the king intrusted to him the distribution of oftices and peerages, and his purse was stuffed with enormous bribes. " Steenie," as the king called Buck- ingham, was a handsome, genial fellow, with fine taste for art, and very poor morals, whether public or private. The death of the Prince of Wales left the younger son, Charles, heir-apparent to the crown, and to him the favorite attached himself, even more closely than to the father. Meanwhile James followed his own will in the administra- tion of the realm. The all-important question of revenue was variously met. The impositions were increased, but they proved insufficient. A " benevolence " was asked, but only a small sum resulted. " Baronets," a new order of nobility, were created, and patents of this new rank, and seats in the 210 Ax Outline History of England. House of Lords were sold for ready money. The effort of the king to interfere with the proceedings of the law courts was resisted by the chief-justice, Sir Edward Coke, and that great lawyer was dismissed from the bench (1616). The lawless extortions of the crown were repeated by the offi- cials of the court. Buckingham's wealth was the result of bribery. Judges received no salaries, and a premium was thus placed upon official corruption. In 1621 Lord Bacon himself, "the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind," the chancellor of the realm, was impeached by the House of Commons for taking bribes. He acknowledged that he had received money from suitors, but declared that the payments had not influenced his decisions. The Lords condemned him, and he retired from office to devote the remaining years of his life to the study of philosophy. The Parliament which condemned Lord Bacon was called for a very different purpose — one which brings the student to the perverse foreign policy of the Stuart kings. Elizabeth's reign had indisputably proved one thing — that England was the natural leader of Protestant Europe against Spain, the champion of papistry. The first armed conflict of the two religions had settled this. France and the Netherlands had furnished the battle-ground for that struggle. After a genera- tion a fresh outbreak was imminent, and Germany was to be the stage of action. England was Protestant, but the willful king believed that an alliance with Spain would restrain both countries from the war, and insure a European peace. To confirm the amity of the naturally distrustful nations he proposed (1617) that Prince Charles should wed Isabella, the Spanish infanta. Before the death of the cautious Cecil Charles's sister Eliza- beth had married Frederick, the Elector Palatine, the leader of the German Protestants. James thought the best way to protect her and her children was to ally himself to Spain, the leading Catholic State. To this design he sacrificed Sir The Stuart Tyranny. 211 "Walter Raleigh, whose deeds in South America made him odious to Spain. The negotiation of the Spanish marriage proceeded slowly. The English denounced it, and Spain stipulated that the English Catholics should worship unmolested. The parley- ings were disturbed by the clash of arms in Germany. Bohemia called King James's son-in-law Frederick to its throne, expelling King Ferdinand, the Catholic relative of the Spanish king. This revolt opened the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). Frederick accepted the offered title, but maintained his position only a few months. The Catholic League drove him from Bohemia, and the Spaniards occupied his home dominions in the Palatinate (1620). A small force of English volunteers set out to aid the Elector, with the permission of James, and in 1621 the third Parliament was summoned to grant supplies for a war in •Germany. When the Commons found that the king wanted supplies first, but would give no definite plan of war, their ardor cooled. They voted a meager sum, but pledged them- selves to aid the king with their fortunes and their lives if he would adopt a war policy in earnest. Still he temporized with Spain, and while the last shreds of his son-in-law's power were being seized by the Catholics he still swam about the tempting bait of the Spanish marriage. At its second session this Parliament of 1621 sent a committee to ask the king to declare war on Spain. The monarch Avas furious. "Bring stools for these embassadors," he cried, when the commoners made known their errand, and he bade them meddle no more with affairs of State. To this the House entered its Protesta- tion, solemnly and prayerfully declaring " that the liberties of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England, and that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the king, state and defense of the realm, and of the Church of England, and the making and maintenance of laws and redress of grievances . . . are 212 An Outline History of England. proper subjects of debate in Parliament." With his own hand the king tore the Protestation from the journal of the House, and a few days later ordered the dissolution of his third Parliament. The shameful quiescence of England in the presence of the suffering German Protestant States aroused James to a final effort to vindicate his foreign policy. In 1623 Buckingham and Prince Charles set out together for Madrid to bring about the marriage which had been delayed so long. They were richly entertained at Madrid, but every obstacle was placed in the way of the match. The Infanta was averse to a "heretic" husband, and the Spanish king and the pope devised all manner of iron-clad oaths to compel King James to re-open the way for the conversion of England to Catholicism. Charles promised to fulfill them all, but even then the marriage was delayed. Thwarted in his design to bring the Infanta to England as his bride, the prince returned alone in 1624 and broke off the en^ao-ement. James despaired of the Spanish alliance and summoned a fourth Parliament (1624) to prepare for war with Spain in defense of his daughter Elizabeth. But the Commons were wary of the king's purposes and chary of supplies ; they made a small appropriation and then rested to observe the movements of the king. His heart was fixed upon marry- ing Charles to a princess who should secure to England a Catholic ally on the Continent. Urged on by the favorite Buckingham he selected the Princess Henrietta Maria of France, and signed a marriage treaty which granted sub- stantial liberties to English Catholics. With such an unpopular deed to answer for it was folly to ask Parliament for money. Buckingham undertook to open hostilities without an appropriation, but the twelve thousand English- men who crossed to the Continent for the campaign (1625) under Count Mansfield were decimated by disease. In the midst of these disasters James died, March 27, 1625. The Stuart Tyranny. 213 Charles Stuart immediately succeeded his father as Charles I. of England. Courtly presence, pleasing address, dignity of manner, and cultivated tastes combined to recommend him to the English, who had turned in disgust from the boorish James. In his household, as in society, Charles was a polished gentleman, but in his theory of kingly power he was a tyrant. The principles of absolute authority in which James believed were inherited by the son, and practiced with a persistency, which led to war, dethronement, death. The newly-crowned king revived the hopes of the nation. His hatred of Spain and zeal for his sister Elizabeth promised that England should soon resume her place among the Protest- ant nations. Parliament was summoned, and asked to appro- priate sums for the prosecution of the war, which Buckingham had begun with Mansfield's wretched fiasco in Holland. But a few months had altered the temper of the nation. Two months before (May, 1625) the king had married the French princess, Henrietta Maria. It was suspected that the mar- riage was a prelude to a milder attitude of the government toward the English Catholics. Until the monarch should declare his intentions the Commons would not satisfy his demands. They voted him one sixth of the desired amount; but the tonnage and poundage duties, heretofore granted for the lifetime of the sovereign, were assigned to Charles for one year only. This Parliament was dissolved two months after its first meeting. Before a year had passed a second obstinate Parliament had met and been sent to its homes (February to June, 1626). The Commons were intractable. Led by Sir John Eliot they defied the king's claims to absolute power. When he cast Eliot and Digges into prison their colleagues refused to tran- sact business until the members were released. They even voted to impeach Buckingham for his crimes; but before they could bring the favorite to trial Charles ordered their dissolution. 214 An Outline History of England. Two years had passed; two Parliaments had come and gone without filling the royal purse. The half-hearted war with Spain was a total failure. To conciliate the Protestants, the king now broke the pledges of Catholic toleration by which he now bound himself to France in the marriage treaty. Cardinal Richelieu was the statesman who directed the policy of Louis XIII., the French king. Late in 162G war broke out between the two countries. The independent Hugue- not sea-port of Rochelle — "proud city of the waters" — was besieged by the French, and Buckingham's expedition for its relief (1C27) ended in inglorious defeat. "Since En- gland was England it had not received so dishonorable a blow." The money for the war was raised by a " forced loan " which was manifestly illegal. Men who refused to con- tribute were imprisoned without trial. Among them was John Hampden, a country squire, who said he did not be- grudge the money, but he dared not incur the curse of Magna Charta by disobedience of its rules. Five of the prisoners asked for trial on a writ of habeas corpus, but the servile judges buttressed the royal power by declaring that it was the king's to say whether or not men should be tried. This decision broke another provision of the Great Charter. One after another the hard-won liberties of the English- men were being extinguished by the monarch. The third Parliament of this reign met in March, 1628. Sir John Eliot, according to whose theory the king was the servant of Parliament, was its chief orator and most uncom- promising leader. Sir Thomas Wentworth, keen and prac- tical, but of aristocratic ideas, stood with Eliot. In the rank and file of the House were John Hampden, John Pym, Denzil Holies, and another country squire, a cousin of the "stiff- necked " Hampden — Oliver Cromwell, of the straitest sect of the Puritans. Such earnest men did not wait for another to open the sub- The Stuart Tyranny. 215 ject which was uppermost in all minds. With zealous care they drew up a " Petition of Right," reciting the hitherto acknowledged liberties of the kingdom, and the divers man- ners in which they had been trampled upon by the House of Stuarts. Four especially odious acts were specified : the lay- ing of taxes without consent of Parliament, the billeting of troops upon private families, the employment of martial law in time of peace, and the imprisonment of citizens without specified accusation. Charles was reluctant to accept this document which proposed to curtail his authority, but he was in sad financial straits, and his fawning judges told him that the execution of the parliamentary proposals might be prevented by the courts. With extensive mental res- ervations he set his signature to the bill, and received in compensation an abundant subsidy from his delighted Commons. But the Commons followed up their victory by another assault upon the favorite. " We will perish together," said King Charles. But Buckingham fell first. He was at Portsmouth, superintending the embarkation of the forces with which he hoped to retrieve his fortunes at Rochelle, when John Felton, a fanatical lieutenant, incited by motives of revenge and patriotism, stabbed him to the heart. While Parliament was training its guns on the throne for its unlawful taxes and its High Church sympathies, the king did his best to control its deliberation. The presiding officer, Speaker Finch, had royal orders — which motions to entertain and when to adjourn. The Commons grew restive under this interference. They took counsel over Sunday what to do. On Monday, March 2, 1629, they met, with their minds made up. Mr. Speaker had the king's command to adjourn forthwith, but the House would not adjourn. When Finch would have left the chair young Holies and another held him in his seat, swearing " he shall sit there till it please the House to rise." The doors were hastily barred and Eliot's 216 An Outline History of England. voice rang out above die tumult. He moved, amid the as- senting shouts of the Commons, three resolutions, stating plainly that whoever introduced new religious opinions or services, whoever advised the levy of unparliamentary taxes, and whoever voluntarily paid such taxes, was an enemy of England. A few days later (March 10) this Parliament was dissolved. Sir John Eliot, Holies, and other actors in that famous scene were arrested; when Eliot died of consumption in the Tower (1632) the spiteful king refused his body to his mourning family. Three Parliaments had now brought forth only trouble — the third more than the first — and King Charles concluded that much unpleasantness might be avoided by having no more Parliaments in which these irreverent Puritans meddled with affairs of Church and State. For eleven years, accord- ingly (1629-1640), the king summoned them no more. Three men were his main reliance in the period of personal govern- ment which now opened: Wentworth, Laud, and Weston. Sir Thomas Wentworth, Eliot's former colleague, had become a royalist in 1628, and by successive promotions attained the rank of earl of Strafford. He was president of the Council of the North, which administered the government of the north- ern counties, and in civil matters was a royal and faithful counselor. William Laud was bishop of London, and was a Churchman of the narrowest type. Within his diocese he allowed no deviation from the established rules, and when (1633) his elevation to the archbishopric of Canterbury made all England his parish he enforced the laws of conformity mercilessly upon the Puritans. Weston, the Lord Treasurer, played a subordinate part, though it was his financial ability, the fertility and audacity of his invention which furnished the means by which the unparliamentary rule was supported. To save expense he persuaded his master to make peace with both France and Spain (1630). "Thorough" was Strafford's name for his system of ad- The Stuart Tyranny. 217 ministration. A definite purpose — to achieve good govern- ment by strengthening the power of the king — ruled all his movements, and in Laud he found a willing and efficient co- adjutor. Together they set about the administration of Church and State in such high-handed fashion that, between tax-gathers and clergy, the Puritans had no peace. In 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Colony was chartered by a company of Englishmen in quest of religious liberty. Salem and Boston were founded in the following year. The tide of em- igration ebbed and flowed in sympathy with the vigor or re- laxation of Wentworth and Laud, but it never entirely ceased, and within a dozen years from the issue of the char- ter, 20,000 English Puritans left the mother country for the New England wilderness. The problem of revenue was of all the most immediate and puzzling. The illegal tonnage and poundage customs fur- nished a portion ; extensive monopolies of commodities fed another financial stream; land-holders were knighted and made to pay for the enforced honor; obsolete feudal fines and dues to the crown were revived and collected; Catholics paid well for staying away from church. The court of Star Chamber, wherein the king's judges and counselors gave judgment without jury, was the treasurer's instrument of oppression in the.se matters. The need of a fleet to protect commerce put a new idea into the heads of the king's ministers. An ancient practice of commanding the maritime counties to furnish ships for the navy was revived. The next year (1636) it was ex- tended. The inland counties as well were ordered to pay a new tax, " ship-money," to be used in furnishing forth the fleet. Servile judges pronounced the levy legitimate, and the government thought that deliverance from its hardships had dawned at last. If this tax were lawful why summon another Parliament? John Hampden, of Buckinghamshire, com- prehended the importance of the principle, and almost alone 10 218 An Outline History of England. took stand against it. He was not a poor man, but he would not pay the twenty shillings of ship-money which the royal commissioners levied on him (1637). Try him they might before the royal Exchequer Court, and convict him they did (163S), but not until the nation had gained courage from the knowledge that one patriot had not bowed his neck to the scepter. Hampden was applauded; his slavish judges were reviled. But the new shackles which the ship-money decision placed upon English freemen increased the numbers who longed for rest. A ro}^al j)rohibition checked the emigration to New England. What the Star Chamber court was to the civil government the court of High Commission was to Archbishop Laud in his zeal for the Church. Not uniform opinions, but outward conformity to the Church laws, was his aim, and in attaining it he was as thorough as Strafford could wish. For the numerous body of thoughtful Puritan Englishmen, whose conscience rebelled at the capes, the robes, the cross- ings, bowings, and kneelings of the Church service, Laud had neither sympathy nor mercy. "With absolute intoler- ance he drove Puritan ministers from their pulpits, forced the established worship upon unwilling congregations, mak- ing it even more outrageous to Calvinists by innovations which, in their sensitive nostrils, savored of ever-dreaded Rome. " Dr. Alabaster preached flat popery," said young Mr. Cromwell to the Commons. Not only were non-conformist preachers cast out, but laymen suffered for lapses in morals and attacks upon the clergy. William Prynne, a banister with a caustic pen, had his ears cut off for a libelous writing, ITistriomastix, condemning the theater. Other men, who condemned the Church for its loose Sabbath-keeping and its tendency toward papistry, stood in the pillory, or sat in the stocks, while the common people stood by pitying ; for the roughest work which Laud might do could not, at short notice, shake Puritan England from its settled beliefs. The Stuart Tyranny. 219 In 1636 King Charles, who was also king of Scotland, gave Archbishop Laud permission to carry his measures of reform across the border, and bring the Scottish Kirk into uniformity with the Church of England. The Kirk had been modeled by John Knox and his fellow-Calvinists upon strict Presbyterian principles, and the general assembly, which made laws for the Church, was the head of an organization more powerful than the civil constitution of the realm. Andrew Melville, a successor of Knox, had wounded the vanity of King James by telling him that in the Scottish Kirk his majesty was " not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but only a member." Little wonder that James was charmed by contrast with the subservience of the English bishops. He upheld the Church of England against the Puritans, for fear that Puritanism would lead to Presbyterianism. The bishops he valued as a main reliance of his theory of abso- lute power, and in 1610 he forced upon the Scottish Kirk an anomalous system, bishops being appointed to preside in the Presbyterian synods. James had a wholesome fear of his canny countrymen, and he rejected Laud's early schemes to complete the re-organization of the Scottish church establish- ment. "He does not know the stomach of that people," was James Stuart's comment on the bishop's plan. Charles was less of a Scot, and knew less of the Scottish tenacity, or he would have been satisfied with his father's progress. He let Laud place the full control of the Kirk in the hands of the bishops, and force upon the Presbyterian preachers a liturgy based upon the English book of common prayer. The Scots stopped their ears rather than listen to the new service. Jenny Geddes flung her stool at the head of the bishop who held service at St. Giles's kirk, Edinburgh (July 23, 1637), and the riotous congregation yelled "A pape, a pape ! " and " Stane him ! " It was impossible to read the service-book there or elsewhere. The king raged, but the Scots organized committees — " the 220 An Outline History of England. Tables" — who, on February 28, 1638, formed the Solemn League and Covenant to recover and maintain the purity and liberty of the Gospel. To regain his slipping grasp upon his ancestral kingdom Charles sent the marquis of Hamilton to Edinburgh with concessions. A general assem- bly of the Kirk was to be held, and the service-book with- drawn. The assembly met at Glasgow, November, 1638, but Hamilton was powerless to deal with it. In defiance of him and his master, the Scottish bishops were deposed, and the whole system of Presbyterianism was re-established as it had been thirty years before. The overthrow of the royal and episcopal authority in Scotland was a serious reverse for the policy of Thorough. "With John Hampden's resistance before them, and the suc- cessful revolt of the Scottish Presbyterians for an example, the English Puritans might rise against the king — Parliament or no Parliament. Obviously the only consistent course for Charles and his archbishop was to crush the Scottish rebell- ion by force. Money was scraped together in odd ways for the. first "Bishops' War" (1639), and an army marched toward Scotland. Peace was patched up without a battle by the "Pacification of Dunse ;" but the Scots refused to id; eat from the course which had been determined in the general assembly of Glasgow. The king knew not what to do next, and the earl of Strafford hastened from Ireland to give him counsel. Strafford had been sent to Ireland in 1633 as governor (Lord Deputy), and had set up in that distracted kingdom the policy of Thorough which was his prescription for all political ills. With supreme confidence in himself and in his own wisdom he decided what would be best for the Irish; then he went to work to effect that result, using indifferently any method — persuasion, cajoling, bribery, force — which would bring him most quickly to his destination. Thus he estab- lished order in Ireland, introduced the culture of flax and The Stuart Tyranny. 221 the linen trade, summoned an Irish Parliament, and with it maintained a small standing army. In fact he exhibited on a small scale the absolutism of which Charles so fondly dreamed. It was from this successful labor that he was re- called to England in 1639. His advice was to summon Parliament. It may be that his experience with Irishmen had effaced his memories of English temper. Perhaps he turned to Parliament as the king's only hope at the present crisis. Letters had been in- tercepted which showed that Scotland and France were drawing together; possibly Strafford trusted in this disclos- ure to work the nation to the pitch of voting the money which must be had if Scotland were not to be lost. What- ever motives may have moved the king, this much is certain: a Parliament met at Westminster, April 13, 1640, and, heed- less of the intercepted letters, immediately demanded the re'dress of grievances as a prelude to the passage of the supply bills. Evidently nothing was to be done with such advisers, and on May 5, 1640, the "Short Parliament" was dissolved. Spurred on by Went worth and Laud the king renewed hostilities with Scotland — the second Bishops' War — but his untrained army fled from the field at Newburn. The Scots now demanded terras of pence and settlement, and their army encamped on English soil, prepared to march on to London to extort a treaty. Charles shrank from another conflict with the Commons; the Lords had been less insolent, perhaps they would help him now. A council of peers met in September, but their only recommendation Avas to sum- mon Parliament. He could do no other. The Scottish army was only held in its camp by his promise to pay £850 a day until a permanent settlement should be reached, and without Parliament he surely could not raise that amount of money. Writs of election were accordingly issued, and roy- alist and commoner plunged into the electoral battle. 222 An Outline History of England. John Hampden, the ship-money hero, rode through the country with John Pym, who had grown gray in resistance to the Stuart pretensions, arousing the people to their oppor- tunity to fling off" the tyranny of the crown. The king's men were beaten every-where, and the men who met at West- minster on the third of November, 1640, came with resolute purpose not to separate without placing eifective curb upon the royal power. Pym and Hampden were there — the former the leader of the Commons, its orator, its controlling spirit; the silent Cromwell was there from Cambridge town; young Holies, who had held Mr. Speaker in his great chair and been in prison for it, was there, with Lucius Carey and Edward Hyde, who, in the troublesome times ensuing, chose the king's side, and quitted Parliament, the one to become Lord Falk- land and perish in the civil wars, the other to figure as Lord Clarendon and write a ponderous royalist history of what seemed to him " Rebellion." All these and live hundred others were of that House of Commons, the most famous or infamous — according to the point of view — that ever sat in England. This was the "Long Parliament," which through many vicissitudes and adjournments, expulsions and restora- tions, existed until March 16, 1660 ; twenty years lacking eight months. All that Charles desired of Parliament w r as to furnish money to pay the Scottish army its £850 per diem, and equip an army of Englishmen. But Parliament required more from the king. It wanted to settle forever the matters of arbi- trary imprisonments, of unauthorized taxation, and of Laud's ecclesiastical innovations. It was in the main Puritan, with an infusion of Independent members. The overhanging pres- ence of the Scots in the north gave to Parliament a power over the king which was pushed to the utmost extent. The Scots would stay until the stipend should be paid. Instead of paying the Commons put the thumb-screws on the king. On the eighth day of the session they impeached the earl of The Stuart Tyranny. 223 Strafford of high treason, and a few days later Archbishop Laud was imprisoned on the same accusation. In an im- peachment trial the House of Lords sat as judges. Treason was crime against the king and the Lords objected to con- demning the king's best friend on such a charge ; so the ac- cusers hastily changed their plans and, relinquishing the trial, pushed a bill of attainder through both Houses. Charles wept like a child when the bill which was aimed at the life of his faithful supporter " as a public enemy " was given him to sign; but he signed it, and the great earl, who had trusted in his ability to establish the absolute supremacy of his mon- arch over Parliament and nation, was executed on May 12, 1641. " Put not your trust in princes," were among the last words of this aristocrat, who had put no trust in the people. The purpose of the Parliament-men was to tie the hands of the monarch until they should secure for the country the reforms which he had denied, or faithlessly promised. In February, 1641, they compelled his assent to the Triennial Act, providing that Parliament should meet every three years, whether summoned by the crown or not. There were to be no more eleven-year periods of personal rule. Two months later he consented, under pressure, to an enactment that the Parliament then in session should be neither adjourned nor dissolved without its own consent. The day of " addled " and "short" Parliaments was over; the one now in session was both brainy and protracted. Assured of their continu- ance in power, the Commons struck out boldly. Tonnage and poundage taxes were condemned, ship-money was pro- nounced unlawful, the courts of Star Chamber and High Commission by which the king had been able to cloak his tyranny with the robe of the law were abolished. This work done, the Scots were paid off and peace restored between the two kingdoms (August, 1641). Scotland remained Presby- terian, while England was trying to purify its Church of the Laudian innovations. 224 Ax Outline History of England. Of its own free-will Parliament dispersed for an autumnal recess of six weeks, leaving a committee of each House to watch for developments. Pym was chairman of the Com- mons committee. His name was first in all that the Com- mons did; the Royalists, who were much grieved at these doings, ridiculed the plain name of the man, and scoffed at his authority. "King Pym" they called him, and indeed Charles Stuart was less royal by nature than this John Pym, Commoner. Parliament re-assembled October 20, 1641, in a nervous condition. Charles had been in Scotland, and had made the country scarcely knew what bargain with the duke of Argyle, the head of the Scotch Presbyterians. In November horrible tidings came from Ireland. Order disappeared when Strafford's strong hand was withdrawn, and now the Roman Catholics, excited by the loss of their lands and by English injustice to themselves and their ancestors, rose in savage insurrection and massacred the Protestant population of Ulster — strong men, defenseless women, and helpless children. The king did not seem sufficiently shocked at the news, and wicked men insinuated that he had caused the revolt that he might obtain from Parliament an army. With an army he might perhaps disperse other enemies be- sides Irish rebels. However, no troops were granted to him; on the contrary, the Commons drew up, after serious debate, a Grand Remonstrance — 206 articles lon^ — relating the un- lawful acts of the reign. The majority for it was small, and an old story has it that Mr. Cromwell was heard to say as he left the hall, that "if the Remonstrance had not passed he would have sold all and gone to New England." This paper, printed and read in every English parish, molded opinion in support of its authors. The king paid it little heed; he had conceded much under stress of circum- stances, but his belief in the justice and legality of his own coarse was unshaken, and he still meant to recover the ground from which his enemies had driven him, The The Stuart Tyranny. 225 Church organization had been attacked at the spring ses- sion, when the Commons had made an unsuccessful attempt to oust the bishops from the House of Lords, where they acted with the royalist majority. In December an unguard- ed act of the bishops themselves enabled the Commons to imprison them. This was followed by a law depriving them of their seats in the upper House. January 4, 1642, was one of the memorable days of the session. The king's patience was at an end. Against Lord Kimbolton and four Commoners, " King " Pym, " ship- money " Hampden, Holies and Strode, was raised royal accu- sation of treasonable correspondence with Scotland. Charles kissed Queen Henrietta Maria good-bye, and went to West- minster with five hundred men to arrest the five. "The birds were flown " — to use his .own surprised expression — when he entered the House, and their colleagues deafened the ears of their royal master as he retired with cries of " privilege," " privilege," meaning that they considered his act a breach of their privilege as legislators. On the 10th of January Charles quitted his palace of Whitehall for the north of England, where he was safer than in the Puritan capital. He could only return at the head of an army; the queen crossed to Holland to pawn the crown-jewels for artillery and small arms. Both sides now saw far enough into the future to perceive the inevitable con- flict, and each party set about strengthening itself. The Roy- alists in the two Houses, to the number of ninety-seven, left their places and joined the king at York. Since Parliament could no longer obtain the royal assent to its enactments, it decided that such approval was needless. " Ordinances " was the name given to these unapproved laws. On June 2 nineteen propositions were submitted by the Commons to the king. They required him to surrender to Par- liament the control of the militia, the possession of forts and arsenals, the reformation of the Church, the appointment of 226 An Outline History of England. the royal ministers. " No surrender " was the royal policy; the propositions were rejected, whereupon Parliament as- sumed control of the militia, made the earl of Essex its chief commander, and selected a committee of public safety to un- dertake the defense. For his part Charles raised the royal standard at Nottingham (August 22, 1642). Before the close of the summer the armies of the rival powers, king and Par- liament, were ready for action. The civil war had begun. The fighting of the first year of the war went against the Parliamentary armies. Their soldiers were the peasantry and the city rabble, while the cavalry, the pride of the royal camp, was composed of gentlemen of spirit, well armed, well feci, and mounted on thoroughbred hunters. Prince Rupert, son of James Stuart's daughter, Elizabeth of Bohemia, was the dashing leader of these cavaliers, and he made short work of the " round-head " trained bands, as the short-haired Puritans were called by the curled fops of Charles's court. The first battle, at Edgehill, Oct. 23, 1642, was indecisive, but the royalists marched on London, and only the bold front of London trained-bands kept them out of the city. Neither party ventured upon pitched battles; the northern, western, and midland counties were steadfastly royalist. The coun- ties of the south and east bound themselves in associations to support the Parliamentary cause. Oliver Cromwell, now a colonel of horse, was a leading spirit in the eastern associa- tion. Throughout the second year of the war the Royalists gained ground. Essex proved slow and inefficient. Some- thing ailed the Parliament's troops ; Colonel Cromwell told Hampden that they were 'prentices and tapsters, sure to run from the high-spirited gentlemen who opposed them. If he had his way he would oppose these men of honor with sober men of religion. Patriot Hampden fell (June, 1643) in fight, but cousin Cromwell put his theory into practice. His reg- iment of horse, "Ironsides," becomes noted for its religious The Stuart Tyranny. 227 zeal. The men pray before battle, and never retreat. "Truly they were never beaten at all," said their leader. Parliament was not inactive, whatever may be said of its armies. A Puritan assembly, in session by its side at West- minster since July 1, 1643, was considering the reform of the Church; the bishops had joined the king, and affairs ecclesiastical were in utter disorganization. To the Presby- terianism of Scotland Pym turned for example and aid. In return for military assistance against the king, Parliament promised to take the Covenant by which the Scots had estab- lished their own Kirk. On September 25, 1643, 25 peers and 288 of the commons signed the "Solemn League and Cov- enant," binding the government to make the religion of the three kingdoms uniform in faith and worship. Thus Pres- byterianism was established in place of Episcopalianism as the State religion of England, and 2,000 Church of England clergyman left their pulpits rather than accept the Cove- nant which was now offered every-where as a test of loyalty to the Parliament. An executive committee of Scottish and English was charged with the conduct of the war. This alliance drove the king to a base resort: he made league with the Irish rebels, red-handed from the massacres of Ulster. The death of Pym in December saddened but did not dismay his party. In January Alexander Leslie, with the Scots, forded the Tweed. Fairfax and Waller scattered the Irish contingent before it could be of service to the king. Toward night-fall on the 2d of July, 1644, Prince Rupert, whose brilliant- and rapid movements had thus far made him the most notable royalist figure in the war, attacked the al- lies on Marston Moor, in Yorkshire. The Scotch quailed before the fury of his charge, but Cromwell's steady Iron- sides outmatched the cavaliers and chased them from the field. The north of England, with York and Newcastle, surrendered to the Parliamentary leaders. In the south, how- 228 An Outline History of England. ever, the lumbering Essex scarcely held his ground; in Corn- wall his infantry was captured by the king. In the fall and winter the royalists of the Scottish High- lands, under the vigorous lead of the marquis of Montrose, and aided by a contingent from Ireland, harried, burned, and killed in the Lowlands, in the hope that Leslie's army would withdraw from England to defend its homes. In October, Charles again marched on London, but was repulsed at New- bury. Cromwell thought that repulse was not enough; such an army as he would construct would have made short work of the king. He complained to Parliament that the generals were "afraid to conquer;" and he was right. The major- ity of Parliament wished to force Charles to resume the throne and govern as a Presbyterian sovereign, with proper checks and limitations upon his authority. They did not wish to kill him, or "to beat him too badly." For these half-way measures Cromwell had no use. He proposed a sweeping military reform, a new-modeling of the army on the Ironside plan. The withdrawal of the royalists and the acceptance of the Covenant had left Parliament almost unanimously Presby- terian. Archbishop Laud had been executed for treason (January 1645), and the Church of England liturgy had been replaced by a simpler service like that of the Scottish Kirk. From 1643 to 164S an Assembly of Divines sat at Westmin- ster establishing a creed, a liturgy, and a system of Church government for English Presbyterians. In April, 1645, Pres- byterianism was by law established the religion of England, and it was the purpose of Parliament to compel the nation to conform to it by measures as stringent as those of Laud himself. Cromwell's plans of military reform were adopted in April, 1645. By a "self-denying ordinance" all members of Parliament — except Cromwell, now deemed indispensable — were removed from military command. Sir Thomas Fairfax The Stuart Tyeanxy. 229 succeeded Essex as captain-general, with Colonel Cromwell for his lieutenant. The entire force was reorganized on the plans of the famous regiment of horse. " Honest men of re- ligion, whose heart was in the cause," were its commissioned officers, whether they were draymen, butchers, or gentle- men of family and fortune. So far as possible the same principles were carried into the rank and file, and when the "New Model," as the force was called, took the field, the king's gay troopers faced the most remarkable military body that had ever mustered in England. Prayer-meetings, psalm- singings, sermons, and exhortations were the avocations of these men, among whom was one dreamy lad, John Bunyan, and others whom the world has not forgotten. While the New Model was mustering and drilling, and the Parliament wavered between war and peace, the royalists caught glimpses of success. They saw their enemies divided and the army a mass of raw recruits under new officers. Montrose wrote from Scotland that he should soon be able to send re-enforcements. In February, 1G46, the king had obstinately refused to come to terms with Parliament ; in June he took the offensive and attacked the New Model at Naseby (June 14, 1645). Cromwell com- manded the cavalry that day and surpassed his feats at Marston Moor. Officers and soldiers no longer feared to conquer. The raw troops routed the king's men, captured camp, royal papers, artillery, and two thirds of the army. The civil Avar was over. The defeat of Montrose at Philip- haugh, September 13, destroyed the royalist party in Scot- land, and on March 26, 1646, the soldiers of Parliament won the last battle at Stow. The defeat of the royalists left two parties in the kingdom- — Parliament and the New Model. The former was bent uj^on forcing Presbyterianism upon the nation. The latter, in which the Independents were influential, demanded that the toleration of all Protestant sects should form part of any 230 An Outline History of England. settlement which should be made with the king. In May, 1646, Charles gave himself up to the Scottish Presbyterian army, which was still encamped in the north. He did not realize that he was conquered, and believed that the differ- ence of opinion between the Parliament and army would divide his enemy and make his triumph possible. The agreement which Parliament asked him to sign provided for his restoration to the throne, but placed the militia under the command of Parliament for tAventy years, and sanctioned the Presbyterian form of worship for the English Church. This suited neither the king nor the army, who desired toleration for persons outside the Established Church. For the sum of £400,000 the Scots surrendered Charles to Parlia- ment and marched home (January 30, 1647). Feeling between the New Model and the Presbyterians grew more intense. The party of the Independents in Parliament had gained strength by new elections which filled the places of absent royalists, and the majority feared for their supremacy. The army, which was determined to secure the religious liberties for which it had fought, defied the order of Parliament to disband. Cromwell, accused of in- citing mutiny, fled from the wrath of the Commons to the camp. Cornet Joyce, with a detachment of the New Model, seized the ill-guarded king at Holmby House (June, 1647). All parties now negotiated with Charles, and his sense of his own importance was inordinately increased. He heard them all, pretended to favor each, but was sincere with none. On November 11, 1647, he escaped to the Isle of Wight, where he signed a secret treaty with Scotland. The Scots were rabidly Presbyterian, and resolute to force the same system upon England, in spite of the liberal ideas of the New Model. Charles promised to aid them in return for armed assistance. In January, 1648, the kingdom was again at war. The royalists rose in half the counties ; the Presbyterians in Parliament vehemently opposed the Cromwellian army, and The Stuart Tyranny. 231 a Scottish force prepared to invade England. Cromwell put down the royalist revolt, and Parliament, having declared the Independents heretical and blasphemous, re-opened its treaties with Charles. The Scotch invasion under the duke of Hamilton was met and hurled back by Cromwell in a three days' fight at Preston Pans, August 17 to 19, 1648. Fairfax reduced the south to submission. The army again seized the king, and giving up all compromise marched upon London. Having determined with prayerful deliberation what course to pursue, Cromwell, now supreme in the New Model, let no weak scruples block his path. On the sixth and seventh days of December, 1648, the Commons, on entering their hall, had to pass by Colonel Pride, whose soldiers arrested at his orders the members whom he pointed out. " Pride's Purge " cost Parliament its Presbyterian majority. The remnant — " the Rump " its enemies called it — comprised some sixty Inde- pendent members, who continued to exercise the authority of a full Parliament, executing promptly the will of the council of officers which Cromwell directed. A special tribunal of one hundred and thirty-five persons — the High Court of Justice— was set up to try the charges against the king. The House of Lords declining to participate the Commons declared themselves the sole legislature of the realm. Men shrank from the impending act. Barely half the commissioners took part in the trial. Charles made no defense beyond declaring that the court had no jurisdiction over him. But the court was satisfied of its authority. Sen- tence of death was passed upon him January 27, and on the 30th the misguided Charles Stuart was beheaded at White- hall. Upon the Commons' order it was proclaimed in every English town and county, " that whosoever shall proclaim a new king, Charles Second or any other, without authority of Parliament, in this nation of England, shall be a traitor and suffer death." And here, thought many, England had for- ever done with kimrs. 232 An Outline History of England. CHAPTER XIII. THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE RESTORATION. 1649 A. D.-1685A. D. FROM THE EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. TO THE DEATH OF CHARLKS II. For eleven years (1649-1660) there was no king in En- gland, and no settled form of government. Episcopalian and Presbyterian royalists desired a king of the House of Stuart; other Presbyterians and Puritans stood for Parlia- ment and a republic; the many sects who constituted the army would have no king, nor any republic in which their ideas should not be tolerated. Cromwell, whom the struggle had raised to the command of the army and the chief power, w'as for the establishment of a constitutional government in which the executive power should be under legislative checks, and which should grant toleration for differences of religious belief. The Lower House of the Long Parliament, bereft of its royalist members, purged of its Presbyterians, and by its own act freed from the House of Lords, was, at the king's death (Jan- uary, 1649) the poor representative of constitutional govern- ment in England. About fifty members, dubbed the " Rump," took part in its deliberations, and established a council of State, of forty-one members (three judges, three army officers, five peers, and thirty members of the House of Commons, under presidency of Bradshaw, chief of the commission which ha the world's strongest banking institution. The Triennial Act of 1694 math* it obligatory for the king to order a general election for members of Parliament at least once in three years. This period was later extended to seven years by a law still in force. The Long Parliament of Charles I. had gagged the press by an act requiring all prints to be licensed. Miltoirs free spirit had protested against this restriction upon writing, bnt the law was enforced with some degree of strictness until 1695, when it lapsed, and Par- liament declined to renew it. Xewspapers sprang up as soon as the old law perished. The gentle Queen Mary, still young, beautiful, and devot- ed, fell a victim to the small-pox Dec. 28, 1694, and her impassive husband confessed with tears that he was now " the miserablest of earth's creatures." The war in the Spanish Netherlands dragged heavily. In 1693 William lost the battle of Neerwinden; in 1695 he re- took Xamur. France was distressed by the constant drain of men and money, and in 1697 (Sept. 20) Louis consented to the compromise Peace of Ryswick, by which he recognized the sovereignty of William in England and the right of the Princess Anne to succeed him. At the dawn of peace the English Parliament awoke to the feeling that England had been used to forward the in- terests of Holland. Measures were undertaken which re- buked the policy of the king. The army was reduced, and the Dutch troops sent home. The grants of Irish lands The English Revolution. 263 which William had made to his countrymen wore annulled. All these annoyances showed William that the English peo- ple, who had welcomed his aid to stamp out the Stuart tyr- anny, were dissatisfied with the rule of a foreigner. But toward the close of his life an event took place which showed the English how vitally they were concerned with the affairs of Europe, and how wise had been the rule of their Dutch master. The question of " the Spanish succession " * had perplexed the courts of western Europe for a generation. The royal family of Spain was dying out. Charles II. was childless, and it was his right to dispose of his immense possessions at his death. By intermarriage the ruling family in Spain were related to the ruling families of both France and the German Empire. That the Spanish dominions should pass entire, either to Louis XIV. or to the Emperor Leopold I., was un- bearable to the other European states, among whose states- men the modern theory of preserving peace by maintaining the " balance of power " was now taking form. To disarm opposition, therefore, Louis and Leopold renounced their own claims to the inheritance, the one asking that his sec- ond son, the Archduke Charles, be made heir, the other claiming the crown for his second grandson, Philip of Anjou. •CLAIMANTS TO THE SPANISH SUCCESSION. PHILIP III. of Spain. I I I I Anna, Maria Anna, m. Louis XIII. of France. Philip IV. of Spain. . m. Ferdinand, Emperor. Ill II Louis XIV. of France=Maria Charles II. of Spain, Margaret Theresa= Leopold, | Theresa. d. 1700. Emperor. Louis (dauphin). Maximilian=Maria Antoinette. | Elector of Bavaria. I (2d son.) Philip, Joseph, Charles, PUKE OF ANJOU, " THE ELECTORAL PRINCE," "THE ARCHDUKE," to whom Charles willed proposed by first partition for whom England, his crown, for whom the treaty for king of Spain, Holland, and the French fought, and whom but died 1699. Empire fought, peace left king of Spain, Afterward Emperor Philip V. Charles VI. (1711). 264 An Outline History of England. Joseph, electoral prince of Bavaria, a grandson of Leopold and a kinsman of Charles II., was a third claimant. The powers of Europe undertook to settle the succession themselves, and while they were planning to divide the Span- ish possessions the king suddenly died (November, 1700), and made Philip of Anjou his sole heir. Louis XIV. saw his wildest dreams of dominion about to be realized. France and Spain were practically united. " The Pyrenees exist no longer," said the exultant Louis to his grandson, as he set out for his royal inheritance. The impending absorption of the Spanish monarchy by the ambition of Louis frustrated all that William of Orange had given his life to secure. But the Hollander's spirit was un- conquerable, and he faced the new danger with the old de- termination. The recklessness of Louis aided his enemies. At the bedside of the exiled James II. of England, who lay dying at St. Germains, the French monarch renewed his prom- ise of friendship, and recognized his son, James Francis Ed- ward Stuart (known as the " Old Pretender " ), as the rightful king of England. The news that France had again espoused the Stuart cause aroused the patriotism of England, and a new Parliament enthusiastically supported William in his policy of war. The occupation of the Spanish Netherlands by French' troops menaced Holland and aroused the Dutch Republic. The emperor, whose grandson had been slighted, was eager for re- venge. A common purpose united the three countries, and under William's direction the " Grand Alliance " was revived in September, 1701, to place the archduke on the Spanish throne, to expel France from the Netherlands and the Indies, and to prevent the union of the French and Spanish crowns. Before hostilities opened William had died, March 8, 1702. Anne Stuart, younger daughter of James II. and Anne Hyde, was immediately proclaimed queen. Her husband, George of Denmark, of whom his uncle Charles II. said he The English Revolution. 205 had " tried him drunk and sober and found nothing," received no share in the government. Anne came to the throne at a fortunate time for her reputation. Her subjects loved the good-natured, slow-minded, matronly Englishwoman, and called her "good Queen Anne." Between the Princess Anne and Sarah Jennings, a lady of the court, had long existed the closest intimacy, and the brilliant mind of the latter held the other as if bewitched. Sarah Jennings had married John Churchill, Lord Marl- borough, the young officer who had betrayed James II. His ability was so undoubted that the dying king had no better advice for Anne than that she should take Marlborough's advice in the conduct of the war of the Spanish succession, which was his baleful bequest. Anne had not been queen a week before the earl of Marl- borough was commander-in-chief of all the English land forces. Without hesitation he opened the campaign in the Spanish Netherlands and struck France a smarting blow on that fron- tier. No English general from Edward the Black Prince to the duke of Wellington won such successes from the French as did John Churchill (made duke of Marlborough in reward for the victories of 1702) in the next ten years of the war. He was formed by nature to win the regard of men. Singularly beautiful of countenance, of fine figure and grace- ful carriage, his outward appearance united with his words and actions to charm all with whom he had to do. He was cool in the moment of battle, fearless but not courting danger, careful of the lives of his men, watchful of the sick and wounded, and merciful to his prisoners of Avar. To his wife he was attached by the tenderest affection, fearing her displeasure more than the French cannon. Yet this great man's character was disfigured by some of the meanest of human failings. He was unutterably selfish. He won victories not for England nor for the righteous cause in which he fought, but for his own glory. To be 12 266 An Outline History of England. the greatest and richest man in the kingdom was the summit of his ambition. Queen Anne accepted Marlborough's friend, Lord Godol- phin, as her chief minister, and he ably co-operated with the general by supplying men and money for the campaigns. The United Provinces (Holland) intrusted their forces also to the English leader. The commander of the emperor's northern army was a dashing soldier, Prince Eugene of Savoy, and a generous and hearty friendship soon united the two generals. In 1704 they won their first great success. Louis had dispatched an army eastward through friendly Bavaria to strike Vienna, the capital of the empire. Marl- borough divined the purpose of the maneuver and, regardless of hampering instructions, he led his army into Germany and, joining Eugene, intercepted the French and Bavarian army near Blenheim on the Danube, August 13, 1704. The duke's personal charge at the head of eight thousand cavalry broke the weakened center of the foe, and decided the bat- tle. There had not been such a harvest of French lilies in the sixty years of Louis's reign. Two thirds of the king's troops were slain or taken captive, and their marshal him- self was among the eleven thousand prisoners. England re- warded Marlborough Avith the royal manor of Woodstock, and built the palace of Blenheim for his residence. Marlborough's campaigns were all in the north, but the allies attacked France on every side. A few weeks before Blenheim the fortress of Gibraltar had surrendered (July 24, 1704) to an English fleet, and in the succeeding year Lord Peterborough, a profligate genius, captured Barcelona. On May 23, 1706, Marlborough with sixty thousand men defeated Marshal Villeroy at Ramillies, in Brabant (Belgium), so thoroughly that all French strongholds of the Netherlands — Antwerp, Brussels, Ostend, Ghent, Bruges — yielded with scarcely a show of resistance. Disaster marked the succeeding years. Disagreements The English Revolution. 207 between too many masters kept Marlborough and Eugene idle for a time, but in 1708 they were again companions in arms. Together they crushed the French Army of the North at Oudenarde, July 11, 1708, and together besieged and reduced the fortress of Lille. France now sought for peace; Louis was willing to aban- don all his conquests, but to one humiliating condition he would not stoop. His grandson Philip, the accepted sover- eign of a large portion of Spain, refused to yield his crown, and Louis indignantly rejected the demand of the allies that he should expel him with French troops. " If light I must," said the hard-pressed Louis, " I will fight my enemies rather than my own children." Negotiations failed, and the bank- rupt and starving French nation took up arms with new zeal in a more righteous cause. Marlborough's troops felt the new temper of the metal at Malplaquet (September, 1709). The English won, but with tremendous loss. " God grant such another defeat," reported the French marshal to his king, " and your majesty could count your enemies destroyed." Ten thousand Frenchmen were dead, but the allies had lost twenty thousand. This was the last great battle, though peace was not declared until 1713. While the "duke of Marlborough and our good Prince Eugene " were winning great praises on continental battle- fields, England had other business than voting supplies and sending re-enforcements across the Channel. Party struggles — Whig and Tory — were enlivening island politics and vexing the Court. Queen Anne was naturally a Tory, a strong sup- porter of the Established Church, and opposed to the war, though the power of Sarah Churchill's will prolonged her support of Marlborough. Immediately after Anne's ascension the Scotch began to cast about for an heir to their throne. They had accepted the English sovereigns William and Mary and Queen Anne, but they did not fully accept the Act of Settlement (1701) 263 An Outline History of England. which fixed the succession in the line of Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant descendants. They demanded that the wearer of the Scottish crown should guarantee to the nation its existing religion, and freedom of trade. Commissioners of both nations met in London, in 1706, to discuss a plan of union; they were remarkably successful, and on May 1, 1707, the two kingdoms — England and Scotland — became the one kingdom of Great Britain, with a common sovereign accord- ing to the Act of Settlement, a common Parliament, and a common coinage. Scottish law and the Scottish Church re- mained unchanged. The " Old Pretender," James Edward Stuart, came over in 1708 to profit by the Scottish dissatis- faction with the union, but the Jacobites, as his partisans were called, gave hihi no support and he went back unrequited. The length and expense of the war told upon its popular- ity. The Whigs, who had been Churchill's main support in England, gradually lost power and influence. The queen drew closer to the Tory leaders, Robert Harley and Henry St. John. St. John, afterward Viscount Bolingbroke, was a noted infidel, a writer of merit, and an accomplished statesman. Har- ley was of ignoble parts, but surpassed in " back-stairs poli- tics." To cancel Lady Marlborough's influence with the queen he pressed his cousin, Abigail Hill, an attendant of the palace, upon Anne's favor. The ruse was successful. The gentle Abigail (afterward Lady Masham) gradually sup- planted the haughty Sarah. In 1710 Lord Godolphin, Marl- borough's friend and English agent, was dismissed from the royal council with all his Whig colleagues, and in 1711 Har- ley took Godolphin's office as prime minister with the title earl of Oxford and Mortimer. Marlborough came back to London to stay the storm if possible. The archduke Charles, for whom the allies had been fighting, had unexpectedly become emperor (1711), and neither England nor Holland now wished to add Spain to The English Revolution. 2G9 his possessions. So the war languished; indeed, the Tories were secretly treating for peace with King Louis. The duke's hopes were bound up in the war, but a personal letter from. Anne dashed them to despair. The queen dismissed him from all his offices on charge of embezzling military funds. He denied the accusation but left the kingdom. The Tories pressed for peace. Possessing a majority in the Commons they fretted for the upper House until the queen created twelve new Tory peers— Abigail Hill's hus- band, Mr. Masham, among them. With Parliament under close rein the Tory plan was carried out. The Peace of Utrecht, which closed the Avar of the Spanish succession, was formally signed in March, 1713. Few of its many articles deserve place here. Philip of Anjou, the grandson of Louis XIV., was confirmed as King Philip V. of Spain, whose throne his Bourbon descendant, Alfonso XIII., still occupies. France renounced its support of the Stuart pretenders, and formally recognized the Protestant settlement of the English succession. Great Britain gained Nova Scotia, Newfound- land, Gibraltar, and a few less important territories. The Protestant succession, which was confirmed so many times in unions, settlements, and treaties, seems to have stood in some slight hazard in England itself as the time of its realization drew near. Anne, the widowed mother of seven- teen children, had in 1714 survived them all. Her apprehen- sions for the safety of the Church had been soothed by the law of 1711 to suppress the "occasional conformity" by which dissenting candidates for public office had smothered their consciences for a day and taken the Episcopal communion as the Test and Corporation acts required. Three years later Bolingbroke's harsher " Schism Act " was passed with the intention of disqualifying dissenting teachers. But the queen's sudden death left the law unproclaimed and void. The death of the Electress Sophia left her son George Louis heir to the English throne. He was fifty-four years old, 2 TO An Outline History of England. was nominally a Protestant, but could speak no English, and knew little and cared less about the government of England. Many Englishmen shrank from calling in such a king. The Jacobites, ever plotting, hoped to bring in the Pretender, and they were encouraged to think that Lord Bolingbroke in the cabinet meant to effect their object. Whether this was Bolingbroke's purpose or not must remain doubtful, but it is certain that he had a bitter quarrel with Lord Oxford (Har- ley) in the royal presence which resulted in Oxford's imme- diate dismissal. The excitement gave the queen a stroke of apoplexy. And while the court and London were in an up- roar, Whig and Tory and Jacobite contending, Anne gave the badge of the prime minister's office to the duke of Shrewsbury, one of the " seven patriots " who had signed the invitation to William in 1G88. His selection settled the question of the succession in favor of the Protestant House of Brunswick. Queen Anne breathed her last August 1, 1714, and George the First was quietly proclaimed king of Great Britain and Ireland. House of Hanover, or Brunswick. 271 CHAPTER XV. HOUSE OP HANOVER, OR BRUNSWICK. 1714 A. D.-1830 A. D. FROM THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. TO THE DEATH OF GEORGE IV. King George I. was born in Germany, of German parents, in the year of the Restoration (16G0), and although he had traveled far and fought well in the armies of the empire he had never set foot in England until September 18, 1714, when he landed as king of Great Britain and Ireland. From his father, Ernest Augustus, George had inherited the duchy of Brunswick-Lilneburg and the electorate of Hanover. The duchy was one of the numerous states of the German Empire, and its duke was also electoral prince of Hanover, one of the princes who voted at the election of the emperor ; hence the royal family of England is known, from one title or the other, as the House of " Hanover " or of " Brunswick." * From his mother, the Electress Sophia, George inherited whatever rights * THE HOUSE OP HANOVER, OR BRUNSWICK. JAMES I. I I CHARLES I. ^beheaded 1649). Elizabeth, | m. Frederick V., Elector Palatine, j j j and " Winter king of Bohemia." CHARLES II. Mary, JAMES II. ! m. William II. (deposed 1U88). I I of Orange. (4.) Rupert. (12.) Sophia, j m. Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover. WILLIAM III.=MARY. ANNE. James Fr. Edward | > , ' " Old Pretender." GEORGE I. Protestants. I I 1 GEORGE II. Charles Edward, Henry, etc. " Young Pretender," Cardinal York. | d. 1788. | Protectants. Catholics. 272 Ax Outline History of England. lie had to the English throne. The Act of Settlement (1"01) declared that, Queen Anne dying childless, the crown should go to Sophia, and to her Protestant descendants after her. Sophia, it need scarcely be repeated, was a sister of Rupert the cavalier, a daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia, and a grand- daughter of James I. of England. George had hitherto been very much his own master in his little Brunswick duchy, but the Parliament had built up such a barrier against royal authority in England that neither this monarch nor his son and successor took much trouble to get through it or climb over it. Finding that the English were bent upon governing themselves by means of Parliament and royal ministers George prudently refused to interfere. So he made up a cabinet from the Whigs, to whom he owed a debt of gratitude, and intrusted the government to them while he drew his allowances from the treasury, took his pleasure with his Brunswick cronies, and managed the affairs of the home duchy to the best of his very commonplace ability. The closing events of Anne's reign gave ground for the charge that the Tory leaders had plotted to betray the crown to the Pretender, and the national aversion to the Catholic Stuarts gave the Whigs a long lease of power. Parliament impeached Anne's ministers — Bolingbroke, Oxford, and Ormond (Marlborough's successor) — and quelled the Jacobite tumults in the towns by passing the Riot Act (1715), which made it felony for an unlawful assembly not to disperse after the "reading of the riot act " by a magistrate. Bolingbroke and Ormond escaped. Oxford went to the Tower, but the riots presaged a new Stuart rising. The Scottish earl of Mar, then a Jacobite, although he turned his coat more than once, roused the Highlanders to renew the light for the Pretender, James Edward. Six thousand clans- men, wearing the white cockade, joined him ; but he proved a worthless leader. Delaying until his enemy Argyle House of Hanover, or Brunswick. 273 gathered a royal army, he was beaten at Sheriffmuir. In December the Pretender arrived in Scotland to find his cause mismanaged and lost ; so he betook him nimbly back to France to bide his time. A few north of England gentle- men who had recklessly shown their Jacobite colors being captured in arms died as traitors — twenty-eight of them in all. In 1717, 1718, and 1719 the Pretender and his friends made other fruitless attempts to regain the crown, but from 1715 to 1745 the throne was not seriously imperiled. The first care of the Whig ministers had been to rid them- selves of the Tory leaders. Their next work was to perpetu- ate their own control. The Parliament in which they had a majority was soon to expire by the limitation of the Triennial Act. The Whigs were so well satisfied with the bird in the hand that, to avoid the risks of a general election, they carried the Septennial Act; from that time till this Parliaments have been chosen at least once in seven years. (The first Parliament of George I. sat, with adjournments, from 1 715 to 1722.) The third care of the cabinet was to undo the Tory legislation against dissenters; the repeal (1718) of the law against "oc? casional conformity " and the Schism Act removed the bar^ riers by which the Tories had striven to block the avenues to education and the public service against all except members of the Church of England. England was settling down into a period of unruffled pros- perity when, in 1720, a money-panic shook the kingdom to its center. In 1713 the South Sea Company was formed in Lon- don to trade with Spanish America, fondly believed to be a mine of wealth. The idea caught the popular fancy; the rage for speculation pushed the price of shares to tenfold their par value. In 1720 it ^arae out that the shares were valueless. The " South Sea Bubble " burst. Spain prohibited English vessels to trade with her ports in America, and the other privileges of the company were of small account. Hundreds of families were ruined by the fall of the stock. 12* 2 74 Ax Outline History of England. The Whig government was blamed, and it became necessary to reconstruct the cabinet. Robert Walpole, hitherto a subordinate minister, became prime minister, and was actual ruler of England for the next twenty-one years, 1721-1742. Th.it Walpole was notoriously bad in many ways is very well known, but to his immense credit be it said that for a generation he kept England at peace while Europe was broil- ing with battles. lie fostered English manufactures and trade with zealous and judicious care, and he reduced -the national debt to the lowest figure it has ever reached — on these acts his reputation as a statesman rests secure. For the remaining years of the reign Walpole had little anxiety. Parliament, chosen anew in 1722, was submissively obedient; there were not enough Tories in it to make an opposition, and profuse bribery removed obstacles within his own party. In June, 1727, George I. died from a stroke of apoplexy. George Augustus succeeded his father as King George II. of Great Britain and Ireland and elector of Hanover, and followed pretty closely his father's policy of letting Walpole and the Whigs govern the nation. Through the energetic Queen Caroline the prime minister obtained the sovereign's assent to his plans. But it is more difficult to manage a nation than a monarch, and a party long continued in power divides against itself. Walpole gradually excluded the more influential Whigs from the highest offices, and gave little en- couragement to new aspirants for leadership among his own supporters. The Tories joined with these discontented Whigs, and in 1733 defeated the premier's project for an excise tax. They followed this by inciting a demand for war with Spain. The merchants were anxious to secure a share in the Spanish- American trade. The Tories wanted any thing to beat Walpole. In 1739 he conceded the dec- laration of war. Then they accused him of not supporting the armies in the field. In 1742 he resigned, and took his. House of Hanover, or Bruxswick. 275 seat in the Lords as Earl of Orford. The ministry of Pel- ham (1743-1754) succeeded him. King George's support of Maria Theresa, in her struggle to maintain her right to the imperial throne of Germany, in- volved England in another continental war. In 1744 France was added to the enemies of England. These gathering dangers convinced Charles Edward Stuart, son of James Francis Edward, that the opportunity for the restoration of the Stuarts had arrived. He landed in Scotland in 1745, proclaimed his father in Edinburgh as King James III. of England and James VIII. of Scotland.- A few thousand loyal Highlanders re-enforced his army, and the small force which opposed him at Preston Pans (September, 1745) was shattered by the rush of the mountaineers. The Jacobite army, doubled and trebled by victory, invaded England. In December the young Pretender's forces were at Derby, half- way on the road to London. There his advance was stayed. Few Englishmen had rallied to the Stuart flag; but the troops of the king were mustering fast. Alarmed to find the country so cold toward him, Charles recrossed the border. After another bravely-won battle at Falkirk, in January, 174G, his ranks dwindled, and at Culloden, on the 16th of April, they were mercilessly slaughtered by the English soldiers of the duke of Cumberland — " Culloden Cumber- land." The prince wandered five months among the Scottish mountains, as Charles I. had wandered about England after Worcester, escaping in the autumn of 1746 to France. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), which ended the war be- tween France and England, deprived him of that harborage. After his father's death, in 1766, he lived in Italy, a con- firmed drunkard. There he died, childless, in 1788. It was not to the credit of the British government that a rebel army of a few undisciplined regiments should march half the length of the island and back again unopposed. The 276 An Outline History of England. administration was weak ; Pelham and his colleagues lacked energy ; the nation distrusted itself and feared the king, who cared more for continental wars than for England's welfare. The situation was alarming. The ministers either did not foresee, or could not prevent, the alliance of the French and Spanish Bourbon kings, and the doctrine of the " balance of power" was left defenseless. In India the French under Dupleix were striving to supplant the British East India Company by ingratiating themselves with the native princes. In America the French, firmly posted in Canada and Louis- iana, laid claim to the region drained by the Ohio and Missis- sippi' Rivers, and established a line of forts to hold the country west of the Alleghany Mountains. France, arrogant and confident, was crowding in every-where; England, despond- ent, and dissatisfied with her rulers, was losing influence and on the way to loss of territory. The force which Braddock led against Fort Duquesne, at the juncture of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, was routed by the French (1755), and only the skill of George Washington saved the colonial troops from the fate of the redcoats. War with France followed— " The Seven Years' War" (1756-1763). Europe, America, and India were the battle-fields in this conflict. In Europe the strength of the English lay in their alliance with Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. With their money he paid the expenses of the campaigns which his brain directed and his soldiers fought. But Russia and Austria, as well as France, were in arms against him, and the European outlook in 1757 was dismal indeed. The French won the first successes both there and in America. England was in despair. She had no generals, her only ally was beset by three powerful empires, her king was at heart a foreigner, and his English ministers were incom- petent. At this moment of humiliation, William Pitt, a member of the House of Commons, a person without rank or fortune, offered to save the nation. " I know that I can save House of Hanover, or Brunswick. 277 this country," he had the confidence to say, " and I know no other man can." In October, 1757, he became the lead- ing spirit of the government. Trusting supremely in the courage and purpose of the En- glish people Pitt threw the whole force of an impetuous nature into the war. With a great man's eye for true men he chose new generals to replace the dukes and princes who had been retreating before Frenchmen. Under the Ger- man Ferdinand of Brunswick the English beat the French at Minden in the summer of 1759. In America Fort Du- quesne surrendered (1758), and the grateful colonists renamed it Fort Pitt, (now Pittsburg). Amherst, one of Pitt's new commanders, took Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, and another untried general, James Wolfe, fought upon the Plains of Abraham the battle with Mont- calm, which won Quebec, Montreal, and eventually all Canada, for England. The slowly traveling news from India was more wonderful yet. The British East India Company had monopolized the trade of India for one hundred and fifty years. In 1744 Dupleix, an able Frenchman, undertook to introduce French influence, but the ability of Robert Clive, a clerk in the company's employ, thwarted the attempt. When the two nations renewed hostilities in Europe Clive resumed the field in Asia. In June, 1757, he won the battle of Plassy, thereby becoming master of Bengal, and laying the founda- tion of the British Empire in India. The victories on three continents revived the spirit of the nation. England was saved, and the people adored the statesman who had saved her — the "Great Commoner" as Pitt was proud to be called. The death of the king, October 25, 1760, checked his triumphant career. While Walpole and Pitt were molding the goverment of the nation another force was working upon the private life of the people, and a mighty revival of religion was rattling 278 An Outline History of England. the dry bones of the Established Church, which in the cent- ury since the fall of Puritanism had become cold and life- less. A group of Oxford students, nicknamed " Methodists" from the regularity of their devotions, led the new move- ment, which revived spiritual religion among the common people, and purged the Church itself of the careless and worldly clergy. John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield were the leaders of this important agitation. Its results are far-reaching. Popular education, hospitals, asy- lums, and reformed prisons are among the fruits of the seed which the Methodists sowed. Frederick, Prince of Wales, died before his father, and it was his eldest son who came to the throne as King George the Third. For sixty years (1 760-1 S20), the longest of En- glish reigns, this prince was king of England. Within this long period the United States achieved their independence, the mad drama of the French Revolution was played to the curtain fall, Napoleon Bonaparte won and lost an empire, and the introduction of steam wrought industrial changes as momentous as those which plunged two continents in blood. George III. inherited the throne at the age of twenty-three — the first Hanoverian sovereign of English birth. "Be king, George, be king," was the constant admonition of his mother, and to the best of his limited ability he obeyed her ambitious instructions. Never strong of mind, but ever strong of will, he determined not simply to reign but to rule. For ministers he had no use except as his agents. He tried to be his own prime minister, forming his own policy, and executing it by means of an obedient cabinet and a House of Commons in his pay. There could be no sympathy between Pitt's royal nature and the bigoted perversity of the king. The prime minister was devoted to the continuance of the w r ar ; Pitt not only helped Frederick of Prussia, but, finding that Spain was in close league with France against Great Britain, he came out House of Hanover, or Brunswick. 279 boldly for a Spanish war. The king opposed it. The enor- mous expense of the struggle thus far turned many Whigs against it. Unable to accomplish his purpose, the great commoner resigned (1751). Lord Bute, a Tory, and a mere court favorite, now became George's adviser, and in 17G2 was made prime minister, for the purpose of carrying out the royal wishes. The Peace of Paris, between Great Britain, France, and Spain, was signed early in 1763. France gave up Canada and the territory between the Mississippi and the Al- leghanies, with lesser possessions in the West Indies and Africa. Spain ceded Florida to England. The disgraceful servility of the House of Commons to the king and his creatures is accounted for by its antiquated con- stitution. Changes in the population of the nation had de- stroyed its pretensions to representative character. Bor- oughs populous in the early days of Parliament, and then entitled to two members, had shrunken in size, while thriving cities, growing up since the apportionment, had no members at all. In many of the dwindled towms only a handful of voters remained. A few boroughs had no voters. These "close" or "rotten" boroughs were the property of some nobleman — his " pocket-boroughs," and he selected the mem- bers. Out of eight millions of people, only one hundred and sixty thousand voted at elections. Upon this small electoral body bribery was effective, and members of the House of Commons itself were tempted by open offers of money, public contracts, or high office. This state of affairs pro- duced a stong party of " king's friends," while it made Par- liament thoroughly unpopular with the body of the nation. The arbitrary acts of the Commons deepened this dislike. Subjected to bitter criticism by the press, Parliament en- deavored to curb its liberty. In 1764 one John Wilkes, a member, was expelled from Parliament for harsh criticisms of the king's speech published in his paper, the North Briton. In 1765 he sat for Middlesex in the new Parliament,, and 280 Ax Outline History of England. having been expelled for new libels, was twice re-elected and rejected. This called forth loud protests, as an invasion of the rights of constituents. A series of letters (1769-1772) published in the Daily Advertiser over the signature "Junius" criticised the course of the government with the sharpest pen ever used in political controversy. In 1771 the House of Commons attempted to suppress the publication of its de- bates. But the nation took sides with the printers, and Par- liament prudently abandoned the prosecution, and left the press un trammeled. The English colonies in America, most of them founded by fugitives from oppression at home, had gradually in- creased in extent and population until, at the close of the Seven Years' War (1763) they numbered thirteen colonies and over two million souls. The British government, burdened by debt, part of which was incurred in defense of the northern colonies against the French and Indians, asserted its right to tax the colonies to pay it. The colonies made a spirited resistance, declaring the principle, "No taxation without representation." Having no voice in Parliament they denied the right of that body to levy taxes, although they did not deny their liability for a share of the war expenses. George Grenville, who succeeded Bute as minister, would not recede from his position. He gave orders for the strict enforcement of the revenue laws in America, and obtained the passage of a "Stamp Act" (1765), requiring legal nnd financial papers and other documents used in the colonies to bear a British revenue stamp. The colonies thereupon agreed to use no goods imported from Britain; the stamp-sellers were mobbed, and the provinces drew together in a congress to make protest. Grenville gave way to Rockingham. Pitt, now Earl of Chatham, in the Lords, and Edmund Burke, the Whig orator of the Commons, pleaded for the repeal of the Stamp Act and generous dealings. It was repealed in March, 1766, but not until Parliament had exasperated the colonists House of IIaxover, or Brunswick. 2S1 b}^ re-asserting its right to tax the Americans " in all cases whatsoever." King George was deeply offended by the repeal act. He bated Pitt, and welcomed with delight his resignation from the ministry. For twelve years (1770-1782) George used Lord North as he had used Bute, as the pliant agent of his own personal designs. First among these was the subjection of the rebellious Americans. An attempt to compel the colo- nists to use imported tea was thwarted in Boston in Decem- ber, 1773, by a mob, disguised as Indians, who threw the tea into the harbor. To punish the Bostonians Parliament passed the "Boston Port Bill" (1774), prohibiting trade with the rebellious city. At the same time General Gage, commander- in-chief of the British forces in America, was made governor of Massachusetts, with increased powers. In September the first Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, and protested against these and similar acts of tyranny. In April of the following year the royal troops in Massachusetts encount- ered the provincial minute-men in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and the New England militia in large num- bers surrounded Gage in Boston. Congress met in May and appointed George Washington, of Virginia, commander of the forces ; even before he reached the army the Battle of Bun- ker's Hill had shown the ability of New England militiamen to face the fire of regulars. In March, 1770, the British evacuated Boston and removed the garrison to New York. The war had begun in dead earnest, and the colonial leaders recognized that retreat was impossible. On the Fourth of July, 1776, they formally adopted a solemn statement of their wrongs, closing with the Declaration of Independence. " We, the Representatives of the United States of America in Con- gress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States." 282 An Outline History of England. The Declaration roused England to greater exertions to reunite the empire, and stirred the Americans to seek recog- nition and help from Europe. The year 1776 closed disas- trously for them, and 1777 opened even more dismally. General Howe drove Congress from Philadelphia, but in Oc- tober Burgoyne, advancing southward from Canada with a fine army, was surrounded, and compelled to surrender to the American General Gates at Saratoga. In the House of Lords, Chatham still pleaded for reconcili- ation, but the hour for that had passed. The Congress re- jected all overtures. Pitt was again invited to become prime minister, but death intervened. France, led by sympathy for the struggling freemen and by hatred of Great Britain, recog- nized the independence of the new States, and joined in the war (1778) with a fleet. Spain followed her leader (1779), and for three years and a half laid siege to General Elliot in Gibraltar. Holland joined the allies in 1780. In the next year the combined forces of France and America entrapped Lord Cornwallis with a British army of seven thousand men at Yorktown, Va., intercepted his communications with the northern army, and finally, in October, compelled him to sur- render. The news struck Lord North like a bullet. The war could not go on. Weak as were the revolted States, seven campaigns had utterly failed to subdue them. Dangers surrounded Britain ; all Europe was hostile ; France, Spain, and Holland at open war ; Russia, Denmark, and Sweden leagued in an " Armed Neutrality" (1780) to resist the English practice of searching all ships for contraband goods. Ireland was clamoring for " home rule." Even the long-suffering Parliament would no longer support the min- istry, and notwithstanding the king's fixed purpose to punish the rebels, Lord North resigned his thankless office. Rock- ingham returned to power with a Whig ministry containing the brilliant orators Edmund Burke, Charles James Fox, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. This cabinet, remodeled at Rock- House of IIaxover, or Brunswick. 283 ingham's death by Lord Shelburnc, performed the humiliating tasks which were set before it. Ireland was made to rejoice in a free Parliament (Grattan's Parliament) at Dublin, and prac- tical self-government under the crown. Peace with America was formally declared in 1783. Great Britain recognized the thirteen revolted colonies as the United States of Amer- ica — an independent nation; Spain received Florida; Canada remained loyal to the crown. In India, alone in these fatal years, the genius of Warren Hastings, governor-general, h.d extended the boundaries of the empire. Before the close of the American war a British navigator, Captain James Cook, had made a series of voyages in the Pa- cific Ocean which made up to England her losses in the West. He discovered the Sandwich Islands and many lesser groups of Australasia, and opened the way for the settlement of Tas- mania, New Zealand and Australia— destined soon to become a' splendid portion of the empire. The dread of the Catholics, which had molded legislation in the preceding century, when there was really danger that the Established Church would be Romanized, had now van- ished so far that in 1778 the government ventured to repeal certain oppressive acts relating to the Christians of that com- munion. But the old animosity was only sleeping, and some crazy utterances of Lord George Gordon awakened the fa- natical cry that the Protestant religion was in danger. "No popery" riots raged in London in June, 1780, for five days, the criminal and idle taking advantage of the tumult to burn and plunder. William Pitt, second son of Lord Chatham, the friend of America, became prime minister in 1783, and held that high- est office for eighteen years (1783-1801). Under his guid- ance Great Britain rallied from the loss of America, consoli- dated her foreign possessions, and so increased in wealth and military power that she became the defense of Europe against the ambition of Napoleon Bonaparte. The younger 284 An Outline History of England. Pitt came from college to Parliament (1781). In December, 1783, before his twenty-fifth birthday, he was first lord of the treasury and virtual ruler of Great Britain. "A sight to make surrounding nations stare — A kingdom trusted to a school-boy's care! " But the school-boy had improved his time. His great father's instructions sank into a singularly fertile mind, and the young man had early familiarized himself with political economy and the problem of governing an industrial and commercial nation. The improvement of the steam-engine by Watt (1765), the invention of the spinning-jenny by Har- greaves (1764), the spinning-frame by Arkw right (1768), the "mule" spinner by Crompton (1776), and the power-loom, gave an enormous impetus to textile manufactures. New processes in metallurgy made available the stores of coal and iron which had lain idle in the hills and moorlands of the Pennine Chain. Over these industries Pitt watched with es- pecial care, and his treaties with foreign powers fostered com- merce by extending freedom of trade. The empire which the East India Company had won was brought under the par- tial control of the home government (1784). Pitt's efforts for the reform of Parliament by the abolition of the "rotten borouechs " were defeated, as was his bill for the abolition of the slave-trade. Fox, the brilliant orator of the Whigs, was Pitt's most dangerous opponent. The king's weak mind failed under the stress of responsibility and disappointment. The wayward- ness of his son George, Prince of Wales, grieved and vexed him. Fox, lately minister, drank and gambled with the prince, and when the kings madness befell in 1788, Fox de- manded the regency as Prince George's right. Pitt defended the claim of Parliament to select the regent, and while- the giants were contending the king's mind cleared again. But from time to time the clouds returned, and after November, 1810, the sunlight never pierced them, King George III. House of Hanover, or Brunswick. 2S5 was hopelessly insane and blind, and the profligate Prince of Wales became regent. From 1789 until 1815, France was the center-point of European affairs. The condition of the kingdom was pecul- iar. A succession of Bourbon kings had collected all author- ity into the hands of the monarch. The nobility and the Church remained without share in the government, but with many privileges. These orders were exempt from the taxa- tion which oppressed the common people, and they monopo- lized all offices. A group of writers, of whom Jean Jacques Rousseau was the representative, filled the nation with spec- ulations and sentimental theories upon the constitution of society. The doctrine of the equality of man pervaded all classes. The young King Louis XVI. (1774-1792), kind- hearted but irresolute, was powerless to guide reform. The finances of the kingdom were so disordered that, in 1789, rep- resentatives of the nation — the States General — were sum- monded (for the first time since 1614) to consider measures of taxation. This body, swayed by the ideas of " liberty, equal- ity, and fraternity," abolished the privileges of aristocracy and clergy, and formed a constitutional government not unlike that of Great Britain. Great was the enthusiasm in England over the French Revolution. Wordsworth says of the time : " Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven I " Fox welcomed it with delight. Pitt sympathized with the French struggle for liberty, though Burke, cutting loose from his old friends, prophesied disaster from the overturning of the established government. The prophecy was fulfilled. The French Republicans, dissatisfied with the moderate revolution, hurried France into war with Germany, and be- headed the king with his queen, Marie Antoinette, as enemies of the nation (1793). The revolution offered its help to all the oppressed peoples of Europe, and declared Avar upon Holland, Spain, Germany, and England (1793-1802). 286 An Outline History of England. Forced into the war against his will, the prime minister car- ried it on with little of the brilliancy which had marked his civil policy. England was strong on the sea, but no English general could cope successfully with the young men who led the republican armies. The armies of Austria and Prus- sia, fed and clothed by English money, were poorly led and accomplished nothing. In 1795 a new constitution placed the government of the Republic in the hands of five direct- ors. Napoleon Bonaparte, a young artillery officer, became general of the armies, and his victories in Austrian Italy ex- torted peace from Austria (Treaty of Campo Formio, 1797). Pitt vainly endeavored to gain peace for England also, but the French had other projects. The " United Irishmen " awaited their promised assistance to break their island away from the British Empire. But the naval victories of Jervis over the Spanish off Cape St. Vincent in February, and the dispersion of the Dutch fleet by Admiral Duncan at Camper- down in October, prevented the French auxiliaries from cross- ing the Channel. The Irish rose unaided, and were put down in the battle of Vinegar Hill, in May, 1798. Peace with Austria encouraged Napoleon to threaten the English pos- sessions in India. In 1798 he conquered Egypt, but the genius of Admiral Nelson destroyed his fleet at Aboukir (August 1) in the famous Battle of the Nile. Foiled in an attempt to subdue the East, Bonaparte returned alone to France in October, 1799. He found the Directory involved in a great war. Russia and Austria had joined hands; Pitt had filled their war chests with British gold, and Portugal, Naples, and Turkey had united with them to check the French advance. By a sudden stroke Napoleon overthrew the Directory, and set up a new constitution with himself as First Consul. Defeats at Marengo and Ilohenlinden (1800) forced Austria to a second peace (Treaty of Luneville, 1801), shattering the coalition upon which Pitt had staked his hopes. The week before the Treaty of Luneville was signed the House of Hanover, or Brunswick. 237 great minister had resigned his office on account of a conflict with King George. Throughout the war with France Ire- land had been a constant menace to Great Britain. The home rule granted in 17S2 had been a failure, for the Irish Parliament was controlled by a few great landlords and did not represent the nation. Accordingly, in 1800, Mr. Pitt obtained the consent of both nations to the abolition of the Parliament. It is said that the consent of Ireland was shamelessly purchased. The legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland dates from January 1, 1801. Since that time Irish members have sat in both Houses, and one Parlia- ment has made laws for the three kingdoms. The promise of liberal concessions to the Roman Catholics had quieted their opposition to the union. But these promises the Brit- ish Parliament refused to honor. Pitt urged that all the real or fancied perils to the State Church had disappeared and that the Catholics deserved equal political rights. Such a measure might have won the hearty allegiance of Ireland to the union, but it met with the determined opposition of the stubborn king. He had sworn on his coronation day " to defend the faith," and he obstinately declared that no man should force him to break that oath. The project, indeed, was distasteful to the Protestants, and the king's enmity destroyed its only chance of success. Pitt resigned his office in despair, and a new ministry of almost unknown men — the Addington cabinet — took up the government. A league of Russia, Denmark, and other northern maritime States confronted them. The Battle of the Baltic (Copenhagen), won by Nelson in April, 1801, and a reconciliation between England and the new czar, Alexan- der of Russia, dispelled that danger, and in March, 1802, the war with France was ended by the Peace of Amiens. Cey- lon was the only important conquest retained by England. The peace lasted but fourteen months, and under its cloak Bonaparte prepared an enormous armament for the invasion 288 An Outline History of England. of England. His intentions were so evident that England herself declared war with France in May, 1S03. With one voice the British nation recalled William Pitt to the head of the government, and though near his death he obeyed (1804). An army of volunteers was gathered in haste to repel the invasion. The royal fleet patrolled the narrow seas to prevent the passage of the hosts at Boulogne. " Give us the Channel for six hours and England is ours," said Na- poleon, but not for six minutes did the English admirals relax their vigilance. Meanwhile Pitt's active emissaries in the northern courts had formed the " Third Coalition " of Austria, Sweden, and Russia for vigorous war against Bonaparte, Avho, in 1804, assumed the title of Emperor Napoleon. The emperor, matchless in rapidity of decision and action, abandoned the English expedition and hurrying eastward captured an Austrian army at Ulm. Eight days later (October 25, 1804) Nelson destroyed the French and Spanish fleets, and lost his own recklessly ventured life in the Battle of Trafalgar. The naval power of Napoleon was crushed, and for the time the fears of England were relieved; but the emperor's armies seemed invincible. In December, 1805, he struck Austria and Russia a terrible blow at Austerlitz, the " bat- tle of the three emperors." Austria hastily left the coalition and made peace with the emperor. Prussia likewise joined the victor. England was once more left almost alone. The news of Austerlitz was Pitt's death-blow. "Roll up that map," he said, pointing to the map of Europe, " there will be no use for it these ten years; " and he spoke truly, for the emperor carved out new kingdoms from his conquests and changed the boundaries of nearly every State of western Europe. On January 23, 1806, the great minis- ter died, amid the lamentations of his countrymen, and was buried by Lord Chatham's side in Westminster Abbey. With characteristic subtlety Napoleon next attacked Great House of Haxover, or Brunswick. 289 Britain through her commerce. While her navy held the seas he could not invade the island, but he might destroy her trade with Europe. From the capital of conquered Prussia, in November, 1806, the emperor launched his fa- mous " Berlin decree " closing the ports of Europe to British trade and declaring the British Isles in a state of blockade, great Britain answered this by its "orders in council," block- ading the French ports and authorizing the capture of neutral vessels trading with them. By the Peace of Tilsit (July, 1807) Russia and Prussia were added to the countries from which British trade was excluded by the emperor's " continental system." The possession of Denmark would have barred the Baltic to British commerce, and Napoleon planned to seize that country, when England — now guided by a ministry in which Canning and Castlereagh were the leading men — descended upon Copenhagen, and after bom- barding the city (September, 1807,) captured and carried off the whole Danish fleet. Portugal, which also stood aloof from the continental system, was occupied by the French (November, 1807), and an army of 100,000 Frenchmen gar- risoned Spain. In 1808 the struggle with Napoleon assumed a new phase. In that year he brutally deposed the rightful king of Spain and placed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the throne. The Spanish nation rose in wild revolt, and England sent men and money to aid them in their six years' struggle, " the Peninsular War" (1808-1814). Sir Arthur Wellesley, a friend of Pitt, and a veteran of the wars in India, was the hero of the English expedition which cleared Portugal of the French (1808). Sir John Moore, commanding in Spain, was driven out by an immense force commanded by the emperor and Marshal Soult (January, 1S09), but in midsum- mer, when Napoleon had been called away by a new (the fifth) Austrian war, Wellesley pushed into Spain and defeated the French at Talavera. For this he w r as created 13 290 Ax Outline History of England. Viscount Wellington, and from this time the English hoped they had found a general. Yet they gave him meager sup- port, and though he clung tenaciously to Portugal it was not until 1812 that the English gained a firm foothold in Spain. In that year Napoleon led half a million men into the heart of Russia to compel the czar to observe the continental, system. He was forced to retreat, and Prussia, Russia, and Austria joined a new coalition with England to put an end to his career. In the three days' Battle of the Nations at Leipzig (October 1G, 18, 19, 1813), Napoleon received his first great defeat. The withdrawal of the French troops from Spain for the emperor's army gave Wellington his opportunity. In 1813 he expelled the French from the Peninsula and followed them into their own terj-itory. As lie entered France from the south the allies crossed the Rhine and pressed toward Paris. All that Napoleon's military skill could do was done to save the capital, but the forces against him were overwhelming. On March 21, 1814, the king of Prussia and the emperor of Austria entered Paris. The em- peror of the French abdicated his throne and left France, the allies giving him the island of Elba. The war did not end with the abdication of Napoleon. While the allies were quarreling over the settlement of Europe, Bonaparte left Elba and re-entered France. His old soldiers joined him. The powers of Europe hastily re- newed their alliance. Two great armies, the English under Wellington, and the Prussians under Bliicher, were assembled in Belgium. On the 14th of June, 1815, Napoleon crossed the Belgian frontier, endeavoring to crush each force before its juncture. Wellington's victory at Waterloo, June 18, de- stroyed the emperor's hopes ; he gave himself up to the British government, and was imprisoned on the island of St. Helena, where he died May 5, 1821. In the Congress of Vienna the allies stripped France of her conquests, England's share being the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, Malta, and a few small islands. House of Hanover, or Brunswick. 291 The United States had suffered severely from the enforce- ment of the laws against trade by which France and En- gland had waged their commercial war. American vessels had been seized and searched, and the British practice of impressing alleged English seamen found on American vessels was especially galling. After vain remonstrances, the United States declared in 1812 the second war with England. The land operations were generally unimportant. The American invasions of Canada were repulsed, and the British incursions from the north met with discouragement and defeat. On the sea the few vessels flying the stars and stripes were generally victorious in a number of hard-fought duels with British men-of-war. The cessation of hostilities in Spain enabled England to strengthen her forces in the "New World, and in the summer of 1814 her troops burned the public buildings of Washington, but were beaten off from their attack on Baltimore. In December General Jackson repulsed the Brit- ish at New Orleans, after the treaty of peace had been signed. Since the king's insanity in 1811 the Prince of Wales, a frivolous man of fashion, had been regent, though lie left the government entirely to his ministers. They had many per- plexities. High prices and low wages stirred the laboring classes against their employers. "Luddites," attributing the scarcity of work to the introduction of machinery, tra- versed the country in riotous bands, breaking looms and spinning-frames. Laws restricting the importation of foreign grain raised the price of breadstuflfs, enriching the agricult- urist at the expense of the bread-winner. Fresh and loud demands were heard for the reform of Parliament and the emancipation of the Catholics. The abolition of the slave- trade in 1807 crowned the labors of Pitt, Fox, Clarkson, and Wilberforce, but the other needed reforms remained unexe- cuted when the aged monarch, George the Third, blind and broken, died at Windsor, January 20, 1820. George IV. had already been regent for nine years when 292 An Outline History of England. he became king at the age of fifty-seven. He left the gov- ernment entirely to his ministers, who reluctantly yielded to the growing demands for reform. In the first year of the reign a plot — called, from the meeting-place of the con- spirators, the "Cato Street conspiracy" — which aimed at the assassination of the entire cabinet was discovered. Arthur Thistlewood and four accomplices were hanged. The trouble grew out of a meeting of radical reformers at St. Peter's Fields, Manchester, in August, 1819. The government had broken up that gathering with bloodshed, which gave it the name of the " Manchester Massacre." The plot to kill the ministers was a project of revenge. At the close of the Napoleonic wars, three nations, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, formed the "Holy Alliance," which they employed to repress the liberalizing influences which the French revolution had let loose in Europe. Canning, the leading minister of George IV., placed England on the side of the " liberals," early recognizing the independence of the revolted Spanish- American republics, helping Portugal against Spain, and lending aid to the Greeks in their war for inde- pendence with the Turk. In this administration, also, Mr. .Huskisson relieved imports and exports of some of their burdens. The staunch Tory ministry of the duke of Wel- lington, the hero of Waterloo, and Robert Peel came into power in 1828, and was forced by circumstances to grant Catholic emancipation. Daniel O'Connell, the Irish orator, fought for this boon, and in 1829 the government yielded. The ancient oaths of supremacy, allegiance, and abjuration gave place to a new form which a Roman Catholic might take with- out offending his conscience ; membership in Parliament and all offices, save the regency, the chancellorship, and the vice-roy- alty of* Ireland, were thrown open to the Catholics. This was as far as the conservative Tories were willing to go in the path of 'reform. There they stood when the death of the king, June 26, 1830, brought his brother to the throne as William IV. Conclusion. • 293 CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUSION. 1830 A. D.-1890 A. D. FROM THE ACCESSION" OF WILLIAM IV. TO THE PRESENT TI5IE. William IV, the eldest surviving son of George III., succeeded to the thrones of Great Britain and Hanover at the death of his brother George IV, June 26, 1830, beingthenin his sixty-fifth year and without legitimate children. His education had been imperfect, and in his long service in the navy this sailor-prince — "royal tarry-breeks " as Robert Burns called him — had shown no real ability. He was a ■better king than captain, and accepted with more grace than his predecessors the subordinate position into which the development of parliamentary rule had forced the monarch. The reform of Parliament was the question which over- shadowed all others in the public mind. All recent efforts to improve the system of electing members of the House of Commons had failed on account of the inborn English opposition to change, an opposition confirmed by the excesses of the French Revolution. The writings of William Cobbett, a self-taught journalist, who had sprung from the common people himself, and had lived a number of years in the United States, gave a new impulse to the efforts for reform. Throughout the regency and the reign of George IV., how- ever, the government declined to act. The duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, bitter opponents of reform, were the leaders of William IV. 's first cabinet. In the House of Lords the great duke declared that the present constitution of Parlia- ment was agreeable to the nation, and should never be altered with his approval. Such opinions made even the hero of Wat- 294 An Outline History of England. erloo unpopular, and the king himself was mobbed in London streets. Pressure became so great that the Tories resigned before the end of the year, the Whig Earl Grey becoming prime minister, with Lord John Russell as leader of the House of Commons. The Commons rejected Russell's Reform Bill (1831), and in a new Parliament the bill was thrown out by the Lords after passing the Lower House. The country ran wild at the endeavors of the aristocracy to stop the progress of the bill. King William himself yielded, and promised to create enough new peers to reverse the anti-reform majority, but he was saved from this extreme resort by the Lords, who relented. On June 7, 1832, the Reform Bill became a law. The Tories were in despair at the success of the " Liberals," as the reformers were henceforth called, in contrast to the " Conservatives," who desired to preserve the constitution from innovations. Wellington believed that England was about to follow the example of France in 1789, and overthrow all safeguards of liberty and property. The law which caused such excitement seems now only beneficial. From the " rot- ten " boroughs which, through a decline of population, had lost their right to representation it took one or both members, distributing one hundred and forty-three seats thus gained among populous manufacturing cities like Manchester and Birmingham, the larger counties and newly created boroughs. The right to vote for members of Parliament was much ex- tended, although still limited to those possessing property of a certain value. The first Parliament chosen in accordance with the new law met in January, 1833. Wellington expressed the forebodings of the Conservatives, " We can only hope for the best ; we cannot foresee what will happen ; but few people will be sanguine enough to imagine that we shall ever again be as prosperous as we have been." Yet this first legislature which fairly represented modern England was not a body of irresponsible democrats. To its lasting glory it passed a bill Conclusion. 295 abolishing slavery in every English land (1833), compensating the slave-holders by a grant of £20,000,000. It also reformed the poor-laws of Queen Elizabeth, under which vagrancy and pauperism had multiplied. The " Municipal Corporation Act " of the following year cleared the town governments of En- gland and Wales of the antiquated customs which protected plunder and corruption. The trade monopoly enjoyed for two centuries by the East India Company was broken up, though its share in the Indian government was left. In 1S3-4 the king became dissatisfied with his Liberal cabinet and re- placed the ministry by Peel and Wellington ; but the sentiment of the country Avas against them, and in April, 1S35, they resigned and the Whigs (Liberals) came into power with Lord Melbourne as premier, Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell beinnf among his colleagues. King William IV. died at Windsor Castle at two o'clock in the morning of June 20, 1S37. At five o'clock the Princess Alexandrina Victoria, daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, George III.'s fourth son, was wakened from a sound sleep and told that she was queen of Great Britain and Ireland. She was then but eighteen years old, well educated, and carefully secluded from the licentious sayings and doings of her uncle's court. With charming dignity she received the announce- ment of her succession to the throne, and took the solemn oaths in the presence of the lords and gentlemen of the council. Her uncles, George and William, had been kings of Hanover in the fatherland, but as females might not inherit that crown, her uncle, Ernest Duke of Cumberland, inherited that country, which, since the downfall of the German Empire in the Napoleonic wars, had been ruled by kings instead of electors. From this time all connection between England and Hanover ceased, and in 1866 the latter kingdom became a province of Prussia. In 1S40 the queen married her German cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a gentle- man of high character and cultivation, who became very pop- 296 An Outline History of England. ular in England. Their twenty-one years of happy married life were terminated by his death in 18G1. "Chartism" and "Free Trade " were the absorbing public questions of Victoria's earlier years. The reforms of 1832, which had horrified the aristocracy and pleased the middle class, were denounced as inadequate and partial by the leaders of the working-men. The latter, perceiving the strength which lay in numbers, asked for a new parliamentary reform which should admit them to a share in the government. Their demands, set forth in a petition to which the Irish orator, O'Connell, gave the name of the " People's Charter," were as follows : 1. Parliaments to be elected annually; 2. Manhood suffrage ; 3. Vote by ballot ; 4. Abolition of property qualification for membership in the House of Com- mons; 5. Salaries for members of Parliament, and 6. Equal electoral districts. Nothing in the charter affrights the present reader. In fact, three of the points — the second, third, and fourth — have since been adopted; but fifty years ago the Chartist demands were considered preposterous and revolutionary. The Commons rejected the petition (June, 1839), and riots ensued which were forcibly suppressed. In 1848 the Chartists again brought forward their grievances, and London was in such terror that its citizens enrolled them- selves for its defense, under the conqueror of Naj:>oleon. The petition, with nearly two million signatures, was duly presented, but there was no rioting. Wellington did not call out his troops. The scare blew over, and Chartism, despite the frantic appeals of its leaders, was laughed out of existence. The Free Trade agitation was better managed. For the " protection " of the agriculturists and land-owners of Great Britain . the culture of grain was fostered by a set of enact- ments known as " corn-laws." These had been imposed in the reign of George the Third, and their object was to raise the price of domestic cereals by collecting heavy duties upon imported breadstuff's, Conclusion. 207 A group of thoughtful and able men, among whom Rich- ard Cobden and John Bright were foremost, protested that such legislation was to the advantage of the few producers and to the immense disadvantage of the more numerous con- sumers. By pamphlet and newspaper, at the hustings and in Parliament, these men, who in 1838 formed at Manchester the " Anti-Corn-Law League," labored early and late for the re- moval of these restrictions upon trade. The law-making class was also the land-owning class, and it was no easy mat- ter to extort from them the repeal legislation for which the people at last became clamorous. The original law of 1815, which practically shut out foreign wheat, was modified in 1828 by the establishment of a " sliding scale" of duties; as the price of domestic wheat rose the duty was diminished and vice versa. The Cobdenites found most support among the Liberals; and it was to some extent the fear that this party would bring in Free Trade that led to its overthrow in 1841, and the second elevation of Sir Robert Peel to the head of the Conservative ministry, among whose younger mem- bers was Mr. W. E. Gladstone. In 1842 this new cabinet revised the tariff, renewing or reducing the duties upon many articles and removing the sliding scale. Famine in Ireland won Free Trade for Great Britain. The failure of the po- tato crop of 1845 convinced the prime minister that the duties upon imported food supplies must be repealed. Lord Russell, the Liberal leader, declared his conversion to Mr. Cobden's principle, " buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest." Thereupon Sir Robert went over to the Free Traders, and though many of his own party deserted him (Mr. Disraeli among them) he carried, with Liberal assistance, a measure which not only repealed the corn-laws by gradual reduction of duties, but utterly abandoned the protectionist theory. Disraeli, just springing into prominence in the Con- servative party, wittily said of Peel's sudden adoption of the Whig Free Trade ideas, " Peel caught the Whigs in bath- 13* 298 Ax Outline History of England. ing and ran off with their clothes." In June, 1846, the bill became a law, and at the same time the government was voted down on a question of Irish government. As he re- signed his office its leader addressed the Commons in an im- pressive valedictory, awarding to Cobden the credit for the new law, and closing with impressive words: "The monopo- list might execrate me," said Peel, " but it may be that I shall be remembered with good-will in the abodes of men whose lot it is to labor and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow — a name to be remembered with expressions of good-will when they shall recreate their exhausted strength with abun- dant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened with a sense of injustice." From the repeal of the corn-laws dates the supremacy of Free Trade in Great Britain. After the battle of Waterloo England remained at peace with European nations for nearly forty years. But the rest- lessness of the Irish and the constant broils on the distant frontiers of the empire furnished the army with almost in- cessant employment. In the very first year of the reign (1837) a rebellious spirit showed itself in Canada. The in- surrection was quelled with little bloodshed (1839), and re- forms in the government, begun in 1840 and extended in 1847, united the Dominion and endowed it with substantial Home Rule. From 1839 to 1842 the royal arms were di- rected against China, a nation which was resolutely opposed to dealings with the West. This " opium war " was fought in behalf of British East India traders who desired to open the Chinese market to the opium of India. As China could make no real resistance, England succeeded in forcing the iniquitous traffic upon her. The conquerors seized Hong Kong, and have since held it as a commercial and naval sta- tion. Other Chinese wars sprang from the ill-blood then engendered. In 1856 a vessel, the lorcha Arrow, flying the British flag, was seized by Chinese, and a war ensued which lasted with an interval of peace until 1860. Conclusion. 299 Jealousy of Russia inspired a new and lasting dread in the British mind. The immense domain of the czar in Asia, and his persistent efforts to extend his boundaries toward the south, alarmed the government for the safety of British India. In 1838 England undertook to expel Dost Mohammed, the Afghan prince or ameer, from his country (Afghanistan) and to replace him with a friendly sovereign. The plan of inva- sion was at first successful, and Cabul, the capital, was taken, hut fortune soon changed and the invaders were repeatedly beaten, until they were compelled to reinstate the dethroned sovereign and leave the country. The Afghans promised safe conduct, and in the winter of 1841-1842 the retreat to- ward India began. A prey to cold and treachery, the army was massacred in the mountain passes. Only one man, Dr. l>rydon, out of the sixteen thousand who began the inarch, lived to reach the British camps at Jellalabad. England abandoned her attempt to force the obnoxious sovereign upon an unwilling people. By a second Avar (1877-1881) Great Britain established more or less firmly her influence among the Afghans. The defense of the empire which Clive and Hastings had won in India involved Great Britain in a succession of petty wars, the object of which was the extension of the British authority to the Himalaya Mountains, the natural northern boundary of the peninsula of Hindustan. Two wars with the Sikhs ended in the conquest of the Punjab (1849), in the north-west, and two campaigns in the north-east ended in the annexation of British Burmah (1852). In 1856 the rich province of Oudh came under British rule. Closely connected with Indian affairs is the Eastern Ques- tion, which early thrust itself upon the attention of Europe. The rapid decay of the Ottoman Empire and the ambition of Russia were the elements of the problem. The Czar Nicholas remarked of Turkey in 1853, "We have on our hands a sick man — a very sick man; it will be a great misfortune if 800 An Outline Histobt of England. one of these days he should slip away from us before the necessary arrangements have been made/' For nearly forty years the European nations have been quarrelling- over the necessary arrangements. England believes that the Russian possession of Constantinople would imperil her own posses- sions in India. Russia is unwilling to allow the Bosphorns — the outlet of Russian Black Sea commerce — to pass into English or Austrian hands. So the "sick man " is main- tained alive. Iu 1853 war broke out between Russia and Turkey, the ostensible ground being the sultan's refusal to recognize the czar's claims as protector of the Greek Chris- tians in the Ottoman Empire. Western Europe interfered in time to save the sick man's inheritance. France, where the nephew of Bonaparte had recently made himself Emperor Napoleon III., and England formed an alliance to aid the Turks. War was declared in 1854, and Lord Raglan, a pupil of Wellington (who died, deeply lamented, in 1852), was sent to the Black Sea with a British army, to co-operate with the French in an attack upon the Russians in the Crimea. They landed in that peninsula in September, 185-4, defeated the Russians in the battle of the Alma, and laid siege for 349 days to the fortress of SebastopoL The Rus>ians made desperate efforts to beat them off, failing at Balaklava, October 25, and again at Inkerman, November 5. In the former engagement occurred the famous "charge of the Light Brigade,'' when, by the misconstruction of an order, a detachment of 007 English cavalrymen charged the whole Russian army. Only 198 men rode back from " the wild charge they made.*' The sufferings of the allies in the trenches were terrible; the winter's cold destroyed hundreds and the cholera of midsummer carried off thou- sands more. The story of these miseries bore fruit in the Red Cross commission and the labors of Miss Florence Nightingale, the hospital nurse. In the autumn of 1855, when the siege had lasted nearly a year, the Russians evacuated Conclusion. 301 the town, and the allies marched in. This virtually closed the " Crimean War," which was formally terminated by the Peace of Paris in March, 1850, in which Russia renounced her claims, and Turkey was given a new lease of life. In the summer of 1857 England stood aghast at the tid- ings from India. That immense and populous empire was gov- erned by the East India Company, whose military force con- sisted almost entirely of native troops, or " Sepoys," officered by Englishmen. On Sunday, May 10, 1857, the Sepoys at Meerut mutinied, and killed their officers. The rumor had spread among them that the British had designs on their re- ligion; that the greasy cartridges of their new Enfield rifles were smeared with a mixture of cow's fat and hog's lard — the cow being the sacred animal of the Hindu and the hog the unclean beast of the Mohammedan. The mutineers pro- claimed the native king of Delhi emperor of India, and called upon their countrymen to exterminate the impious En- glish. General dissatisfaction with the company's rule fed the revolt, which rapidly grew to a fanatical rebellion. Be- fore troops could arrive from England the worst had been done. At Cawnpore a thousand English of both sexes and all ages surrendered themselves to the tender mercies of the merciless Nana Sahib. By his orders the retreating garrison were shot down, and the women were held in captivity until General Havelock's approach, when they were butchered. This Massacre of Cawnpore took place June 27, 1857. In September the English took Delhi by storm, and deposed the Mogul emperor. A horde of rebels surrounded Lucknow, held by Sir Henry Lawrence with a few loyal soldiers and the English residents. In September General Havelock cut his way through the ring of the besiegers and brought timely relief to the garrison. But the ring closed up behind him, and his little army was saved from massacre two months later by the arrival of Sir Colin Campbell with troops fresh from England. The taking of Lucknow in March, 1858, put an 302 An Outline History of England. end to the mutiny. Parliament relieved the East India Com- pany of all its share in the government of the Indian Empire, and on September 1, 1858, the sovereignty of the queen was proclaimed throughout the peninsula. Thirty years later (January 1, 1877) the title "Empress of India" was added to the queen's dignities. The acute disorder in India was easier to bear than the chronic malady of Irish discontent. Irish land, Irish religion, and Irish politics have been the triple source of multifarious trouble. From Strongbow's first invasion of the island down to this present year of Grace, there is scarcely a year when Ireland and England have been in harmony. At the opening of Victoria's reign the Irish clouds were full of menace. Daniel O'Connell, who had led the agitation for Catholic emancipation in the last years of George IV., prom- ised his countrymen that the early years of Victoria should witness the " repeal of the union " — meaning the repeal of the act of 1800, which united Ireland with Great Britain under the control of Parliament. The Roman Catholics — five sixths of the Irish nation — had never become reconciled to the union, and the priests and bishops of that Church became O'Connell's most active lieutenants in the "repeal campaign." His magic eloquence stirred Irish patriotism to its depths. The old Celtic hatred of the Saxon flamed up once more, and in the re-establishment of the Parliament at Dublin they hoped to find a balm for all their wounds. In 1843 the Brit- ish government broke up his meetings. When the Irish people found that their leader would not fight for Ireland's liberties, they deserted him. The failure of the island's single crop (potatoes) brought famine in its train (1846-1857), and, as the promises of O'Connell faded, the Irish felt their miseries increase. The spirit of the times — the year 1848 was marked by "liberal" uprisings in half the kingdoms of Europe — taught the more ardent Irishmen to win by force the independence which Conclusion. 303 O'ConnelPs eloquence had failed to secure. "Young Ire- land " was organized in the name of liberty by Smith O'Brien, Mitchell, Meagher, and other hot-headed Celts, fresh from college or active in journalism. Their reck- less newspaper attacks upon the British government com- pelled the authorities to suppress them. Some powder was burned by the followers, but very little blood was spilled. The leaders of this "Rebellion of '48" were con- demned for treason and transported to Australia, whence they afterward escaped. Secret brotherhoods sprang up in the wake of the Young Ireland agitation, the most successful of all being the Fenian Association, bearing the historic name of the militia of ancient Ireland. This organization nour- ished between 1858 and 1867, and was especially aided by the Irish-American soldiers of the American Civil War. Its head-quarters were in the United States, and the contributions of Irish-Americans furnished it with the sinews of war. In 1867 an attempt was made to raise Ireland in a general insur- rection, but it failed utterly ; the execution of a few prisoners and the temporary suspension of the habeas corpus act re- stored the appearance of peace in the Emerald Isle. Mr. William Ewart Gladstone became prime minister in 1868, and inaugurated a new method of dealing with Ireland. His policy was not to allow Ireland to rule herself, but to rule her in accordance with Irish ideas. In 1869, the State Church of Ireland, which had been forced upon an unwilling nation at the time of the English Reformation, was disestab- lished. Its government support was removed, and it sank to the condition of the Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and Wes- leyan denominations, as simply a free and independent organ- ization. This measure provoked the bitterest denunciations from the Irish Protestants. The next year Mr. Gladstone attacked the Irish land tenure system. His land law of 1870 recognized that the tenant had some right to his holding, and must be compensated for any improvements which he might 304 An Outline History of England. make. Yet Ireland was not satisfied with these concessions ; the cry of " Home Rule " — the restoration of the Irish Par- liament — once raised by O'Connell, repeated in the British Parliament by Mr. Butt (1870), and afterward (1880) by Mr. Parnell. In 1886 Mr. Gladstone became a convert to Home Rule, and resigned his office in consequence of his defeat on the question in Parliament. Coupled with the Home Rule agitation was a plea for further reforms in the land-tenure system, but no satisfactory result has been attained, and the Irish question, despite the Liberal physicians and the Con- servative surgeons, remains an open sore. Since the Sepoy mutiny the British colonies have pros- pered without serious trouble to the mother country. The government of Canada has been consolidated and improved, and the Australian colonies have become populous and pros- perous States. By wars with the natives, the boundaries of the British settlements in South Africa have been extended. In Northern Africa Great Britain has gained control of the Suez Canal, and exercises a protectorate over Egypt. The British Empire comprises 9,250,000 square miles, inhabited by 325,000,000 people. The legislation of the reign covers a wide field. Cheap postage and postal telegraphy, the extension of inland and foreign commerce by means of railroads and fast steam-ships, the great advance in all departments of manufacture have given the government a new set of problems to deal with. Peel's Reform Bill of 1832 has been twice extended. In 1867 the Conservative ministry, in which Lord Derby was chief, with Mr. Disraeli as leader in the Commons, carried a reform bill which was characterized as " a leap in the dark." It greatly lowered the proj)erty qualification for voters, fran- chising in boroughs all householders who paid poor tax, and lodgers paying at least £10 yearly rent. County voters must hold property worth £5 a year, or occupy lands or tene- ments of at least £12 yearly rental. This act admitted work- Conclusion. 305 ing-men to full political rights. " Now we must educate the men whom we have made our masters," said a member of Parliament. In 1870 the Gladstone government established a national public school system throughout England and Wales, in 1871 the same administration abolished the pur- chase of commissions in the army, and in 1872 substituted secret ballot for the open method of voting for members of Parliament. In Mr. Gladstone's second ministry (1880-1S85) a new reform bill made the elective franchise equal through- out England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; adding two million to the number of voters, and bringing the whole num- ber up to five million, and making the government of Great Britain more than ever "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people." INDEX. Acre, Siege of, 104. Acts of Parliament : Corporation, 244 ; Uniformity, 244 ; Conventicle, 244 ; Five-Mile, 244; Test. 248; Habeas Corpus, 249; Mutiny, 258; Bill of Rights, 258; Triennial, 222, 262; Settlement, 272; Schism, 269, 270; Riot, 272; Septennial, 273; Stamp, 280 ; Boston Port Bill, 281. Addington, Ministry, 2S7. Afghanistan, 299. Agricola, Cn. J., 37. Aidan, 53. Albert, Prince-Consort, 295. Albion, 30. Alfred the Great, 62, 73. Alliance, Triple, 247; Grand, 260: Holy, 292. Alva, Duke of, 193, 190. Amiens, Mise of, 117. Angles, 43. Anglesey, 14 ; Druid-seat, 35, 36. Anlaf, 65. Anne, Queen, 264 ; death of, 270. Anne Boleyn, 167, 173. Annus MirabUis, 246. Anselm, 89. Antoninus, 39. Argyle, Duke of, 223, 252. Armada, The Spanish, 199. Armed Neutrality, The, 282. Arrest of five members, 224. Arrow, The lorcha, 298. Arthur, 44. Arthur of Brittany, 102; death, 108. Articles of Religion, forty-two, 181. Arvan family, 28. Aske, Robert, 170. Assize, of Arms, 100; of Clarendon, 100; of Northampton, 100; The "Bloody," 253. Athelstan, 65. Augsburg, League of, 260. Bacon, Francis, Lord, 208, 209. Bacon, Roger, 118. Battles: Baden Hill, 44; Deorham, 45; Heaven's Field, 52 ; Winwaed, 53 ; Burford, 56 ; Hengestesdnn, 60 ; Ash- dune, 62; Brnnanburgh, 66: Stam- ford Bridge, 76; Hastings (or Senlac), 76; Bouvines, 109; Lewes, 117; Ever- sham, 117; Stirling, 122; Falkirk, 122; Bannockburn, 126; Borough- bridge, 126; Crecy, 130; Neville's Cross, 131; Poitiers, 132; Navarete, 133; Agincourt, 144; Verneuil, 147; Wakefield, 152; St, Albans, 152; Northampton, 152; Towton, 152; Tew T kesbury, 154 ; Hexham, 154 ; Bos- worth Field, 158; Guinegate, 165; Flodden Field, 165 ; Solway Moss, 176 ; Pinkie, 179; Zutphen, 198; Newburn, 220; Edgehill, 225; Marston Moor, 226; Newbury, 227; Nasebv, 228; Philiphaugh, 228 ; Stow, 228; Preston Pans, 230 ; Dunbar, 232 ; Worcester 232; Sediremoor, 253; Killiecrankie, 258 ; Newtown Butler, 259 ; the Boyne, 260 ; the Hogue, 260 ; Neerwenden, 262; Blenheim, 266; Ramillies, 266: Oudenard, 267; Malplaquet, 267; Sheriffmuir, 273 ; Preston Pans, 275 ; Falkirk, 275; Culloden, 275; Minden, 277; Montreal, 277; Plassy, 277; Lexington, Concord, 281 ; Bunker's Hill, 281; Saratoga,' 282; Yorktown, 282 ; Cape St. Vincent, 286 ; Camper- down, 286; Vinegar Hill, 286: Nile, 286; Marengo, 2S6 ; Hohenlinden, 286; Baltic, 287; Trafalgar, 289; Austerlitz, 289 ; Talavera, 289 ; Leip- zig, 290 ; Waterloo, 290 ; New Orleans, 291; the Alma, 300; Balaklava, 300; Inkerman, 300. Ball, John, 138. Balliol, John, 120. Bank of England, 262. Barebones Parliament, 234. Baronets, 208. Baxter, Richard, 244. Beaufort, Bishop Henry, 146. Beaufort, Edmund, 150. Becket, Thomas, 98. Bede, kfc The Venerable/' 56. Benevolences, 153, 163, 208. Berlin decree, The, 289. Bernicia, 45. Bertha, Queen of Kent, 50. Bible, King James's version, 206. Bill of Rights, 258. Bishops, excluded from Lords, 224. Bishops rejected, Scottish, 218, 219. Bishops' Wars, 219, 220. Black Death, 138. Black Prince, Edward, 130, 135. Blake, Admiral, 233. Boadicea, 36, Index. 30' Bombardment of Copenhagen, 289. Bonaparte, Napoleon, 286. Bonner, Bloody Bishop, 186. Bothwell, Earl of. 193. Buckingham beheaded, 158. Banyan, John, 228, 244. Burgh, Hubert de, 113. Burke, Edmund, 280. Bute, Lord, 279. Braddock's campaign, 277. Breda, Declaration of, 240; Treaty of, 246. Bretwalda, 46. Bright, John, 297. British Isles, 13. Britons, 28 ; in Caesar's time, 32. Brownists, 195. Bruce, Robert, 120; the Younger, 124. Bruce, David, 129. Brunswick-Liiueburg, 271. Cabal ministry, 247, 248. Cadwallon, 52. Caedmon, 55. Caesar in Britain, 81. Camulodunum, 36. Calais taken, 131 ; lost, 187. Caledonia, 37. Campian, The Jesuit, 195. Canada acquired, 279. Canning, Georpe, 292. Canterbury Tales, 136. Canterbury, Archbishopric of, 50. Canute, 71. Cape of Good Hope, 290. Caradoc, 35. Carey, Lucius, Lord Falkland, 221. Caroline, Queen of England, 274. Carr, Robert, Earl of Somerset, 208. Cassivelaunus, 32. Catharine, Queen of Charles II., 245. Catharine of Aragon, 164, 167, 168. Catherine de Medici, 190. Catholic Emancipation, 212. Cavaliers, 225. Cawnpore, Massacre of, 301. Cecil, Robert, 202,208. Cecil, William, Lord Burleigh, 190. Celts, 28. Cerdic, 44. Ceylon, 287. Charles I., 208; kirn?, 212; beheaded, 230. Charles II. of England, 232 ; restored, 240 ; marriage, 24."> ; death, 250. Charles Edward Stuart, 275. Charles V., 165, 183. Charles VII. of France, 1 16. Chateau Gaillard, 106, 108. Chartism, 296. Chaucer, 136. Chronicle, The English, 64. Churchill, John, 256; treachery, 261. Clarendon, Constitutions of, 99. Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 244. 246. Clarence, Duke of, 154, 155. Claudius, 35, Claverhouse, Graham of, 252 ; death, 258. Clement VII., Pope, 167. Climate, 17. Clive, Robert, 277. Cloth of Gold, The Field of the, 166. Cobden, Richard, 297. Cobbett, William, 293. Coke, Sir Edward, 209. Commonwealth established, 231. " Conformity, Occasional," 273. Congress, Continental, 281. Conservatives, 294. kt Continental System," The, 289. Conventicle Act, 214. Convention, 239. Cook, Captain James, 283. Corn Laws, 296 ; repeal of, 297. Corporation Act, 244. Courtenay, Henry, of Exeter, 171. Covenant, The Scottish, 219 ; taken in En- gland, 226. Covenanters, Persecution of, 252. Coverdale's Bible, 172. Cranmer, Archbishop, 168, 179, 185. Crimean War, 300. Cromwell, Oliver, 213, 217; colonel, 225; army leader, 230 ; in Ireland and Scotland, 232; Lord Protector, 235; death, 239. Cromwell, Richard, 237. Cromwell, Thomas, 168. Crusades, First, 90. Cumberland, Duke of, 275. Cumberland, Ernest, Duke of, 295. Cunobelin, 35. Cuthred, 56. Cymri, 29. Cynric, 44. Danby, Thomas Osborne, Earl of, 248, 255. Dane-geld, 70. Dane-law, 63, 65. Danes, 56 ; in Ireland, 60 ; in England, 60 ; massacre of, 71 ; conquer England, 71. Darnley, Henry, Lord, 192. Declaration of Liberty of Conscience. The, 254. Declaration of Rights, 257. Defender of the Faith, 172. Deira, 45. Despenser, Huirh le, 125. Devereux, Robert, Earl of Essex, 200, 201. Disestablishment of Irish Church, 303. Disraeli, Benjamin, 297. Divine Right of Kings, 206. Divorce of Henry VIII., 167. Doomsday Booh, 86. Douglas, James, 193. Dover, Secret treaty of, 247. Drake, Sir Francis, 197, 198, 199, 200. Drogheda, Storming of, 232. Druids, 33. Dryden, John, 246. Dudley, John, Earl of Warwick and Northumberland, 182. - Index. Dudley, Robert, Karl of Leicester, 197. Dudley, Lord Guilford, 18S Dunkirk, Sale of, S Duple. \ Aversion of, 51 Eastern Qui - 899. s - Bdbald of Nortnumbria, Edgar, 69. Edgar the Atheling, 75. Edith, 74. Edmund Ironside, Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, 138. Edmuud the Magnificent, Edred, Edward the Confess Edward the I Edward l.. " Longsnanks," 117; death, 184, Kdward the Martyr. 70. Edward II.. of Carnarw . Edward III., of Windsor, Edward v., 156. Edward VL, 178, ITT. Edward, son of Henry VL, ISO, 155. Edwm of Northumberlan I Edwin and Morcar, Revolt of, 79, Edwy. - Egbert of Wessex, Elinbeth, Queen of Bohemia, 909, on. . eth, Queen of Henry VII., u 160 Elizabeth. Queen. 169, 308. Saxon King, 44. Emma of Normand Emperor and Dudley. 164. sh, 4-3; religion. 46; government, 47 ; eonve: - ; system com- pared with Norm.. Essex. 4o; conversion of , 50, Ethelhald of Wessex. 60. Ethelbert of Kent. 50. Ethelburga of Northumberland, 51. Ethelfled. iM. Ethehvd of Morel.-.. Ethelred I. of Wessex. 60. Ethehvd II.. the Unready, 70. Etheiwoif of Wessex . Prince of Savoy, ^k>. Excise I'ax. . Fairfax. Sir Thomas, 886, 837. Famine in Ir -. Fenian Lss Feudal Syste Finch. Speato Fisher. Bishop of Rochester, 169. Five-Mile Act. 944, sbern, William. 79, Vox. Charles James, Frederick the Great) Free Trade. 896. 3, 118. 3, 89, Gardiner, Bishop. 176, 179. i. aunt. John of, 133, 140. Gaveston, Tiers. 185, Geddes, Jenni . B Genealogies : Norman Pukes, 70 : House of Oerdic, 61 ; English sovereigns, 9-12; Danish kings, it; House of Godwin, 74; Edward's claim to French crown, 160; Descent of Henry iv.. 141 ; Lancaster and York, 151; Spanish succession. 866; Han- over or Brunswick, Geoffrey, son of Henry U., 101, George L, 869 : died, George II., 874. George 111.. 878; death of. 891. George IV., regent, 284; king, 891; death. 89& . Prince of Denmai Gibraltar taken. 866, 869. 3 me, w. f... 897. Glenooe, Massaciv . Glendower, 14.C. Qodiva, . - i Godwin, Gordon. Lord George, 888. Grand Alliance. 860; renewed, 864. Ft rand Jury. 100, Grattan's Parliament, 878 Great Britain, 15, Great Contract. The, Gregory vn. (Hildebrand . B4, Gregory the Great, " , Grenviile. Lord George, Grey, Lady Jane, 164, Grey, Lady Elizabeth, 154. Guthrum the Dane. 68. Gwyn, Nell, i Habeas Corpus Ac:. Hadrian. 88. Hampden, John, 81 Hampton Court Conference . Hanover, 869; Genealogy, Hanover, separated from England, 895. Sardicanute, 78. Barley, R rtwrt, - B, 873. Harold. tt. Harold, sou of Godwin, 7o. Harold Hardrada, 7o. Hastings the Pane. Hastings, Warren. . Hawkins. J ihn, 197. Hengist and Horsa, 43. Henrietta Maria. Queen - ... 811, 818. Henry III. v of Winchester', 118, Henry IV. Henry V. ^of Monmouth), 148. Henry VI., 145, 140; death. 155. Henry VII. u>f EiehtuoikP, 137, 166. Index. no9 Henry VIII., 168; divorce, 167; death, 176. Henry, the Young King, 101. Heptarchy, The Saxon, 45. Heresy, Btatute of, 142. Hereward, 80. Hlbernla, 80. High Commission, Court of, 195, 217; abolished, 222. Hill, Abigail (Lady Masham), 268. Holland, Wars with, 245, 247. Holy League, The, it.. Holy Isle, i"'. Home Rule, Irish, 804. Hong Kong, 298. Honorius, 40. Hotspur, in. Howard, Admiral, Lord, 199, Howard, Catharine, 174. Huguenots, 190, 191; in England, 283. Hundred Years' War, The, 129, 1 18. Hyde, Edward Lsee Clarendon]; Anne, wife of James II., 251. Idylls of the King, 45. Impositions, 207. Independence, Declaration of, 281. India Company, British East, chartered, 202, Conquer Bengal, 277. Indulgence, Declaration of, 217, 218. Ine, 5B. Innocent III., 108. Instrument of Government, the, 285. Iona, 14 ; St. Columba at, 49. Ireland, and Henry II., 100; StrongbOW, 101 ; Union of England and, 28i . Ireton, 282. Irish Rebellion of '48, 303, Ironsides, Cromwell's, 225. Isabella, Infanta of Spain, 209, 211. Jacobite, 208; rising of '15, 272; rising of '45, 275. Jamaica, 230. .James I. born, 192; King of Scots, 193; King of England, 202. James II., Duke of York, 240 ; in navy, 240 ; resigns, 248; recalled, 250; king, 251; deposed, 250; died, 264. James Francis Edward Stuart born, 251. Jennings, Sarah (Churchill), 205. Jesuits, 189, 195. Joan of Arc, 147. John, 101 ; king, 107; quarrel with pope, 108; death, 111. John, Duke of Bedford, 140. Junius, Letters of, 280. Jutes, 43, Kent, Landing of Romans in, 31 ; Jutisb kingdom of, 43. Ket, Robert, 181. "Kingmaker, The, 1 ' See Warwick, 151. Kirke's Lambs, 253. Knox, John, 193. Laborers, Statutes of, 138. Lancaster, House of, 151. Lancaster, Thomas, Earl of, 125. Land law, Irish, 808, Language, Rise of English, 185. Langton, Archbishop Stephen, iuh. Lanfranc, 84. Latimer, Hugh, 180. 185. Laud, Archbishop, 215, 222, 227. League, The, 197. Leo iv., Pope, 62. Leofrlc, 73. Liberals, 294. Lichfield, Archbishopric of, 57. Light Brigade, Charge of , 300. Lindlsfarne, 53; 55. Lionel, Luke of Clarence, 137. Lollards, 130; laws against, 142. Londlnlum, 37. London, lire, 266; plague, 266. Londonderry, Siege of, 259. Longchamp, William, lot. Lontf Parliament, elected, 221 ; purged, 230; dissolved, £34 ; finally dissolved, 239. Lords, House of, abolished, 280. Louis XIV., 245; pensions Charles [I., 247; subsidizes James If., 252. Lucknow, Defense of, 301. Luddites, 291. Luther, Martin, 171. Magna Charta, 110. .Major-Geuerals, The, 230. Manchester massacre, The, 292. Mansfield's expedition, 211. Manufactures, 284. Mar, Earl of, 272. Margaret, queen of Henry VI., 149, 153. Margaret the Athellng, 75, 89; Marlborough, See Churchill, 205, 209. Marshall, William, 113. Mary, Queen of Scots, 163, 170, r83, 192, 193, 198. Mary, Queen of England, 169, 173, 187. Mary, daughter of .James II., marriage, 2 IS; queen, 257; death, 202. Mary of Modena, queen of James II., 251. Massachusetts Ray Colony, 216. Mercia, 45 ; conversion of, 53. Methodist Revival, The, 278. Middlesex, 45. Milton, John, 244. Monasteries, 09, 109. Monk, General, 233, 231, 239, 215. Monmouth, Duke of, 249; expedition, 253. Monopolies abandoned, 202. Montague, 201. Montfort, Simon de, 115. Montrose, Marquis of, 220. Moore, Sir John, 289. More, Sir Thomas, 109. Mortimer, Anne, 150. Mortimer, Edmund, 141. Mortimer, Roger, 127. " Morton's Fork," 103. Mutiny Act, 258. :U0 NPEX. Nana Sahib, 901. Nantes, Revocation of Edict of, 953. Newfoundland, S9S8. New Model, The. 828, 940. Newspapers, 268. New York taken from Dutch, 015. Nightingale, Florence, 800, Nimeguen, Treaty of. 04S. " No Popery " riots, OS 3. Non-jurors, 957. Norfolk, Duke of. 174. Normans in Europe, The, North, Lord. 861. Northumbria. 45 ; conversion of, 51. Nova Seotia. 969. Gates. Titus. 948. O'OonneU, Daniel. OTC. 909. Odoof Bayeux, ! 96,88. Offa, 56. Oldcastle. Sir John, 143. Opium War. 998. "Ordainers," The. Orders in Council, 0S9. Ordinances. 994, Ostorius, 36. Oswald, kin? of Northumbria, 59. Oswv of Northumberland, 53. '• Other House, The," 887. Oxford, Provisions of, HO; University of, US. Palmerstou, Lord, 005. Pandulf.109, in. 114. Paradise Lout, 044. Parsons, the Jesuit. 195. Parker, Archbishop, 189. Parliament, Great, so-called, 115; Mont- fort's, 117; of Edward I., 193; in two Houses, 103; the Merciless. 139 ; the Addled, 007; the Short, 980; Lonir. 991 : Rump, 030 ; Barebones. 034 ; Corruption of. 079. Parr. Catherine, 176. " Patriots, Seven." The, 055. Paulinus. Suetonius. 36. Peel, Sir Robert. 093. Pelham. Cabinet of, 075, 976. Peuda. kin? of Men-ia, 50. Peninsular War. ! Pennine Chain, 15. Petition, Millenary, The, 004. Petition of Rights, The, 014. Petre, 858. Philip II. of Spain. 184, 1S6, 187. Picks. 39. Pilgrimage of Grace, 107. Pilgrim'* Progress, 044. Pitt, W., Lord Chatham. 976, 978, 880. Pitt, W. (the Young), 0-3. 888. Plautius. Aulus. 35. Plots: Ridolfl's, 194; Babington's, 19S ; Gunpowder. 906; Popish, 948; Bye House, 050 ; Cato Street. 090. Popish Plot. - Pra?niuuire, Statute of, 141. Prayer-book, English. 180. Presbyterianism, Established in England, 836 9tf! Presbyterians. 005 ; Scottish. 01S. 999. Pretender, The Young, 875. Pretender, The Old, OtVj, 968, 979, 897, 975. Pride's Purge, 990. "Protestation. The," 010. Prvnue, William. 017. Puritans. 194, 904. Pvm, John. 013,001. 003. Pytheas, 30. Bagnor, Lodhrog, 0(3. Raleigh, Sir Walter. 001, 010. Ranulf, Flambard, SS. Banulf, Glanville, 109. Kedwald. of East Amrlia, 51. Reform Bill. 994. Reformation. English, 168, 170. 180. Remonstrance, The Grand, 003. Restoration. 040. Revolution. The French. - Revolution of 'SS. 957. Richard I., 101 : kiue, 103 ; death. 107. Richard II., 137. Richard III.. 155, 15S. Richard. Duke of York. 150. Richard. " Kim: of the Romans," 115. Ridlev, ISO, 1S5. Rizzio, Murder of, 193. Robert. Duke of Normandy, S5, 90. Roches. Peter des. 113. Roehelle, Expedition to, 013. Bockingham, Ministry, 880, 0S1. Rogers, John, Roman Invasion, SI ; Conquest, 95-36'; Evacuation. 40 ; Influence, 41. Roses. Wars of the, 150, 15S. Roundheads, 005. Rump. The. 030, 031. 034 ; dissolved. 039. Rupert, Prince, 005, 006, 04(3. Bunnymede, no. Russell, Lord John, 294. Rye House Plot, 050. St. Augustine, 50. St. Bartholomew, Massacre of, 196. St. Chad, 53. St. Cuthbert, 53. St. Dunstan, 6S. St. Edmund. 68. St. John, Henrv, Lord Bolinebroke. 968, 979, St. Patrick, 49. Saint's Best, 944. Sarsfleld, Patrick, 060. Saxons. 39. Scone, Stone of, 181. Scotland. 88; Del of England, 109; inde- pendent, 104. Scots, 39. Scutaee, 99. Sebastopol, Siege of, 300. Seminary Priests, 195. NDEX. 311 Separatists, 195. Sepoy Revolt, The, 801. en Bishops," The, 254. Seven Years' War, 276. Severn, 16. Severus, 89. Seymour, Edward, 178. Seymour, Jane, 173. Shaftesbury, Ashley Cooper, Earl of, 217, 248, 249. Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 282. Ship-money, The, 210. Shires, ik. Shrewsbury, Duke of. 270. Sidney, sir Philip, 198. Slmnel, Lambert, 161. Si ward, 72. Six Articles, 172; repeal, 180. I rery abolished, :.'.»"-. si. ,-e-trade abolished, 291. Somerset. (8ee Edward Seymour.) Sophia of Hanover, 268. South Sea Bubble, 269, 27:;. k 'Spurs, The Battle of the," 165. Stafford, Edward, 166. Star ('handier, 163, 216; abolished, 222. Btonehenge, 24, 35. Strafford 'see Wentworth). Strathclyde, 40; conquered, 50. Sunderland, 201. Sussex, 44. Sweyn, 71. "Tables, The," 219. Talbot, Richard, Earl of Tyrconnel, 259. Taylor, Rowland, 1*5. Temple, Sir William, 247. Test Act, 248. Thames, 16, 21. Theaters of Restoration, 244. Theodore of Tarsus, 54. Theodosius, 40. Theresa, Empress Maria, 275. Thirty-nine Articles, The, 192. Thirty Years' War, 210. Thistlewood, Arthur, 293. >b Thorough," Stafford's policy of, 215. Tilbury, Elizabeth's speech at, 199. Tin Islands, 30. Tonnage and Poundage, 102. Tower. Princes murdered in the, 150. Tory, 249. Treaties: Wedmore, 03; Northampton, 128; Troves, 145; Breda, 210; Dover (secret), 247 ; Nimeguen, 2 18 ; Limerick, 260; Ryswick, 262; Utrecht, 269; Aix- la-Chapelle. 2:5; Paris, 270; Campo Forinio, 28(5; Liineville, 280; Amiens, 287 ; Tilsit, 289 ; Paris, 301. Trent, Council of, 175. Tudors, Origin of, 157. Tyler, Wat, 138. Tyndale, William, 172. Tyrone's Irish revolt, 201. Ulster, Massacre of Uniformity, Act of, 211. " United Irishmen," 286. United States, 281. Vane, sir .'fan Verulamium Vespasian, •".<;. -':7. Victoria, Queen, 295; Empress, 802. Vienna, Congress of, 290. Vikings, 59. Timers, George, jjuk.i of Buckingham, 208; death, 211. Vortigern, 43. Wales, Annexation of, 120; Incorporated with England, 177. Wallace, William, 121. Walpole, Robert, 274. Walsingham, Sir Erancis, Vm. Walter, Hubert, 105, 108. Warbeck, Perkln, 161. Warwick, Earl of, 152,151. War, Hundred Years', 129, War of Spanish Succession, 263. W T ar, Second, of United States with En- gland, 291. Washington, George, 270,281. Wellington, 289. Welsh, origin of name, 41. Wentworth, Sir Thomas, Earl of Strafford, 213,215; beheaded, 222. Wesleys, The, Wessex, 44; conversion of, 53 ; supremacy of, 58. Westminster Assembly, 227. Wexford, Massacre of, 232. Whig, 211). Whip of Six Strings, 172. Whitby, Synod of, 54. Wiclif, John, 130. Wight, Isle of, 14. Wilkes, John, 279. William If. (Rufus), 87. William III., 257. William IV., 293. William of Malmesbury, 05. William of Normandy, 74 ; king of En- gland, 177 ; death, 87. William of Orange, stadthoHer, 247 ; marriage, 248; in England, 250; king, 257; death, 20}. William the Silent, 190, 197. Winchelsey, Archbishop, 123. Witenagemot, 47. 81. Wolfe. General, 277. Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal, 105, 167. Wykeham, William of, 134. York, archbishopric of, 54. York, House of, 151. " Young Ireland," 303. 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