h J 4>\ ^ - ■ I I % .,N x ^ ^ V^ J FREEMAN'S HISTORICAL COURSE FOR SCHOOLS. HISTORY OF ENGLAND EDITH THOMPSON EDITED BY Edward A. Freeman, D.C.L. Edition adapted forAmerica?i Students.^ NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY i873 TJ ^4 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1873, by Henry Holt. in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. > PREFACE. The appearance of the first of the series of small histories to be published under my editorship seems to call for a few words from me. The present History of England takes for granted the views and divisions laid down in my Outlines of History so far as they concern the particular history of England. The points in English history which were there touched on as parts of general history, with special regard to their bearings on the history of other countries, are here dealt with more fully, as a consecutive narrative of the history of the particular nation and country of England. It will perhaps be found to be more compressed than some other volumes of the series ; as the history of England naturally appealed to a wider circle than most others, it was thought right to keep the book within as small a compass as might be. The book is strictly the work of its author. I have throughout given it such a degree of supervision as to secure its general accuracy ; but with regard to the PREFACE. details of the narrative, both as to their choice and their treatment, they are the author's own ; on these points I have not thought it right to go beyond suggestion. It may perhaps be hard for me to speak impartially of a book to whose general merit I am pledged by its mere appearance ; but I can honestly say that it is the result of genuine work among the last and best lights on the subject. I believe it to be thoroughly trustworthy, and that it will give clearer and truer views on most of the points on which clear and true views are specially needed than can be found in any other book on the same small scale. EDWARD A. FREEMAN. SOMERLEAZE, WELLS, March %th, 1873. CONTENTS. CHAP PAGB I.— BRITAIN I II.— ENGLAND 4 III. — THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND 8 IV. — WESSEX IO V.— FROM jfcTHELSTAN TO THE DANISH KINGS . . l6 VI. — THE DANISH KINGS 21 VII. — FROM EDWARD TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST . . 2$ VIII. — THE OLD ENGLISH AND NORMANS 26 IX.— WILLIAM 1 35 X. — WILLIAM II. 39 XL — HENRY 1 42 XII. — STEPHEN 46 XIII. — HENRY II 48 XIV. — RICHARD 1 53 XV.— JOHN "56 XVI.— HENRY III 60 XVII. — EDWARD I .... 66 XVIII. — EDWARD II 71 XIX. — EDWARD III. 75 XX. — RICHARD II 8l XXL— HENRY IV 88 XXII. — HENRY V 92 XXIII. —HENRY VI 96 CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE XXIV. — EDWARD IV IOO XXV. — EDWARD V IO4 XXVI. — RICHARD III I06 XXVII.— HENRY VII. Ill XXVIII. — HENRY VIII II4 XXIX. — EDWARD VI 122 XXX.— MARY 127 XXXI. — ELIZABETH 131 XXXII.— JAMES I I4O XXXIII. — CHARLES 1 149 XXXIV.— THE COMMONWEALTH 1 58 XXXV. — CHARLES II 1 66 XXXVI.— JAMES II 174 XXXVII. — WILLIAM AND MARY : WILLIAM III 184 XXXVIII.— ANNE 191 XXXIX. — GEORGE 1 195 XL. — GEORGE II. \ 199 XLI.— GEORGE III. . . * 2IO XLII. — GEORGE IV 229 XLIII. — WILLIAM IV 232 XLIV.— VICTORIA ■. 236 INDEX 243 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. B.C. Caesar lands in Britain 55,54 A.D. Claudius in Britain 43 Caradoc subdued 50 Revolt of Boadicea 61 Agricola in Britain . . . . 78 — 84 Hadrian in Britain . 120 Severus dies at York 211 Martyrdom of St. Alban 304 The Roman legions leave Britain 410 English Conquest : — Hengist founds the Kingdom of Kent 449 JElle and Cissa found the Kingdom of Sussex .... 477 Cerdic and Cynric found the Kingdom of Wessex ... 495 Arthur defeats the West-Saxons at Badbury 520 Ida founds the Kingdom of Northumberland 527 iEthelbert converted by Augustine 597 Edwin converted by Paulinus 627 Ine King of the West-Saxons 688 Offa King of the Mercians 757 First landing of the Danes 789 Egbert King of the West-Saxons 802 ^thelwulf - 838 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. .ffithelbald 858 ^Ethelbert 860 iEthelred 1 866 The Danes land in East-Anglia 866 Alfred 871 Peace of Wedmore 878 Edward the Elder 901 Edward becomes Lord of all Britain 924 ^Ethelstan 925 Battle of Brunanburh 937 Edmund the Magnificent 940 Edmund grants Cumberland to Malcolm of Scotland . . 945 Edred 946 Edwy 955 Edgar 959 Edgar crowned at Bath 973 Edward the Martyr 975 ^thelred II 979 The Danish invasions begin again 980 Danegeld first paid ■ 991 The Danish Conquest :— Swegen acknowledged King . 1013 -ffithelred restored 1014 Edmund Ironside 1016 War between Edmund and Cnut ; the Kingdom divided . 1016 The Danish Kings. Cnut chosen King of all England . 1017 Harold and Harthacnut ; the Kingdom again divided . . 1035 Harold King of all England 1037 Harthacnut 1040 House of Cerdic restored. Edward the Confessor . 1042 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. Westminster consecrated 1065 House of Podwin :— Harold II 1066 Battle of Stamfordbridge, Sept. 25th 1066 The Norman Conquest ; Battle of Hastings, Oct. 14th . 1066 The Norman Kings : — William I. crowned, Dec. 25th . 1066 Harrying of Northumberland 1069 Defence of the Isle of Ely 1071 Domesday drawn up 1085, 1086 William II 1087 Malcolm III. of Scotland slain at Alnwick 1093 Henry I.; Charter of Liberties 1100 Battle of Tinchebrai 1106 Stephen 1135 Battle of the Standard, Aug. 22nd 1138 War of Stephen and Matilda 1139-1153 House of Anjou : — Henry II 1154 Constitutions of Clarendon 1164 Murder of Archbishop Thomas 1170 Conquest of Ireland begins 1171 Richard 1 1189 Richard seized by Leopold Duke of Austria 1192 John 1199 John becomes a vassal of Rome 1213 The Great Charter granted, June 15th 1215 Henry III 1216 Charter of the Forest 1217 The Barons' War ; Battle of Lewes, May 14th 1264 Earl Simon's Parliament 1265 Battle of Evesham, Aug. 4th 1265 CHRONOLOGICAL. TABLE. A.D. Edward 1 1272 Conquest of Wales . . 1233 The Jews expelled from England 1290 Conquest of Scotland 1296 The Confirmation of the Charters 1297 Edward II 1307 Battle of Bannockburn, June 24th 1314 Battle of Athenree, Aug. 10th 1316 Edward II. deposed ; Edward III. becomes King . . . 1327 The late King Edward II. murdered, Sept. 2 1 st .... 1327 Hundred Years' War begins 1338 Battle of Crecy, Aug. 26th 1346 Surrender of Calais 1347 Battle of Poitiers, Sept. 19th 1356 Peace of Bretigny, May 8th 1360 The Black Prince dies 1376 Richard II 1377 The Peasant Insurrection 1381 John Wycliffe dies 1384 Richard II. deposed ; House of Lancaster ; Henry IV. becomes King 1399 William Sautree burned 1401 Battle of Shrewsbury, July 23rd 1403 Henry V 1413 Hundred Years' War renewed 1415 Battle of Azincourt, Oct. 25th 1415 Treaty of Troy es, May 2 1st 1420 Henry VI 1422 Jack Cade's insurrection 1450 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. Wars of York and Lancaster ; first battle of St. Albans . .1455 Battle of Wakefield, Dec. 31st 1460 House of York : — Edward IV 1461 Battle of Tewkesbury, May 4th 1471 Edward V.; Richard III 1483 Battle of Bosworth, Aug. 22nd 1485 The Tudors :— Henry VII 1485 Perkin Warbeck hanged 1499 Henry VIII 1509 Battle of Flodden, Sept. 9th 1513 Marriage of Henry with Katharine of Aragon declared null and void 1533 The Papal power in England set aside 1534 Wales incorporated with England ; dissolution of the lesser monasteries; Anne Boleyn beheaded 1536 The greater monasteries dissolved ; Act of the Six Articles . 1539 Ireland raised to the rank of a Kingdom ....... 1542 Edward VI 1547 Battle of Pinkie, Sept. 10th 1547 Mary 1553 Wyait's insurrection; Jane Grey beheaded; reconciliation with Rome 1554 Ridley and Latimer burned 1555 Calais taken by the French 1558 Elizabeth 1558 Act of Supremacy ■ 1559 Mary of Scotland beheaded 1587 The Spanish Armada defeated 1588 Charter granted to the East India Company 1600 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. House of Stuart : — James 1 1603 The Gunpowder Plot discovered, Nov. 5th 1605 Translation of the Bible finished 1611 Charles 1 1625 Petition of Right, June 7th 1628 The Long Parliament meets, Nov. 3rd 1640 Irish Rebellion 1641 The Civil Wars ; Charles sets up his standard at Nottingham, Aug. 22nd 1642 Battle of Naseby, June 14th 1645 Second Civil War; battle of Preston, Aug. 17th .... 1648 Charles I. beheaded, Jan. 30th 1649 The Commonwealth 1649 Oliver Cromwell in Ireland 1649 Battle of Dunbar, Sept. 3rd 1650 Battle of Worcester, Sept. 3rd 1651 War with Hohand 1652 Cromwell turns out the Parliament, April 20th 1653 The Protectorate; Oliver Cromwell, Dec. 1 6th .... 1653 Jamaica taken 1655 Richard Cromwell 1658 The Long Parliament reassembles 1659 The Convention meets; Restoration of King Charles II. . 1660 The Plague Year 1665 The Great Fire of London 1666 The Dutch burn the ships at Chatham 1667 Habeas Corpus Act 1679 James II 1685 Battle of Sedgemoor, July 6th 1685 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. Trial of the Seven Bishops, June 1688 Landing of the Prince of Orange, Nov. 5th 1688 Flight of James from Whitehall, Dec. nth 1688 Declaration of Right ; the Convention bestows the crown upon William and Mary, Feb. 13th 1689 Bill of Rights 1Q89 Battle of the Boyne, July 1st 1690 Surrender of Limerick, Oct. 3rd 1691 National Debt begins 1693 Bank of England founded ; death of Mary ; William III. 1694 Act of Settlement 1701 Anne 170 2 Battle of Blenheim ; Gibraltar taken 1704: Union with Scotland, May 1st 1707 Peace of Utrecht 1713 House of Hanover : — George 1 1714 Jacobite Rebellion 1715 George II 1727 Battle of Dettingen 1743 Jacobite Rebellion 1745 Battle of Culloden, April 1 6th 174Q Battle of Plassy, June 23rd 1757 Canada won 1760 George III I75O The North American colonies declare their independence, J ul y 4th 1776 Battle of the Nile, Aug. 1st 1798 Union with Ireland, Jan. 1st 1801 Battle of Trafalgar, Oct. 2 1 st 1805 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. The Peninsular War 1808-1814 The Regency 1811 Battle of Waterloo, June 1 8th 1815 George IV 1820 Catholic Emancipation Act, April 13th 1829 William IV 1830 Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened ...... 1830 The Reform Bill, June 7th 1832 Abolition of Slavery, Aug. 28th 1833 Victoria 1837 Abandonment of the protective duties upon corn .... 1846 Battle of the Alma, Sept. 20th 1854: Indian Mutiny .' 1857 Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick formed into one Dominion under the name of Canada 1867 The Reform Bill, Aug. 15th 1867 The Irish Church disestablished 1869 Ballot Bill 1872 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. BRITAIN. The Britons ; Ireland and Scotland (i) — the Roman conquest; invasion of Julius Ccesar ; description of the Britons (2) — Claudius ; Caractacus (3) — destruction of the Druids ; Queen Boadicea (4) — Agricola (5) — Hadrian and Severus (6) — the British Church; St. Alban (7). 1. The British Isles. — Englci7id has its name from the Angles or English, of whom we shall not speak till our next chapter, as they were not the first owners of the land. They found already dwelling in it a Celtic race, the Britons, who are the earliest inhabitants of whom we have any historic knowledge, and who still exist as a people under the name of Welsh. These are supposed < to have conquered, and rooted out from the country, a savage race, remains of whose weapons and tools have been found in their tombs or crom- lechs. The Island of I erne, Scotia, or Ireland was inhabited by another Celtic people, the Scots, who afterwards colonized or conquered a district of Caledonia or North Britain, which thus came to be called from them Scotia or Scotland. 2. The Roman Conquest, Julius Caesar. — At the time when our knowledge of the Britons begins, the Romans were the most powerful nation of the world ; and it was their T B BRITAIN. [chap. great general, Cains Julius Ccssar, who first attempted to conquer Britain, hitherto only known to those merchants who traded with the tribes on the sea-coast. Cassar first passed over into Britain in Aug. 55 B.C., landing at Deal. The next year he came again, but neither time did he make any lasting conquest, or leave any troops behind him. He only saw the southern part of the island, and gives to the Kentish people the praise of being the most civilized of the Britons. The population was large, the buildings and cattle numerous. The Britons stained themselves blue with woad, which gave them a terrible appearance in battle. They em- ployed both cavalry and chariots, and were remarkable for their skill in driving, and the activity with which they leapt down to fight on foot and sprang back again to their cars. Their priests were called Druids, and human sacrifices were offered to their gods. After Caesar's two expeditions, Britain became much better known to the rest of the world. At the beginning of the Christian sera, its exports are said to have comprised corn and cattle, gold and' silver, tin, lead, and iron, skins, slaves, and hunting dogs. Pearls were also found, but of a poor kind. 3. Claudius.— In the time of the Emperor Claudius, who himself came over here in a.d. 43, the Romans really began to conquer Britain. One who struggled the hardest against the invaders was Carddoc, called by the Romans Caractacus, King of a tribe dwelling by the Severn ; but he was at last taken and sent prisoner to Rome. "When he saw the stately streets, he expressed his wonder that men who had such wealth at home should covet his poor cottage in Britain ; and the Emperor, struck with his bold bearing, instead of putting him to death, the usual fate of a captive, gave him his freedom. 4. Boadicea. — In A.D. 61 Suetonius Pauliuus, the Roman governor, being determined to root out the Druids, attacked L] THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN. 3 their sacred isle of Mono, (now Anglesey). A strong force of Britons defended the shore ; the Druids stood around, calling down the wrath of heaven upon the invaders ; women with streaming hair and torches in their hands rushed wildly to and fro. For a moment the Romans quailed with super- stitious terror ; but, recalling their courage, they advanced, and warriors, Druids, priestesses, were overwhelmed, the altars destroyed, and the sacred groves cut down. Mean- while the subject Britons broke out into revolt under the leadership of Buddug or Boadicea, widow of a King of the Icoiians, a tribe dwelling in what are now Norfolk and Suffolk. Boadicea, having offended the Roman officer com- manding at Camulodunum (Colchester^, had by his orders been publicly scourged, and her two daughters had been subjected to brutal outrage. Breathing vengeance, the high- spirited Queen gathered together her own and the neigh- bouring tribes, stirred them by a fiery speech, and herself led them to battle. They massacred the garrisons and burnt the Roman towns of Londinium (London), Ventlamiiim (St. Albans), and Camitlodunumj but, on the return of Suetonius, they were defeated with great slaughter near Londinium. Boadicea died soon after — a natural death, as some say ; according to others, she poisoned herself in despair. 5. Agricola. — The true conqueror of Britain was Cnccus Julius Agricola, a wise and good man, who was its go- vernor from a.d. 78 to 84. He built a line of forts between the Firths of Forth and Clyde to keep off the wild North-Britons whom he could not subdue, sailed round the north of the island, and found out the Orkneys. He ruled with justice, checked the extortions of the Roman tax-gatherers, and encouraged the natives to build temples, courts of justice, and good dwelling-houses. Towns were raised throughout the land, and excellent roads made, some of which remain at this day. Many Romans settled in Britain, of whose B 2 ENGLAND. [chap. villas, or country-houses, traces are here and there still to be seen ; while the native chieftains learned to speak Latin, and affected the dress and manners of their conquerors. 6. Hadrian and Severus. — In 120 the Emperor Hadrian visited Britain, and, not being able to keep all the land won by Agricola, raised an earthwork from the Tyne to the Solway Frith. A fresh dyke, however, was built along Agri- cola's line under the Emperor Antoninus Pius in 139. Still the Caledonians gave trouble, until between 207 and 210 the Emperor Severus came in person to put them down, and built a chain of stone forts along the line of Hadrian's dyke. Severus died in 21 1 at Eboracum, now called York. 7. The British Church. — At what time Britain became Christian is not known. Its first martyr is said to have been St. Aldan, who was put to death in 304 near Verulam ; the spot where he was martyred being afterwards marked by the abbey and town bearing his name. CHAPTER II. ENGLAND. Decline of the Roman power ; the Picts and Scots ; the Teutonic tribes; the Roman Wall ; recall of the Roman troops.; the English conquest ; the Welsh (i) — kingdom of Kent ; legend of Hengest and ITorsa ; kingdom of Wessex ; Arthur ; kingdom of Noi-tJmmberland ; of the Mercians ; of Sussex, Essex, and East Anglia ; the Bretwalda (2) — Religion (3) — Government ; the King; earl, churl, thane, and thrall ; the Witan ; mark, hundred, and shire (4). I. The English Conquest. — In the fourth century, when the power of Rome was going down, the free Celts of the north, the Picts and Scots, began to pour into the Roman ii.] THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 5 province of Britain, while new enemies attacked the island by sea. These latter were Teutonic tribes, speaking dialects of the Low-Dutch or Low-German tongue, who came from the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser in North-Germany. About the year 400 the Romans joined the forts of Severus by a wall, parts of which are still to be seen ; and ten years later, the Emperor Honoruis withdrew all his troops from Britain, and left the natives to resist their many ene- mies as they best might. The greater part of the country was now conquered by these Teutons, the founders of the English nation, among whom three tribes stand out above the rest, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. These grew into one people under the name of Anglo-Saxons, or more commonly of Angles or English; and the part of Britain they dwelt in was called England. They were fierce hea- then, who slew or enslaved those whom they overcame, and drove the rest into the western part of the island. They spoke of the Britons as Welsh, that is, strangers ; while the Britons called them all Saxons, as the descendants of the Celts in Wales (which has its name from the Welsh), in Ireland, and the Highlands do to this day. 2. The English Kingdoms. — According to ancient tradi- tion, the first Teutonic Kingdom in this island was that of Kent, which has always kept its British name. Gwrtheyrn or Vo7'tigem, a. native prince, was ill-advised enough to invite two Jutish chiefs, the brothers Hengest and Horsa, to help him against the Picts. The strangers came over with their followers in three keels or ships, defeated the Picts, and then, thinking they might as well conquer for themselves, sent over for their countrymen in North-Germany, telling them how good the land was, and how weak were its people. The Britons, nevertheless, had a long struggle with them ; but the Jutish adventurers at last got the better, founding in 449 the Kingdoms of East and West Kent. The Kingdo?H ENGLAND. [chap. of the West-Saxons, or Wessex, was founded by two Saxon chiefs, Cerdic and his son Cynric, who, landing in 495, made themselves Kings of the part now called Hampshire. A British prince, Arthur by name, who has become more famous by the romances and poems about him than for his real exploits, in 520 defeated the Saxons at Badbury in Dorset- shire, and thus checked their western conquests for a whole generation ; but later on, they pushed their way, and their kingdom grew larger and larger. In 547 Ida the Angle founded the Kingdom of the Northumbrians— the land from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, ruled sometimes by one King, sometimes by two. The Kingdom of the Mercians, which was mainly Anglian, took in the midland country. The Kingdoms of the South-Saxons, or Sussex ; of the East-Saxons, or Essex; and of the East- Angles, which was divided into the North-folk and South-folk {Norfolk and Suffolk), were less powerful. , These seven chief kingdoms are sometimes spoken of by modern authors as the Hept- archy, that is, the Rule of Seven ; but the name is mis- leading, as there were at no time seven regular and orderly states. They were for ever fighting, not only with the Welsh, but among each other, and their number was sometimes more and sometimes fewer. At times, some one King gained a certain authority over his fellows, in which case he was termed a Bretwalda, or " Wielder of Britain." 3. Religion. — The faith of the English was much the same as that of the other Teutonic tribes — heathenism, though not of a degraded form. Woden, called by the Danes Odin, was their chief god, the giver of valour and victory ; after him came Thunder, better known by his Danish name of Thar, the ruler of the sky ; and many other gods and goddesses. The names of the days of the week, as Wednesday or Woden's day, Thursday or Thunder's day, still preserve the memory of some of these deities. II. ] GO VERNMENT. 4. Government. — The English royal houses all claimed descent from the God Woden ; but, though the King was taken from the kingly line, he was nevertheless elected ; and a child or a man thought incompetent would be passed over in favour of a kinsman better fitted for the office. Part of the land belonged to the State, and part was allotted to individuals, the King having his private estates like other people. But as he could, with the consent of his council, make grants of the public land, it came in time to be looked on as the property of the Crown. All landholders were under three obligations, — to serve in the fyrd, or militia, and to repair fortresses and bridges. Freemen were divided into Earls and Churls, terms best expressed in modern language by the words " gentle " and " simple ; " and the churl was expected to live under some lord, whom he fol- lowed to battle. Every King or other great man had his own thegns (now spelt "thane"), warriors who devoted them- selves to his service in peace and war. As it was held an honour to serve a King, the thanes grew into gentlemen and nobles. There were also the thralls or slaves, who were most numerous along the Welsh border, where many Welshmen were taken prisoners and made bondsmen. But men might become slaves in other ways than being cap- tured in war. They might be driven by poverty to sell them- selves, or be enslaved by law as punishment for some crime ; or they might be born in slavery. The King was not absolute (that is, he did not govern by himself), but was guided by a kind of Parliament, called the Witena-gemot, or Meeting of the Wise, and often simply the Witan or Wise Men. All freemen might take part in the Meeting ; but as the Kingdoms grew larger the mass of the people soon found it impracticable to do so ; — for ex- ample, a common man at York was not likely to attend a Meeting at Winchester or London. So the Meeting shrank CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. [chap. on ordinary occasions into something more like our House of Lords, attended only by the great men — the Ealdormen, who were much like Lords-Lieutenant of counties ; the King's thanes; and, after the country became Christian, by the Bishops and Abbots.' We often hear, however, of the Londoners taking part in Meetings held in that city. The powers of the Witan were large : they elected the King ; and they and he together made laws and treaties, and ap- pointed tor removed the officers of the State. The people, however, in small matters governed themselves. The mark or township had its own little court and meeting, still con- tinued in part under the name of " parish vestry," for judg- ing and settling its affairs : and so had the hundred, a division of the shire or county. So too the shire had its court and meeting, presided over by the Ealdorman and the Sheriff, with whom, in Christian times, was joined the Bishop. CHAPTER III. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. K*me ; the conversion of Kent (i) — the conversion of the Northum- brians ; the Scots missionaries (2). I. Conversion of Kent. — The heathen English had learned nothing from the Christian Welsh, and their conversion was owing in the first instance to Rome, which was still considered the greatest city of the Western world, and whose Bishop, commonly called Pope, that is, Father, was held to be chief of all Bishops in the West. Gregory the Great, who was made Pope in 590, is said to have become interested in the English from seeing some beautiful long-haired boys from Deira (Yorkshire), standing for sale in.] CONVERSION OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 9 in the slave-market at Rome. Well were they called Angles, he said, for they had the faces of angels j and sorrowing that forms so fair should have no light within, he at once conceived a wish for the conversion of England. So after he had become Pope, he, in 597, sent into Britain a band of monks having at their head Augustine, after- wards styled Saint. sEthelbert King of Kent, who was the most powerful prince in Southern England, had married Bertha, daughter of Charibert, one of the Frankish kings in Gaul. Though himself a heathen, he had agreed to allow his wife, as being a Christian, free exercise of her religion, and he now consented to listen to Augustine and his companions. The meeting took place in the Isle of Thanet, and, by y^Ethelbert's wish, in the open air, because spells and charms, which he feared the strangers might use, were supposed to have less power out of doors. After hearing what they had to say, he gave them a house in the royal city of Canterbury. Ere long they converted y£thel- bert, whose example was freely followed by many. Augus- tine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, and his cathedral, although it has been many times rebuilt, still re- mains the metropolitan or mother church of England. He consecrated a Bishop of London, for whom King .rEthelber-t built the church of St. Paul. The Church services, intro- duced untranslated by the missionaries, were in Latin, which, though an unknown tongue in England, was still understood in other parts of Western Christendom. 2. The Conversion of the Northumbrians. — Eadwine, or as we now write his name, Edwin, of Deira, mounted the Northumbrian throne in 617, and became the greatest King in Britain. His wife yEthelburh, daughter of /Ethelbert of Kent, was a Christian ; and to the Bishop Paulinus, whom she brought with her, the conversion of her husband was due. York Minster, at first a simple wooden church, was io W ESSEX. [chap. founded by Edwin, who was there baptized. But after he had fallen fighting against the heathen Penda King of the Mercians, many of his people returned to the old gods. The work of conversion began again under Oswald, who became King in 634. Having been baptized by the Scots of Caledonia, he applied to them for teachers for his people. Aidan, a monk from the monastery of Iona, was sent on this request, and fixed his episcopal see in Lindisfame, since called Holy Island. Through his own and his countrymen's labours, most of the Northumbrians soon became Chris- tians ; but the faith of the common people in out-of-the-way districts was often mixed with heathenism. Cuthbert, a Northumbrian monk of Melrose, who was made Bishop of Lindisfarne in 685. and was afterwards reverenced as the great saint of the North, devoted himself to teaching them, and preaching throughout the villages, choosing particularly those which were so difficult to get at that other mission- aries avoided them. The other kingdoms of England were gradually con- verted during the seventh century. CHAPTER IV. WESSEX. Northumberland ; Offa of Mercia ; Ine of Wessex ; the Bretwalda Egbert (i) — the Danes (2)— St. Patrick ; the Danes in Ireland (3) — sEthehvulfand his sous ; Ragnar Lodh-og ; St. Edmund (4) — Alfred; story of the cakes ; taking of the Raven; story of Alfred in the Danish camp ; treaty of Wedmore ; Danish settle- ments (5) — Alfred 's government ; death of Alfred (6) — Edward the Elder ; Lordship of Britain (7)-— Rolf the Northman (8). I. Rise of Wessex. — For some time Northumberland took the lead in England ; then Mercia rose to power under iv.] THE DANES OR NORTHMEN. H Offa, who reigned from 757 to 796. He raised a dyke, called by his name, from the Wye to the Dee, to guard the land he had taken from the Welsh. Gradually Wessex, which was ruled by the descendants of Cerdic, got the mastery. Ine, who became its King in 688, is famous as a lawgiver. He, too, waged war with the Welsh, and also built the town of Taunton, probably as a frontier fortress. In 802, Ecgberht or Egbert succeeded to the throne of Wessex, and brought all the English kingdoms under his power. He became King by conquest of all the Saxons and Jutes, and Lord of the East-Angles, Mercians, and Northumbrians, whose Kings consented to be his men or vassals. The Welsh of Cornwall and Wales also submitted to him ; but his later years were marred by the increasing ravages of the Northern pirates. 2. The Danes or Northmen. — The Scandinavians, or Northmen, were a Teutonic people, who gradually formed the Kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. As those of them who entered England were chiefly Danes, the English writers often speak of the Scandinavians in general by that name. Among these people, piracy was an honour- able profession, and men of the highest rank took to the roving life of a " Sea-King ; " that is, a leader of wikings or pirates. Their practice was to sail up the river in their cescs or as/wood galleys, and, obtaining horses in the country, make rapid forays over the mainland, plundering, burning, and slaying. They spoke a kindred tongue to English, and, worshipping the same gods as the heathen English had done, singled out with especial delight churches, monasteries, and priests for destruction. Nevertheless they for the most part made little difficulty about forsaking their own religion whenever there was anything to be gained by conversion. Never to flinch in fight, or shed a tear, even for their dearest kinsfolk, and to be as reckless in meeting as in inflicting death, summed up their ideas of honour and duty. WESSEX. [chap. 3. The Da-nes in Ireland. — The Scots of Ireland had been converted to Christianity in the fifth century, chiefly, it is said, through the exertions of Si. Patrick, a famous missionary whose origin and country are matters of doubt. His dis- ciples carried on his work : churches and monasteries were founded ; learning was cultivated at a time when it had almost died out elsewhere, and the Irish schools were sought by strangers from England, Gaul, and Germany. Never- theless the people made but slow progress towards civiliza- tion, and this was checked altogether by invasions of the Danes. At last the pirates settled upon the sea-coast, and the native Irish, driven into the bogs and the forests, fell back into little better than savages. 4. The Danish Wars. /Ethelwulf and his Sons. — Egbert was succeeded in 838 by his son ALthelwulf, and he by his four sons, jElhelbald, ALthelbcrt, ALthelred I., and sElfred (or, as we now write it, Alfred), who all reigned one after the other, none of the first three living long. Under ^Ethelred began the great Danish war, as to the cause of which there are many Northern legends. One tale is that Ragnar Eodbrogj. a mighty Sea-King, was shipwrecked on the Northum- brian coast. There the King of the country, sElla, threw him into a dungeon full of poisonous snakes, under whose bites he expired, chanting to the last a wild song recounting his ex- ploits, and boasting that "he died laughing." The facts are that in 866 " a great heathen army," under the command of Ingvar and Ubba, said to be sons of Ragnar, landed in East-Anglia, and in the two next years overran Northumber- land and Mercia. In S70 they again invaded East-Anglia, and put its young King Edmuud to death. Edmund, accord- ing to legend, was offered his life and kingdom if he would forsake Christianity and reign under them. On his refusal they bound him to a tree, scourged him, made him, in savage sport, a mark for their arrows, and at last struck off his head. IV.] ALFRED. 13 He was honoured as a martyr, and the Abbey of St. Ed- mu?idsbnry was afterwards erected over his grave. 5. Alfred, 871-901. — Alfred, when a child of four years old, had been sent by his father to Rome, where Pope Leo IV. adopted him as his godson. At nineteen he married, and it is said that during his wedding feast he was seized with fearful pain, which baffling all the medical skill of the time, for the next twenty years of his life kept frequently attacking him ; if so, it is the more wonderful how brave and vigorous he was. At the age of twenty-two he became King, and a hard fight he had of it. For seven years he maintained himself, until early in 878 the army under Guthrum, a Danish chief who had possessed himself of East-Anglia, made a sudden raid upon Wessex, and overran the country. Many of the people fled beyond sea ; the rest submitted, while Alfred, with a few followers, disappeared among the swamps and woods of Somersetshire. At one time — so runs a tale which appears to have come to us from a ballad — he stayed in disguise with a neat-herd, who kept his secret even from his wife. One day the woman having set some cakes to bake at the fire by which Alfred was sitting mending his bow and arrows, returned to find her cakes burning in the sight of the unconscious King, whose mind was full of more serious matters. Flying to save them, she roundly scolded him for his neglect to turn the cakes, which she said he was only too glad to eat when hot. That same winter the Devonshire West-Saxons slew the Danish King Ubba in battle, and took the magic Raven banner, said to have been woven in one noontide by the three daughters of Ragnar. Things now began to mend, Alfred and his little band throwing up a small fort in Athelney, and thence making frequent sallies. It is said that in order to ascertain the strength of the enemy he entered their camp in the disguise of a minstrel or juggler, and there stayed i 4 WESSEX. [chap. seven days, amusing them and their King Guthrum with his music, until he had learnt all he wanted to know. However this may be, he reappeared on a sudden at the head of the West-Saxon forces, and gave the Danes such a defeat at Edingtoti, near Westbury, that they soon yielded to him. Guthrum submitted to be baptized ; and the Witan meeting at We dm ore, a treaty was made, by which the Danes re- ceived, as vassals of the West-Saxon King, East-Anglia, and part of Essex and Mercia. The Danes of Northumber- land, who were not Guthrum's men, submitted to Alfred some years later. So after all Alfred's labour, the greater part of England was left in Danish hands, and conse- quently the English race became largely infused with Scandinavian blood. In this way it comes to pass that so many places have Danish names, marked by the ending by, which answers to the English ton or town. Thus Strconeshalh got the Danish name of Whitby, and North weortkig that of Derby. 6. Alfred's Government. — Alfred worked as hard in peace as in war. He made a collection of dooms, that is, laws ; some taken from the Mosaic law, others from the old codes of uEthelbert, Inc., and Offa, adding but few of his OAvn, because he said he did not know how those who came after him might like them. He kept up a fleet, and did all he could to revive the old seafaring spirit, which seemed to have died out. He gave largely to the poor and to churches, founded monasteries, and encouraged learned men, English and foreign, to instruct his people. Knowing Latin well, he translated many books from that language. He sent out seamen to the North on voyages of exploration ; also em- bassies to the Pope, to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and what is still more remarkable, to India, with alms for the Christian churches there, which had been founded, it is said, by the Apostles St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew. This was the IV.] ROLF THE NORTHMAN. 15 first intercourse between England and the far-off Eastern land which now forms part of the British Empire. Alfred had other wars with the Danes, but his courage and deter- mination carried him through all, and his last years were spent in quiet. In 901 he died, and was buried at Winchester, in the new Minster, afterwards called Hyde Abbey, which he had begun, and which his son Edward finished. 7. Eadward or Edward the Elder, 901-925. The Lord- ship of Britain. — Alfred was succeeded by his eldest son Edward, who was as good a soldier, though not so good a scholar, as his father. He became more powerful than anyone before him, for at his death he was King of the English as far as the H umber, and Loi-d of all Britain j the Northumbrians, whether English, Danes, or Norwegians, the Scots, and the Welsh of Strathclyde or Cumberland, all doing him homage. 8. Rolf the Northman.— One foreign event in Edward's time had important consequences for England. There was a noted Sea- King, the Northman Rolf, called in French Ron and in Latin Rollo, and surnamed, it is said, " Ganger" that is, the Goer or Walker, because he was too tall to ride ; for when mounted on one of the little horses of his country, his feet touched the ground. Rolf spent many years in plun- dering, until Charles the Simple, King of the West-Franks, bribed him to peace by granting him the land at the mouth of the Seine. Rolf turned Christian, and proved a good ruler. He was called Duke of the Northmen, or Normans, as the word was softened in French, and his land got the name of Normandy. 16 JETHELSTAN TO THE DANISH KINGS, [chap. CHAPTER V. FROM /ETHELSTAN TO THE DANISH KINGS. SEthclstan ; Brunanburh ; b?iperial titles (i) — Edmund; grant of Strathclyde (2) — Edred ; St. Dunstan (3) — Edzay ; the Monks and the Seculars ; ALlfgifu (4) Edgar — tribute of wolves' heads (5) — Edward the Martyr (6) — sEthelred the Unready ; Danegeld ; invasion of Swegen ; martyrdom of ^Elfheah (j)^the Danish conquest; restoration of sEthelrcd (8) — Edmund Ironside ; divi- sion of England (9). 1. /Ethelstan, 925-940. Empire of Britain. — sEthelstan, eldest son of Edward, is famous for his victory in 937 at Brunanburh, where he and his brother Edmund overthrew Anlaf, a Danish King from Ireland, Constantine King of Scots, Owen of Cumberland, and all the Scots and Danes and Welsh of the north. Of Anlaf there is a tale that he played the spy in the English camp, disguised, like Alfred before him, as a glecman ; and that ^Ethelstan and his nobles gave him money, which Anlaf, too proud to keep, buried in the ground. All that is known of the position of Brunanburh is that it was north of Humber. yEthelstan took Northumberland into his own hands, so that now there was but one king in England. He and his successors sometimes called themselves Empero?'s of Britain, to show that they were lords of the island, and that the Emperors of East and West had no pow T er over them. 2. Eadmund or Edmund the Magnificent (that is, The Doer of Great Deeds), 940-946. — Edm-und, a brave warrior like his brother, came to a sad end when still a young man, being stabbed by Liofa, a banished robber, who, having insolently seated himself at the royal board resisted the V.] ED RED AND EDWY. 17 attempts of the King and others to turn him out. Strath- clyde was granted by Edmund to Malcolm King of Scots, on condition of service in war. 3. Eadred or Edred, 946-955. — Edmund's sons being still children, his brother Edred was chosen King. He took for his adviser a wise man, Dunstan, afterwards styled Saint, who had been as a youth at the court of King ^Ethelstan, but, having turned monk, had given himself up to study, and to arts useful for the services of the Church, such as music, painting, and metal-work. By King Edmund he had been made Abbot of Glastonbury. 4. Eadwig or Edwy, 955-959. The Monks and the Secu- lars. — Edwy, eldest son of Edmund, though still very young, was chosen King after Edred's death. The history of this time is so coloured by party spirit that it is hard to make out the truth. The main subject of dispute was the reformation of the Church. The Danish invaders had destroyed many monas- teries ; in those which were left discipline had become lax, and the monks lived much as they chose. Among the secular clergy — that is, those who were not monks, but parsons of parishes and canons of cathedral and collegiate churches — there is said to have been much ignorance and vice. Moreover, tl\e secular clergy were often married, and this was specially hate- ful in the eyes of the reforming Bishops, who shared the idea which had gradually grown up in the Western Church, that the clergy ought not to marry. They accordingly set them- selves with great zeal, not only to make the monks live ac- cording to their rules, but also to force the married clergy to put away their wives. Further, they tried to get all the cathedral and other great churches into the hands of monks, whom they liked better than secular clergymen, married or unmarried. The quarrel ran high, and while Dunstan stood at the head of the monks' party, young King Edwy, though no enemy to the Church, took the other side. Edwy's mar- T C i8 sETHELSTAN TO THE DANISH KINGS, [chap. riage was another cause of strife. It appears that his wife JElfgifu (in Latin Elgivd) was related to him within the very numerous degrees then forbidden by the ecclesiastical law of marriage, and Dunstan's party therefore refused to consider her as the King's wife. Edwy, on his part, seems to have behaved unwisely, and in the end he drove Dunstan out of the country. Whether it was by this, or by his govern- ment in general, the King gave great offence, and in 957 all England north of Thames revolted, choosing Edwy's brother Edgar -for its King. The next year Archbishop Oda prevailed on Edwy to divorce ^Elfgifu. There is a horrible story, which happily there seems no good reason for believing, that Oda had her branded in the face and banished, and that when she ventured to come back his men put her to a cruel death. Nothing is really known of her end ; as for Edwy, he died in 959. 5. Eadgar or Edgar, surnamed the Peaceful, 959-975. — Edgar King of the Mercians, a youth of sixteen, was now chosen by the whole people as their ruler, and his reign proved peaceable and prosperous. Like Alfred, he main- tained a strong fleet, and thereby kept the country from invasion. Dunstan, now Archbishop of Canterbury, was his counsellor ; and, though in many churches secular priests were turned out to make way for monks, Dunstan was too much a statesman to foster the violence of many of his party. Edgar's coronation was put off until he had reigned thirteen years. It took place at Bath in 973, after which he sailed with his fleet to Chester, where some six or eight of his vassal Kings with their fleets came to do him homage, — the ceremony by which one man declared himself vassal of another. There is a tradition that Edgar exacted of Idwal, a rebellious North-Welsh prince, a tribute of three hundred wolves' heads yearly, and that this he paid for three years, but omitted in the fourth, declaring that he could find no v.] EDWARD AND MTHELRED II 19 more. Edgar left by different wives, two sons, Edward and JEthelred, one about twelve and the other about six years old. 6. Eadwardor Edward, surnamed the Martyr, 975-979. — There was much disorder after Edgar's death, for the parties of the monks and the seculars at once began to quarrel again. Besides this, they disputed as to which of Edgar's sons should be King ; but finally the elder, Edward, was elected. After a reign of less than four years, the young King was murdered at Corfes Gate (Corfe Castle). He was called "the Martyr," a name which the English then readily gave to any good man unjustly slain. The story goes that young Edward, returning tired and thirsty from hunting, stopped at the door of his stepmother, sElfthryth (in Latin Elfridd). She came out to welcome him ; but while he was eagerly draining the cup presented to him he was stabbed by one of her attendants. He at once put spurs to his horse and galloped off, but sinking from the saddle his foot caught in the stirrup, and he was dragged along till he died. It is added that the child yEthelred, for whose sake the murder had been committed, on hearing of his brother's death burst into tears, at which his mother ./Elfthryth in passion beat him so unmercifully that his life was endangered. 7. jEthelred II., surnamed the Unready, 979-1016. — ■ AZthelred was only ten years old when raised to the throne, and he had not been two years crowned when the Danes renewed their invasions. After Dunstan's death in 988, the young King gave himself up to unworthy favourites., and everything went to rack- and ruin. Weak, cowardly, cruel, he was always either leaving things undone, or doing them at the wrong time ; whence he has been called " the Un- ready," that is, the Uncounselled, probably by a play on his name sEthel-red, which means Noble-in-connsel. After a while, he and his advisers took the course of buying off the C 2 20 sETHELSTAN TO THE DANISH KINGS, [chap. invaders with large sums of money, the taxes levied for the purpose being called Danegeld. Nothing could have suited the pirates better, and again and again they came to slay and plunder, sure of being paid in the end. In 994 the King of the Danes, Swend or Swegen " Forkbeard" who had been baptized as a child, but had returned to heathenism, invaded the country, and proved a terrible foe. In ion the Danes under one Earl Thurkill took Canterbury, carry- ing away a vast number of captives for ransom or slavery, among whom was the Archbishop JElfheah. He first agreed to ransom himself, but afterwards refused, not wish- ing to impoverish his people, by whom the money would have to be paid. In a fit of drunken fury the Danish warriors pelted him to death with stones and ox-bones, in spite of the remonstrances of their leader Thurkill, who offered all the money he had, or might be able to get, to save the holy man's life. This happened at Greenwich, where now stands the church of St. Alpluge, as ^Elfheah was afterwards called. 8. The Danish Conquest. King Swegen.— At last in 1013 England was completely conquered by Swegen, who was acknowledged as King, while yEthelred took shelter with Duke Richard the Good of Normandy \ whose sister Emma he had married. It must be noted to the credit of London that it beat off the invaders four times during this reign, only yielding to Swegen when all the rest of the country had done the same. Swegen died early the next year — ■ smitten, so men fancied, by the Martyr-King Edmund, whoss church at Bury he had threatened to destroy. Upon this /Ethelred was recalled, but died soon after, while the war was being kept up between his son Edmund and Swegen's son Cnut. 9. Eadmund or Edmund, surnamed Ironside, April 23- Nov. 30, 1016. — There were now two Kings, Edmund vt.] CNUT THE DANE. 21 and Cnut, one being elected in London, and the other at Southampton. Edmund, whose strength and valour gained him the name of Ironside, fought six pitched battles with his rival, but was at last persuaded to consent to share the kingdom with him. Edmund had Wessex, East-Anglia, Essex, and London for his dominions ; Cnut took the rest. On Nov. 30th in the same year Edmund died, after a seven months' reign. CHAPTER VI. THE DANISH KINGS. Cnut the Dane; his kingdoms; the great Earldoms (1) — story of Cnut and the waves (2) — Harold I. ; division between Harold and Harthacnut ; death of Alfred ; England reunited ; Hartha- cnut (3). I. The Danish Line. Cnut or Canute, 1017-1035. — Cnut the Dane was now acknowledged as King of all England. He had for some time professed Christianity, and though his deeds had hitherto been those of a barbarian, in the end he proved a good ruler. He gathered about him a standing force of from 3,000 to 6,000 paid soldiers, Danes, English- men, and recruits from all nations ; but we never hear of his employing these Housecarls, or, as we should call them, household troops, for purposes of oppression. Besides being King of England and Denmark, he also won Norway and part of Sweden, but he spent most of his time in this country, which he liked better than his other dominions. England was divided by him into four governments or Earldoms — Wessex ) Mercia, East-Anglict, and Northum- be?iaud. 22 THE DANISH KINGS. [chap. 2. Story of Cnut and the Waves. — Of the legends about Cnut, the most famous is that which records how he one day, during the height of his power, ordered a seat to be placed for him on the sea-shore, and bade the rising tide respect him as its lord, nor dare to wet his feet. The waves, regardless of the Royal command, soon dashed over his feet, and the King leapt backwards, saying, " Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of Kings, for there is none worthy of 'the name but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws." In accordance with the feeling thus awakened he thenceforth never wore his crown, but placed it for a memorial on the image of our Lord on the Cross. 3. Harold I., 1035-1040. Harthacnut, 1040-1042. — After Cnut's death England was parted between his sons Harold and Harthacnut. During this divided reign, Alfred, son of y£thelred and Emma, came over from Normandy, hoping for a chance of the kingdom. He was seized by Harold's men, and his eyes being put out, he died soon after. In the next year, 1037, Harold was made ruler over the whole country, his fellow-king having never yet left Denmark. But on his death, Harthacnut was called to the throne, and his govern- ment was so bad that the nation rued its choice. One of his first acts was to have the dead body of his half-brother Harold dug up and cast into a morass. The London Danes buried the corpse again in their own burying-ground, which, as St. Clement Danes, preserves the memory of its former owners. In 1042 Harthacnut died suddenly at a marriage- feast at Lambeth. By his death England and Denmark were separated. vii.] EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. n CHAPTER VII. FROM EDWARD TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST. Edward the Confcswr ; Earl Godwin ; the favourites ; banishment, return, and deal 7 , of Godwin ; Earl Harold ; death of Edward ; Westminster ; Harold named as successor (i) — Ha7-old II. ; support of Rome given to William (2) — invasion of Harold Hardrada and Tostig ; battle of Stamford Bridge (3) — the Norman invasion ; battle of Hastings ; burial of Harold (4) —election of the HLtheling Edgar ; coronation of William (5). I. House of Cerdic. Eadward or Edward, surnamed the Confessor or Saint, 1042- 1066. — The old Royal line was now restored, the people at once electing Edward, son of ^Ethelred and Emma. Unluckily, the new King, brought up in Normandy from boyhood, was no better than a foreigner. The Normans indeed were Scandina- vians by descent, but their manners, ideas, and language were French. Edward's chief desire was to bring over to England his own friends, and to load them with honours and offices; and he even made a Norman, Robert of Jutnieges, Archbishop of Canterbury. At the head of the party op- posed to the foreigners stood Godwin, Earl of the West Saxons, who had married Gytha, sister of Ulf, Cnut's brother- in-law. Godwin was eloquent and popular, but always la- boured under a suspicion that he had had a dishonourable share in Alfred's death. In 105 1 Eustace Count of Boulogne, one of the King's friends, had a brawl with the burghers of Dover, arising out of his own insolent conduct. Godwin re- fused to inflict any punishment upon the Dover men, who belonged to his earldom, before they were properly tried ; and this gave such offence to the King's party that he was 24 EDWARD TO THE CONQUEST [chap. banished. The next year however he returned in arms, and the Norman knights and priests were glad to get away as fast as they could. The Earl died not long after, being seized with a fit while dining with the King ; but his power passed to his son and successor Harold, who in fact ruled the kingdom, and who gained great credit by his victories over the Welsh. The King died in 1066, just living long enough to finish the building of an abbey on the spot where Sebert, first Christian King of the East-Saxons, had founded a small monastery to St. Peter, called the West- Minster. King Heury III. and his successor afterwards replaced Edward's work by the more magnificent church now stand- ing. Edward had married. Edith, daughter of Godwin ; but had no children. On his death-bed he recommended Earl Harold for his successor; though, according to the Normans, he had promised that their Duke William should reign after him. Indeed, it is said that Harold himself, being once at the Norman court, had, willingly or unwillingly, sworn to support William. King Edward was buried in his own new- Minster, where he was soon honoured as a saint ; for, though he utterly neglected his duties as a ruler, he was pious after his fashion, and the miseries the people endured under his foreign successors led them to look back upon him with regret. 2. House of Godwin. Harold II., Jan. 6 — Oct. 14, 1066. — On the day of Edward's death, Earl Harold, though not of the Royal house, was elected by the Witan ; the next morn- ing the late King was buried, and the new one crowned, in the West-Minster. On hearing of this, Duke William was speechless with rage. He resolved to appeal to the sword ; but as it did not suit his temper to appear the aggressor, he did his best to make Europe in general believe he was in the right. He sent to crave the blessing of Rome upon his enterprise, and found there an ally in the Archdeaa n vil] BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 23 Hihkbrand, who eagerly seized the opportunity for bringing the Church of England into more complete obedience to Rome. Under Hildebrand's influence the Pope, Alexander II, declared William the lawful claimant, and sent a con- secrated banner to hallow the attack upon England. 3. Invasion of Harold Hardrada. — Meanwhile the North of England was invaded by Ha?'old, the King of the Nor- wegians, a gigantic warrior surnamed Hardrada, that is, Stern-in-cojinsel. He was joined by the English King's brother, Tostig, who in the last reign had been banished for his tyrannical government of Northumberland. At Stamford Bridge the Norwegians were suddenly attacked, Sept. 25th, by Harold of England, who is represented in an Icelandic poem as offering Tostig a third of the kingdom if he would return to .his allegiance; Tostig asked what his brother would give Hardrada "'"for his toil in coming hither?" "Seven feet of earth, or more perchance, seeing he is taller than other men." But there can have been no time for such parley. The English gained the victory, Hardrada and Tostig being among the slain. 4. Battle of Hastings. — The King was holding the cus- tomary victory-feast at York, when a thane of Sussex entered to announce that the Normans had landed at Pevensey. Making all speed, Harold marched southwards, and pitched his camp on the heights of Senlac. Duke William had landed unresisted on the defenceless Sussex shore, Sept. 28th, and occupied Hastings. The eve of battle, so the Normans aver, was spent by the English in drinking and singing, and by the invaders in prayer and confession. On the 14th October the armies joined battle. The combat was long and doubtful, but the impatience 'of the militia, who, despite Harold's orders, broke their ranks and rushed down the hill in pursuit of some retreating Normans, gave the first advantage to the enemy, whose archers did the rest. An 26 THE OLD-ENGLISH_AND NORMANS. [chap. arrow pierced the eye of the English King, who, falling, was hacked in pieces by four French knights, of whom Eustace of Boulogne was one. The thanes and house-carls were slaughtered almost to a man around their fallen standard. On the morrow the aged Gytha craved the body of her son Harold, but the Duke refused to permit it Christian burial. Even to find the mangled corpse was no easy task, and two canons of Waltham made search for it without success, until they brought a former favourite of Harold's, Edith " of the swan's neck," to aid them. 5. Coronation of William. — The Londoners now elected to the throne young Edgar, 3. grandson of Edmund Ironside. He is commonly spoken of as the ALtheling, a title given to kings' sons. But, unsupported by the North-country, they ere long tendered the crown to the Norman Duke, whose coronation took place on Christmas Day at Westminster. CHAPTER VIII. THE OLD-ENGLISH AND NORMANS. The Old-English (1) — the ordeal (2) — slave-trade (3)— London (4)— literature (5) — the Normans ; the Bayeux tapestry (6) — castles; church-building (7)— feudal tenures ; fealty, homage, and service ; the Barons ; decay of feudalism (8) — government (9) — the towns ; the gilds (10). I. The Old-English. — The English appear to have been a well-favoured race, from the days of Pope Gregory's "Angels" to the time when the Conqueror, returning to Normandy after his coronation, carried in his train the yEtheling Edgar and other young Englishmen, on whose " girlish grace " and flowing hair the French and Normans viii.] THE ORDEAL. 27 gazed with admiration. Yet young Waltheof, one of those whose beauty is thus praised, attained to giant strength, and proved that he was no degenerate son of his father, that Earl Siward " the Strong " who figures in Shakspere's play of Macbeth. The ancient English weapons were the javelin and the broadsword ; for the latter the two-handed Danish axe was substituted by Cnut. The full equipment of the warrior — helm, mail-coat, shield, and axe — was of course beyond the means of the mass of the shire militia, most of whom came to the battle of Hastings without any defensive armour, and some with no better weapons than forks or sharpened stakes. Both English and Danes always fought on foot ; men of the highest, even of kingly rank, using horses on the march only, and dismounting for action. The English, among whom all ranks exercised liberal hospitality, are described as consuming their substance in good cheer, while content with poor houses — unlike the Nor- mans and French, who lived frugally in fine mansions— and as habitually indulging in coarse gluttony and drunken- ness, having learnt the latter vice from the Danes, and teaching both to their conquerors. They had however better amusements than mere revelry. They took great pleasure in poetry, singing, and harp-playing ; and profes- sional " gleemen," who combined the characters of juggler, tumbler, and minstrel, wandered from house to house dis- playing their powers. There were also outdoor sports — wrest- ling, leaping, racing, and hunting with net, hound, or hawk. 2. The Ordeal. — The ordeal was a method of ascertaining the guilt or innocence of an accused person by a supposed appeal to the judgment of Heaven. After certain religious rites, the accused plunged his arm into boiling water, or carried a hot iron in his hand for three paces. If in three days the scald or burn had healed, he was cleared ; if not, he was guilty. A man of ill reputation was obliged to undergo a 28 THE OLD-ENGLISH AND NORMANS. [chap. triple ordeal, where one would suffice for persons of credit. The Normans introduced in addition the trial by battle, which was an appeal to Heaven by means of a' duel between accuser and accused. 3. The Slave-trade. — The crying sin of England, even in the estimation of that age, was the slave-trade. Although the export of Christian slaves was forbidden by law, nothing could check it. The town of Bristol was the chief seat of this slave-trade, and strings of young men and women were shipped off regularly from that port to Ireland, where they found a ready market. The Conqueror was as zealous against this traffic as his predecessors, and with no better success. What the law failed to do, St. Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, effected, at least for a season. He visited Bristol repeatedly, and did not cease preaching every Sunday against the trade until he had prevailed on the burghers to abandon it. 4. London. — At the time of the Norman Conquest, Lon- don, so advantageously placed upon the Thames, was already the chief city in England, and fast displacing the old West- Saxon capital of Winchester. But the London of those days was surrounded by wood and water and waste land, where the deer and the wild boar roamed. The names of Finsbury, Fenchurch, and Moorjields still mark the place of a dreary moor or fen. Westminster Abbey was built upon what was then a thicket-grown island or peninsula, enclosed by river and streams and marshes, and called Thom-ey, that is, the Isle of Thorns. By the Abbey was the Palace, where the Confessor in his later years chiefly dwelt, that he might watch the building of his Minster. The name of Old Palace Yard marks where his dwelling-place was ; New Palace Yard being so called from the palace built by the Conqueror's son William. 5. Literature.— Among the most ancient specimens of the LITERATURE. 29 literature of the Old-English is the fine poem of the hero Beowulf and his combats with the ogre Grendel and with a fiery dragon. This tale evidently belongs to heathen times, though the text, as we have it, has received some Christian touches. Our first Christian poet, Ccedmon, who sang of the creation of the world, the entry of Israel into Canaan, and the mysteries of the Christian faith, was believed by himself and his contemporaries to have received his powers by the direct gift of Heaven. He had never learnt aught of singing ;— when sometimes at an entertainment it was determined that all the guests should sing in turn, Casdmon, on seeing the harp approach him, would leave in the middle of supper. On one occasion he had thus left the feast, and had lain down to sleep in the stable, the care of the beasts being committed to him that night. In a dream one stood by him and spoke •: " Casdmon, sing me something." He pleaded ignorance ; but the command was repeated : " Sing the beginning of created things." And forthwith he began to sing verses he had never heard before. In the morning he revealed his new powers, and was re- ceived by the famous Abbess St. Hilda into her monastery of Streoneshalh or Whitby, where she ruled over both monks and nuns. This story is told by Bczda, called the Venerable, a monk of J arrow, who died in 735. He was one of the most learned men of his age ; and from his chief work, " The Ecclesiastical History of the English People" written in Latin, we get great part of our knowledge of those times. Ealhwine or Alcuin, born about the time of Bseda's death, and educated in the school of York, had so high a reputation as a scholar, that Charles the Great invited him over to his court to help to lay the foundations of learning in his dominions. But the literature of Noithum- berland to a great extent perished during the ravages of the Danes. It is thought that in King Alfred's reign the Old- 30 THE OLD-ENGLISH AND NORMANS. [chap. English Chronicle began to be put together in its present shape, after which it was regularly continued. A fine song upon the battle of Brunanburh is inserted in the Chronicle, as if prose was insufficient to express the national exulta- tion. Other snatches of song occur throughout the Chro- nicle, and besides those preserved to us there appear to have been many popular ballads, sung by the gleemen, from which some of the tales about our early Kings were derived. 6. The Normans. — The Normans had become Christian and civilized without losing the vigour and adventurous spirit of their Scandinavian forefathers. In whatever they did, they were foremost ; and though in the arts of peace they were not inventors, they acquired, improved, and spread abroad all the learning, science, and art of the age. Above all, their valour and military skill were renowned throughout Europe. They brought new strength and life to the English race, and thus the country gained by the conquest in the end, and became more free and great for it. The middle- class English — the small thanes and the townsmen — soon mixed with the foreign settlers, Norman and others ; and as early as 1070 French and English were beginning to live together on good terms, and to intermarry, so that by the time of Henry II. it was impossible, except in the highest and lowest ranks, to distinguish one race from the other. The Norman method of warfare differed from the English and Danish, which it displaced. The Norman and French gentlemen fought on horseback armed with lance and sword, and would have thought it beneath their dignity to go into battle on foot. Of the common men a large number were archers ; and in course of time the English became more expert than any other nation in the use of the long-bow. The attire and weapons both of the conquering and the conquered race are well known to us from the famous vin.] CASTLE AND CHURCH BUILDING. 31 tapestry preserved at Bayeux, which represents in a series of pictures the history of the Norman Conquest. There have been many conjectures as to the origin of the tapestry, but the most probable one is that it was a gift from the Conqueror's half-brother Bishop Odo to his cathedral at Bayeux. It is thought that it may have been worked in England. 7. Castle and Church Building. — One of the earliest French words introduced into our language was castle, the name and the thing being alike foreign. Fortified towns and citadels were indeed familiar to Englishmen, but private fort- resses, such as were raised first by the Confessor's favourites, were something new, and these were called castles. To pos- sess one was the wish of every Norman noble ; for when once his donjon, keep, or tower was built, he was king of the country round, and, until regular siege was laid to it, might laugh at the law. But though a strong, it was a dark and dreary dwelling. A splendid specimen of the donjon on its grandest scale is the White Tower, built for the Conqueror by Gundulf, Bishop of London. William raised many castles of his own, to overawe rather than to defend the towns beneath them, though he wisely did not allow private ones to be reared without royal licence. The eleventh century was a great time for church-building, and the Normans in England carried on the work vigorously, almost all the bishops rebuilding their cathedral churches. St. Paul's having been destroyed or damaged by fire, Maurice, Bishop of London, began a mighty pile to re- place it. His successors continued it, and it became the largest church in England. The style of the age, Romanesque, as it is called, was greatly improved by the Normans, and the new form they gave it is commonly spoken of as the Norman style of architecture. Its characteristic points are the round arch and massive pier, and narrow window. 32 THE OLD-ENGLISH AND NORMANS. [chap. Durham Cathedral, begun under Rufus by Bishop William of St. Carileph, and continued by his successor Ralf Flam- bard, is a fine specimen of Norman Romanesque. 8. Feudal Tenures. — After the coming in of the Normans feudal ideas and practices obtained much more dominion in England, which had hitherto not been affected by them to any great extent. The origin of fiefs, or lands granted by a lord to his man or vassal on condition of fidelity and service in war, and the results of thus holding land by a feudal tenure, as it is called, will be found explained at full length in the General Sketch of European Histoiy in this series. The vassal, when his fief was conferred, swore fealty and did homage. In the most complete form of homage, the vassal, bare-headed, with belt ungirt, and sword and spurs removed, knelt before his lord, between whose hands he placed his own, and promised thenceforward to become his man, and serve him with life and limb and earthly honour, faithfully and loyally. His chief duty was, when called upon by his lord, to do military service, on horse- back and properly equipped, for a certain time, usually forty days in the year ; and every one of the great vassals of the Crown was bound to bring so many of these mounted followers into the field. Not laymen alone, but bishops and clerical and monastic bodies, held lands by military service, and furnished their quota of warriors, though by the Church's laws ecclesiastics might not serve in person. The barons, or great military tenants of the Crown, having thus little armies under them, were formidable personages when they chose to be rebellious ; but William took all possible care that the King should not, as in France, be overshadowed by his own vassals. The King was sovereign or supreme lord, of whom all land was supposed to be held in the first instance ; and the danger of his sovereignty becoming a mere name, as was the case in some countries, VIIL] GOVERNMENT. 33 in consequence of its being thought that the inferior vassals owed duty only to their immediate lords, and not to the King also, was avoided by the passing of a law in a Meeting held in 1086, obliging all freemen to swear fealty to William. The barons however strove hard to cripple the royal power, until the nobility of the Conquest had nearly died out, and a new baronage was raised up by Henry II. In the following history we shall find the people at first siding with the Crown, and afterwards with the barons. Harsh as the Norman Kings were, they kept down the worse tyranny of their nobles ; but when the Crown had triumphed, and a new and better class of nobles had arisen, it became the barons' turn to restrain the royal despotism. As a military system feudalism after a while fell into decay ; but although the main ground for its existence then disappeared, its grievances remained, until the abolition under Charles II. of the tenures by knight service. In order to secure the aid of the great lords, the poorer freemen often sank into the class of villains or serfs bound to the soil, — a condition above actual slavery, though below freedom. Slavery itself gradually died out, as in the course of ages did villainage likewise. 9. Government. — The Norman Conquest brought about considerable changes in the government. The Witena-gemot became the King's court of feudal vassals or barons, whose, counsel and consent were the only check upon the Sovereign ; and the chief administrator of the kingdom was an officer called Jttsticiar. The final stroke was put to a change which had been gradually coming about for some genera- tions. The folkland, or public land, as much as was left of it, became Crown land, which the Sovereign could grant away at his pleasure. This right was greatly abused until, many centuries later, Parliament interfered to limit it. As the royal domain has since been under the control of Parliament, it has in fact gone back to the condition of folkland. T. D 34 THE OLD-ENGLISH AND NORMANS. [chap. io. The Towns. — It has been sarcastically remarked that, though we are fond of boasting that the liberties of England were bought with the blood of our forefathers, it would be more generally accurate to say that they were purchased with money. This is peculiarly true in the case of the towns. At the time of the Norman Conquest we find the inhabitants of towns living under the protection of the King or other lord, to whom they paid rents and dues. But the regular payments were not in general heavy ; it was the tallages or taxes which the foreign kings and lords laid at pleasure upon their lands and towns which were grievous. Some good, however, came out of this arbitrary taxation. As he could take what he would from them, the most selfish tyrant could not fail to see that it was his interest that his burgesses should thrive and make money, and he was therefore willing to encourage them by the grant of pri- vileges, which he was the more ready to bestow because they were only too glad to pay for them. Henry I. granted a charter to the citizens of London, by which he gave them large privileges. Two of these may be mentioned as being the most curious, though not the most important. He permitted them to have their ancient hunting grounds, — a mighty favour from one of the Norman Kings, who were loth to let anyone hunt but themselves ; and he freed them from the obligation to accept the trial by battle. To King John London owed the privilege of choosing its own Mayor, an officer who, with his French title, first appears early in the reign of Richard I. Trade Gilds in like manner bought charters. These gilds or sworn brotherhoods were very old institutions in England, and in their earliest form were associations for mutual defence against injury, or for mutual relief in poverty. Of the craft-gilds or associations of free handicraftsmen, the most ancient were those of the weavers. Henry I. chartered the weavers of Oxford, and IX.] WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 35 also those of London, who paid him in return eighteen marks yearly. By this London charter the right of exer- cising the craft within the city, Southwark, or other places belonging to London, was confined to members of the gild. The craft-gilds were in fact a kind of trade-unions, though composed of masters ; but these masters were but small people, for in those days there were no great employers of labour such as there are now, and therefore no large class of hired workmen. CHAPTER IX. WILLIAM I. The Norman Kings ; William the Conqueror (1) — confiscations {2) — completion of the Norman Conquest ; revolt of the Isle of Ely ; the AZth eling Edgar ; execution of Waltheof (3) — Lanfranc ; William' 's government ; Domesday; the New Forest (4) — death of William; Battle Abbey (5). 1. The Norman Kings. William I., surnamed the Great and the Conqueror, 1066-1087. — The Norman King was a hard and determined man, strong in body as in mind ; no hand but his could bend his bow, and, until he became excessively fat, he was majestic in bearing. His wife, Queen Matilda, for whom he had a constant affection, was the daughter of Count Baldwin of Flanders. 2. The Confiscations. — According to William's view, all Englishmen had been traitors, for they had either tried to keep him out, or at least not helped to bring him in ; and as traitors, all their estates might be confiscated, that is, taken possession of by the State. He at once confiscated a great deal, out of which he made grants to his followers ; D 2 36 WILLIAM I. [chap. and every fresh disturbance was made a ground for confis- cating more. The result was that the country got a set of foreign nobles, and that many Englishmen either lost all they had, or sank from being great landowners into small ones ; but every one, French or English, held his lands solely from the King's grace. 3. Completion of the Norman Conquest. — After an ab- sence of less than six months, William went over to Normandy, to show himself in his new dignity. Yet in truth his conquest was only begun ; and he had the west and the north still to win. That part of the country which was really in his grasp he left under Odo Bishop of Bayeux and William Fitz-Osbern, who treated the English so oppressively that the King on his return found matters in a troublous state. It took him about four years to get full possession of the land ; for there was still spirit among the people. But a revolt here and a revolt there, with no com- mon plan or leader, were useless against so good a soldier. Aided by forces from Denmark, the Northern patriots once attacked York, where the Normans had built two castles to command the Ouse. The stalwart Earl Waliheof, so the story goes, took his stand by a gate ; and as the Normans pressed forth one by one, their heads were swept off by his unerring axe. William took a savage method of crush- ing the North-country into obedience. At the head of his troops he marched through the length and breadth of the land between York and Durham., and deliberately made it a desert. For nine years the ground remained waste, no man thinking it worth while to till it ; and even a generation later ruined towns and uncultivated fields still bore witness to the cruelty of the Conqueror. The country between the Tyne and the Tees was harried in like manner, as also Cheshire and its neighbourhood, the city of Chester being his last conquest. More than 100,000 people, then no small part of ix.] WILLIAM'S GOVERNMENT. 37 the population, are said to have died of hunger and cold that winter. William was now master of the land, except that a band of outlaws and insurgents, chief among whom was one Here-ward, still held together in the Isle of Ely. Finally even this last stronghold surrendered to William, but Herevvard escaped, and, according to the legend, was the terror of the foreigners, until he made his peace with the King. One story says that he was nevertheless treacherously cut to pieces by a band of Normans. " Had there been three more men in the land like him, the Frenchmen would never have entered it," is said to have been the remark of one of his slayers. Of the other English leaders, the sEtheling Edgar settled down for some years at the Conqueror's court ; Waltheof, after being taken for a time into high favour, was beheaded May 31st, 1076, and was honoured by his countrymen as a martyr. 4. William's Government. — William placed in the arch- bishopric of Canterbury, Lanfranc, a Lombard by birth, who was held to be. the most learned man in Europe. Under the new Primate the Church of England was brought into closer connexion with that of Rome, and the bishoprics were gradually filled up with foreigners. The rule of the Norman King, who even tried, though with small success, to learn English, was in some points good ; but in later years he grew avaricious and grasping, shutting his eyes to any oppression by his officers if it brought him in money. In 1085, after consulting with the Witan, he decreed the making of Domesday— the great survey of the country, in which every estate was entered, with its value at the time and in that of Edward. This work, so useful to the historian, was then looked on with distrust and indignation, as a step towards further taxation. Not a yard of land, not so much as an ox, or a cow, or a pig, was left unrecorded, so the Chronicler complains. William delighted in hunting, and 38 WILLIAM I. • [chap. his cruel law, which condemned the deerslayer to lose his eyes, was another grievance. The New Forest in Hampshire was made by him, and stories are told of his destroying houses and churches which stood in his way. Long after his time, the forests continued to be a source of bitterness, on account of the severe laws for the protection of the game under which all the dwellers within them were placed. To understand how a forest could be made, it must be explained that a foi r est was not merely a wood, but rather any uncul- tivated ground. 5. Death of William. — In 1087 William was laying waste the borderland between France and Normandy in revenge for a stupid jest which the French King had made upon his unwieldy figure. While riding through the burning town of Mantes, and urging his men to add fresh fuel to the flames, he was pitched against the pommel of his saddle by the stumbling of his horse, and received an internal injury, of which he lingered many weeks. On his death- bed he expressed a tardy penitence for his unjust con- quest of England, and above all for the harrying of the North. What he had won by wrong, he said, he had no right to give away, so he would only declare his wish that he might be succeeded in England by his second surviving son William, who had ever been dutiful to him. Robert, the first-born, who had more than once been in rebellion against his father, was to have Normandy, and also Maine, a province which William had conquered. William died at Rouen in Normandy, Sept. 9th, and was buried at Caen. Battle Abbey, near Hastings, was built by him upon the spot where Harold's standard had stood. x.] WILLIAM RUFUS. 39 CHAPTER X. WILLIAM II. Election of William ; rebellion of Odo ; character of William ; Ralf Flambard ; behaviour of the Royal followers (1) — Norman affairs ; Scottish affairs (2) — Flambard' 's financial expedients ; Anselm made Primate (3) — the first Crusade ; Normandy mort- gaged^) — death of William (5) — building of Westminster Hall (6). I. William II., surnamed Rufus, or the Red, 1087-1100. — The Conqueror's wish was fulfilled, his son William being elected and crowned king, Sept. 26th. But Odo of Bayeux worked upon the barons by contrasting the easy-tempered Robert with the fierce William, and raised a strong party in the Duke's favour. William thereupon made an appeal to the English, promising them the best laws they ever had, liberty of hunting on their own lands, and freedom from unjust taxes. The English answered with hearty support, and soon quelled the rebellion. In 1089, Lan- franc died, and with him all hope of good government. Rufus, as he was called from his ruddy complexion, in- herited his father's valour, but no other of his virtues. He gave himself up to gross vice, was irreligious and blasphemous in speech, and surrounded himself with wicked and foolish companions, who gave scandal equally by their sins and their follies. His promise to impose no unjust taxes was not kept a year ; for being utterly reckless how he spent his money, he was soon in need. As an instance of his tasteless extravagance we are told that one morning when putting on a pair of new boots, he asked his chamberlain what they had cost. " Three shillings." Rufus flew into a rage : don. The poor boy, seeing his friends thus taken from him, " wept and was nothing content, but it booted not." His mother, as soon as she heard of it, fled with her second son Richard Duke of York, and her five daughters, to the sanctuary at Westminster. The King was lodged in the Tower, then a palace as well as a fortress and a prison ; and Gloucester was appointed Protector. 2. Deposition of Edward. — So far, Gloucester and his supporters, of whom Lord Hastings was one, had been united by a common hatred of the Wydeviles ; but it is plain that they now disagreed among themselves. On June 13, for some unknown reason, Hastings, by order of the Protector, was seized at the council-board in the Tower, and put to death out of hand. The same afternoon proclamation was made that Hastings and his friends had conspired to murder the Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham. The prisoners of the Wydevile party were beheaded without trial at Ponte- fract. The little Duke of York was removed from his mother in the sanctuary to join his brother in the Tower, and thus Gloucester had both his nephews in his hands. On Sunday, June 22, one Doctor Ralf Shaw preached a ser- mon at PauPs Cross — a cross and pulpit which then stood at the north-east corner of St. Paul's — setting forth that the chil- dren were illegitimate on the ground of an alleged earlier marriage or contract of Edward IV., and that the Lord Protector was the rightful inheritor of the Crown. It appears that the claim thus first put forward was accepted by some assembly of Lords and Commons ; at any rate, on June 26, the Duke of Gloucester sat in Westminster Hall as King Richard III. of England. io6 RICHARD III. [chap. CHAPTER XXVI. RICHARD III. Double coronation of Richard ; plots against him ; disappearance of the sons of Edward (i)—the Earl of Richmond; execution of Buckingham (2) — Legislation (3) — death of Anne; invasion of Richmond ; battle of Bosivorth ; fall of Richard (4) — Printing (5) — Literature (6). I. Richard III. 1483-1485. — Richard and Anne his wife were crowned at Westminster, July 6, 1483, the preparations which had been made for the coronation of the nephew serving for those of the uncle. To please the North-country- men, with whom he was popular, the King and Queen were a second time crowned in York Minster. While they were thus spending their time, plots were formed against Richard, in which Buckingham, hitherto his chief ally, joined. In the south and west, there was much murmuring at the captivity of Edward's sons, and a rising for their release was about to take place, when it was reported that the children were no longer living. In the next reign, it was given out that Sir James Tyri'el and John Dighton had confessed that on the refusal of Bracketibury, Constable of the Tower, to put his young prisoners to death, Richard had bidden that the keys of the Tower should be delivered to Tyrrel for twenty-four hours, and that TyrreFs groom Dighton, together with one Miles Forrest, had smothered the sleeping children in their bed, and then buried them at the stair-foot. It was further rumoured that by Richard's desire a priest of Brackenbury's household had removed the bodies elsewhere. Some how- ever have doubted the murder, notwithstanding the apparent confirmation of the popular belief by a discovery made 191 THE EARL OE RICHMOND. 107 years later of the bones of two boys, of about the age of the young princes, lying buried in the White Tower under the staircase leading to the chapel. The reigning King, Charles II., had them removed to Henry the Seventh's Chapel as the remains of Edward V. and Richard Duke of York. 2. Revolt of Buckingham. — The party against Richard consisted of Buckingham, many old Lancastrians, and some of the Wydeviles, acting in concert with Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who on the father's side was a grandson of Owen Tudor and Katharine, widow of Henry V., and on the mother's a descendant, through the Beaufort line, of John of Gaunt, and who, in the absence of any other offshoot of the House of Lancaster, was accepted as the representative of its claim to the throne. He was then an exile in Britanny ; — indeed, from the time he was five years old, so he said, he had always been either a fugitive or a prisoner. The present revolt did not better his position, for Buckingham, deserted by his troops, was betrayed, and beheaded at Salis- bury ; the other confederates dispersed ; and Richmond, whose fleet had been scattered by a storm, did not venture to land. Executions of the disaffected followed, and among the sufferers was, according to the common tale, one Colling- bourne, who had made a couplet upon Richard and his three counsellors, Ratcliffe, Catesby, and Lord Lovel : — ; The Rat, the Cat, and Lovel our Dog, Rule all England under the Hog." The King's cognizance was a wild boar, and the rimer lost his head for thus insulting it. 3. Legislation. — In January 1484 a Parliament was held by which a statute was passed forbidding the exaction of " benevolences." Another Act, while laying restrictions upon foreign traders, expressly excepts from its operation trade in 108 RICHARD III, [chap. books " written or printed." The statutes of this reign were the first ever printed. 4. Death of Richard. — In March 1485, Queen Anne died of sorrow for the loss of her only son Edward, or, as Richard's enemies afterwards suggested, of poison given by her hus- band. The King then declared his nephew, John de la Pole, Ea?'l of Lincoln, his heir. According to some, Richard was haunted by the memory of his murdered nephews ; he knew no peace of mind, his hand was ever on his dagger, his rest broken by fearful dreams. Whether he was troubled by imaginary dangers or not, he had a real one in Richmond, whom the exiles and malcontents had chosen for their chief, on his promise, if he obtained the Crown, to marry Elisabeth, daughter of Edward IV. On the 7th August, Richmond, with a body of adventurers, mostly Normans, landed at Milford Haven, and, advancing into the country, was met by Richard, with an army double in number. A story is told that John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, received a warn- ing, which, however, he disregarded, against joining the King. It was in two lines written on his gate : — ■ " Jack of Norfolk, be not too bold, For Dickon thy master is bought and sold." This was true enough ; for Richmond's step-father Lord Stanley, -who could muster many followers in Cheshire and Lancashire, and Percy Earl of Northumberland, both holding offices under Richard, had been gained by his enemy. When the battle began near Market Bosworth, Aug. 22, Richard found the Stanleys opposed to him, Northumberland not stirring a foot, and his men wavering. He nevertheless fought hand to hand with desperate courage, cutting his way up to his rival, but fell overpowered by numbers. Lord Stanley took his crown, and set it on the head of Richmond, who was hailed as King. Richard's body was thrown across PRINTING. 109 a horse, and carried to the Grey Friars' Church at Leicester where it was buried with scant ceremony. 5. Printing. — So long as books could only be multiplied in manuscript they were of necessity both scarce and dear. The monks were at first copyists as well as authors, but after a while copying became a trade, and books grew somewhat cheaper. Under Edward IV. the charge of a copyist was twopence a leaf for prose and a penny for verse of about thirty lines to the page. Adding the price of the paper, we may reckon that a good copy of a prose work cost, at the present value of money, about two shillings a leaf. Paper had begun to take the place of parchment about the middle of the fourteenth century. But in the reign of Edward IV. a great invention was introduced, which was to put an end to this laborious copying. About 1474, William Caxton, a native of the Weald of Kent, who had learned the new art of printing abroad — in the Netherlands it is supposed — came home, and set up as a printer in Westminster. The King and his court gave him their countenance, and the Queer's brother, the accom- plished Anthony Wydevile, Earl Rivers, translated for Caxton's press a French work, u The Diets and notable wise Sayings of Philosophers." A large number of the books printed by Caxton were translations from the French, and all were in what is called black-leiter type. 6. Literature. — The fifteenth century did not give us any very famous writers. John Lydgate, who flourished about 1430, though not a man of much genius, was a favourite poet of his own day. He was a monk of Bury St. Edmund's, where he opened a school, and taught literature and versifi- cation. Reginald Pecock, Bishop of St. Asaph in the reign of Henry VI. wrote against the Lollards, but, being adjudged to have himself fallen into heresy, was obliged to burn his books publicly at Paul's Cross, and was deprived of his RICHARD III. [chap. bishopric. Sir John Fortescue, Chief Justice of the King's Bench in the same reign, wrote for the instruction of the young Prince of Wales, to whom he was governor during his retreat in France, a Latin treatise upon the laws of England. In this he impresses upon his pupil that the kingly power in England is not absolute, but limited, and that the country owed its prosperity to its freedom. The Mort Darthur, or Death of Arthur, a fine prose romance, founded upon French fictions, was composed by Sir Thomas Malory, and printed in 1485 by Caxton. July arts or Juliana Berners, said to have been prioress of Sopewell nunnery near St. Albans, was the authoress of treatises upon hunting and hawking. The spirited ballad of Chevy Chase, which recounts a fierce fray between the Percy and Douglas of the days of Henry IV., may perhaps have been composed during the reign of Henry VI., but some would date it a century later. There is another and better-known version of the same story, which is more modern still. Among ballad heroes, Robin Hood, a legen- dary captain of outlaws and deerstealers, frequenting Not- tinghamshire and Yorkshire, stands chief. Whether he had any real existence is uncertain, but he was a subject for popular song as far back as the days of Edward III. A few of the ballads about him which have come down to us perhaps belong to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. One of the best, " The Little Geste of Robin Hood," which places its hero in the days of some King Edward, was printed early in the reign of Henry VI II., and shows strongly the popular dislike of the higher clergy, whom the bold outlaw is repre- sented as making his special prey. xxvii.] HENRY VII. CHAPTER XXVII. HENRY VII. Henry Tudor ; Yorkist risings ; Lambert Simnel (i) — war with France (2) — Richard Plantagenet or Perkin Warbeck ; execution of Stanley ; surrender of Perkin ; execution of Perkin and War- wick (3) — marriages of Henry s children (4) — Empson and Dudley ; death of Henry (5) — allegiance to the King de facto (6). I. House of Tudor. Henry VII. 1485-1509. — The coro- nation of Henry Tudor on the battle-field was followed up by a more formal one at Westminster, and without entering into questions of title, Parliament settled the crown on Henry and his heirs, and in order to unite the rival roses, pressed him to carry out the intended marriage with Elizabeth of York. This accordingly took place Jan. 18, i486, though it is said that his dislike to the House of York led him to treat her with coldness. Another representative of that House, young Edward Earl of Warwick, son of George Duke of Clarence, he at once shut up in the Tower, and altogether the King made his hand so heavy upon the Yorkists as to bring about a rising within a year of his accession, in which Lord Lovel " the dog " was one of the leaders. This was soon quelled ; but the next year the Yorkists made one of the wildest attempts on record. A youth appeared, asserting himself to be the Earl of Warwick, escaped from the Tower. Margaret, widow of the Duke of Burgundy, and sister of Edward IV., furnished the Earl of Lincoln and Lord Lovel with troops to support him, and he was crowned King in Ireland, where the House of York had always been beloved ; but few joined him in England, and his German U2 HENRY VII. [chap. and Irish army was overthrown by Henry's troops at Stoke- upon-Trent, June 16, 1487. The Earl of Lincoln, and most of the Yorkist leaders, fell ; Lovel fled, and was never heard of again ; while the pretended Warwick, who was one Lam- bert Simnelj son of a joiner at Oxford, was captured, and treated with contemptuous mercy, Henry making him a scullion in his kitchen. 2. Foreign affairs. — In character Henry was cautious, crafty, fond of money, and ingenious in acquiring it. In 1487 there was war between Britanny and France, and the English being well-disposed to help Britanny, the cunning King got subsidies from Parliament, renewed the extortion of money by " benevolences," and under a pretence of war filled his coffers. At last, in 1492, he passed over to France, laid siege to Boulogne for a few days, made peace, and led his murmuring army back. Besides the public treaty there was a private one, by which the King of France bound himself to pay a hundred and forty-nine thousand pounds to the King of England. 3. Perkin Warbeck. — Meanwhile a new claimant to the throne had appeared, styling himself Richard Plantagenet y Duke of York. According to his own account, he was the second son of Edward IV., and had been saved alive when his brother Edward V. was put to death ; according to Henry, he was one Perkin Warbeck or Pierce Osbeck, of Tournay ; and people are still in doubt whether he was an impostor or not. He first showed himself in Cork, where he was well received ; then went to France, and thence to Flanders, when the Duchess Margaret of Burgundy received him with open arms. The King discovering, by means of spies, that communications were carried on between the friends of "Richard" in England and those abroad, some executions took place, amongst which was that of Sir William Stanley, who had saved Henry's life on Bosworth xxvii.] MARRIAGES OF HENRY'S CHILDREN. 113 Field. The general suspicion was that Stanley suffered in order that his enormous wealth might be forfeited to the crown. In 1496 "Richard" passed into Scotland, where the King, James IV., gave him his kinswoman Katharine Gordon in marriage. In the next year the adventurer, landing in Cornwall, was there joined by many of the people, but on the approach of the royal army he left his followers and took sanctuary, surrendering in a few days on promise that his life should be spared. His beautiful wife, " the White Rose," as she was called, became an attendant on Henry's Queen. For nearly two years " Richard " lived a prisoner, but in 1499 he and a fellow-captive, Warwick, who for no crime but his birth had lain for fourteen years in the Tower, were tried and executed on a charge of high treason. The two young men, it was alleged, had planned escape, after which the adventurer was to be again proclaimed as King Richard IV. But it was suspected that the Earl was sacrificed to Henry's scheme for wedding his son to a Spanish princess, whose father, King Ferdinand of Aragon, crafty and careful as Henry himself, had said plainly that he did not consider the alliance a safe one as long as Warwick lived. 4. Marriages of Henry's children. — In 1 501, at the age of fifteen, the King's eldest son, named Arthur in memory of the Welsh hero from whom Henry claimed descent, was married to Katharine of Aragon. But Arthur dying within five months' time, his young widow was contracted to the King's second son Henry, a dispensation having been obtained from the Pope to legalize this union with a brother's wife. With intent to cement the peace between England and Scotland, the King's eldest daughter Margaret was married in 1503 to James IV. of Scotland ; and this politic alliance proved in the end the means of uniting the two kingdoms of Britain. 5. Extortions of Henry. Empson and Dudley. — In the T I 114 HENRY VIII. [chap. latter part of his reign Henry made himself hateful by his extortions. His chief instruments were two lawyers, Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, who raked up long-forgotten statutes in order to exact fines for their transgression. The whole course of justice was wrested to furnish pretences for extorting money, and the employment of false witnesses, or " promoters," rendered it hardly possible for the most innocent to escape. Henry thus at once added to his hoards, and kept his subjects from growing dangerously rich. He died April 21, 1509, at the palace of Shene, which he had rebuilt with great magnificence, and had called, after his earlier title, Richmond. He was buried in his own beautiful chapel in Westminster Abbey. 6. Allegiance. — The attempts of Warbeck and the uncer- tainty of Henry's title caused the passing of an important statute, by which it was declared to be the duty of a subject to serve the sovereign for the time being, and that no one, for so doing, should be convict or attaint of treason. This was to prevent the recurrence of the state of things which had existed during the Wars of the Roses, when men were punished at one time for following York, and at another for following Lancaster. In technical language, it protected those who served the King de facto (King by fact, actual King) even though he might not be King de jure (King by right). CHAPTER XXVIII. HENRY VIII. Henry VIII. ; beheading of Empson and Dudley (1) — battle of the Spurs ; battle of Flodden ; marriages of Mary Tudor ; Field 0/ the Cloth of Gold (2) — Cardinal Wolsey ; divorce of Katharine xxviii.] FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 115 of Aragon ; marriage with Anne Boleyn ; fall and death of Wolsey ; separation from Rome; the Reformation, religious and political ($)—the King's wives (4) — Thomas Cram-well ; sup- pression of the monasteries ; the Pilgrimage of Grace ; Reginald Pole; the Bible ; the Six Articles; beheading of Cromwell ; Re- ligious affairs (5) — wars with Scotland and France (6)— beheading of the Earl of Surrey ; death and will of Henry (7) — Defender of the Faith (8) — Wales and Ireland (9) — the navy (10). 1. Henry VIII. 1509-1547. — The new King was a hand- some youth of eighteen, highly educated and accomplished ; but though he gave fair promise, Hemy was of a fierce and tyrannical nature. Yet he had a regard for the mere letter of the law, even while he bent the law to his caprice. To satisfy the revenge of those whom they had injured, Empson and Dudley were beheaded on a frivolous charge of high treason, and thus, though bad men, they suffered un- justly for crimes which they had not committed. 2. War with France. Scottish Invasion. — Henry soon mixed himself up in continental wars, and, allied with the Empero7'-elcct Maximilian, in 15 13 routed the French at Guinegate, in what was jestingly called u the Battle of the Spurs" from the panic-stricken flight of the enemy's cavalry. The Scots took advantage of this war to invade England, but were defeated by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, in a battle beneath Flodden hills, Sept. 9, 15 13, where their King, James IV., together with the flower of their nation, were left dead on the field. The next year peace was made with the French, their King, Louis XLL, marrying Henry's sister Mary, who, being left a widow in three months' time, at once gave her hand to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. In June 1520 Henry had a series of friendly meetings with the new King of France, Francis L, between Guines and Ardres, in which such splendour was displayed that the meeting-place was called " The Field of the Cloth of Gold." n6 HENRY VIII [cttvp. But nothing came of these interviews, for Henry was soon won over to the interests of the Emperor, Charles V., in alliance with whom, in 1522, he undertook a new war against France. Peace was made in 1525, the French agreeing to pay Henry an annual pension. 3. Breach with Rome. — During this period the King had been guided by Thomas Wolsey, a priest, and son of a burgess of Ipswich. Able and ambitious, Wolsey had by his talents raised himself to the highest pitch of favour, and honours and promotions were showered upon him ; he became Archbishop of York, Chancellor, a Cardinal, and the Papal Legate ; and he even hoped to be Pope himself. But a series of unforeseen circumstances brought about the sudden downfall of this powerful minister. The King and his wife Katharine, to whom he had been married in the first year of his reign, had only one child living, Alary, born in '516. Disappointed at having no son to succeed him, the King, according to his own story, began to think that this marriage with his brother's wife was displeasing to Heaven. His scruples were quickened or suggested by his having pitched upon Katharine's successor, Anne Boleyn, a beauti- ful and lively maid of honour. He applied for a divorce to Pope Clement VII., who, equnlly unwilling to offend either Henry or Katharine's nephew the Emperor Charles, could not make up his mind what to do. At last, after the matter had dragged on for five years, and the Universities and learned men at home and abroad had been consulted, Henry privately married Anne Boleyn. The newly appointed Primate, Thomas Cranmer, who had laboured zealously in the King's cause, then pronounced the marriage with Katha- rine to have been null and void from the beginning (May 23, 1533). The forsaken wife, who steadily refused to forego her title of Queen, died three years later. More however than the fortunes of Katharine or Anne had been concerned in this xxviii.] BREA CH WITH R QME. 1 1 7 affair. Henry became dissatisfied with Cardinal Wolsey, and his enemies, chief among whom was Anne, were now able to ruin him. The chancellorship was taken from him, and he was obliged to make over his palace of York-place (now Whitehall) to the King. In 1530, the year after he had fallen from power, he was arrested for high treason, and brought towards London, but, sickening on the way, he died at Leicester Abbey, saying on his death-bed, " If I had served God as diligently as I have done the King, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs." Nor was the fall of Wolsey all. Moved by this dispute, Henry went along with the general desire for a reform of ecclesiastical abuses, and step by step the English Church was withdrawn from the power of the Pope. The Statute of Appeals, passed in 1 533, declared that henceforth there should be no appeals to the Pope or any authority outside the realm. All pay- ments to Rome were stopped, and the King was declared to be Supreme Head of the Church of England. Denial of this title was one of the many matters which were now made high treason, and for this offence the aged Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and the learned and excellent Sir Thomas More — who had succeeded Wolsey as Chancellor, but had retired, not approving of the King's measures — besides a number of bss notable persons, suffered death. By these proceedings, Henry became an agent in the Reformation, as that separa- tion of part of Europe from the communion of the Roman see which took place in this century, is called. His part in it was more political than religious; and the mass of the nation was of the same mind — opposed to the power, but not disagreeing with the doctrines of Rome. The particular creed of Martin Luther, the German leader in this movement, did not take root in England, but the Swiss and French Reformers, who went further than he did, had much influence in the next reign. There was nS HENRY VIII. [chap. various teaching among the Reformers, but it in general differed from that of Rome on the nature and number of the Sacraments, and on the obligations and duties of the clergy : the reverence paid to relics and images, and the use of Latin in the Church services, were disapproved of, and the study of the Scriptures was urged on every one. The men of " the new learning," as the Reformed doctrines were at first called, soon began to be distinguished by the name of Protestants. Those who adhered to the Pope were called Roman Catholics, Romanists, and Papists, and by themselves, simply Catholics. These names must at first be understood only as roughly marking two parties within the English Church, which had not yet formed themselves into distinct communions. 4. The King's Wives. — Anne Boleyn did not survive for many months the princess whom she- had ousted. In May 1536, her marriage with the King having been declared null and void, she was beheaded on a charge, true or false, of unfaithfulness, leaving one daughter, Elizabeth, born in 1533. The day after her death, Henry married Jane Seymour, the daughter of a Wiltshire knight, who died the next year, shortly after the birth of her son Edward. Early in 1540 Henry took another wife, Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves. This match was brought about by his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, who, being favourable to the Reformation, wished the King to ally himself with the Protestant princes of Ger- many. But unluckily Anne was not good-looking, and Henry found a pretext for having this marriage also declared null and void. Anne was well pensioned off, and lived the rest of her life in England ; while the King, without delay, married Katharine Howard, niece of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. She, being found to have misconducted herself, was beheaded, Fib. 12, 1542 ; and the next year, the King married his sixth and last wife, Katharine Parr, widow of xxvin.] ADMINISTRATION OF CROMWELL. ng Lord Latimer, a discreet woman, who kept her place as Henry's Queen until his death. 5. Administration of Cromwell. — Wolsey's power passed to one who had been in his service, Thomas Cromwell, created successively Baron Cromwell and Earl of Essex. The King made him his vicegerent in ecclesiastical matters, and as during his administration all the monastic founda- tions were destroyed, he has been called "the Hammer of the Monks." This was not done all at once. First, in 1536, the smaller monasteries were dissolved by Act of Parliament, and their revenues given to the King. The North-country people, who clung to the old ways, broke out into revolt at this : the Yorkshire rebellion, led by a gentleman named Robert Aske, was quaintly called " the Pilgrimage of Grace" After the resistance was put down, the destruction of the larger religious houses soon followed, the abbots and priors being made to surrender them, as of free will, to the King, after which in 1539 an Act was passed to confirm these surrenders. Meanwhile, famous relics and images and shrines were destroyed, among them the rich shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury, Henry proclaiming him to have been no saint, but rather a rebel and traitor. Of the vast wealth thus thrown into the King's hands, part went to found new bishoprics and part to fortify the coast ; but much more was spent in lavish grants to the courtiers, whilst many of the abbey churches and buildings were pulled down for the sake of the lead and stone. On his side, the Pope, Paul III., had issued in 1 538 a bull excommunicating and deposing. Henry ; and Cardinal Reginald Pole, a grandson of George Duke of Clarence, did his best to stir up foreign powers as well as English malcontents for the restoration by force of arms of the old state of ecclesiastical matters. Pole himself kept out of the way abroad, but many persons, in- cluding his elder brother Lord Montague, and later on his HENRY VIII. [chap. aged mother, Margaret Countess of Salisbury, the last of the direct line of the Plantagenets, suffered death on charges of treasonable correspondence with him. It must not be thought, however, that the new learning was triumphant. Under the influence of Cranmer and Cromwell, the Re- formers had indeed the satisfaction of seeing the Bible in English, which had hitherto been forbidden, placed in every church for all men to read. But in 1539 the party opposed to the Reformers, of which the leaders were the Duke of Norfolk and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, ob- tained the passing of the Act of the " Six Articles," termed by the Protestants " the whip with six strings," which in great measure imposed the old doctrines. Cromwell was still seemingly in high favour when he suddenly fell, owing, it is believed, to Henry's dissatisfaction with Anne of Cleves. He was beheaded July 28, 1540, an Act of Parliament attaint- ing him of treason and heresy having been passed, without his being heard in his defence. After the fall of Cromwell, Gardiner and his party came more into favour, and in 1543 an Act was passed forbidding the reading of the Bible by " the lower sort " of people — artificers, labourers, and the like ; although later on the English Litany, translated perhaps by the King, and other prayers in the vulgar tongue, were set forth. Of the Protestants put to death in this reign, one of the most notable was Anne Ascue (daughter of Sir William Ascue), who was burned in Smithneld, in July, 1546. 6. Wars with Scotland and France. — In 1542 a war broke out with Scotland, whose King, James V., being on the side of Rome, was not disposed towards alliance with his uncle Henry of England. A Scottish army crossed the Border, but whether from disaffection or from sudden panic, it fled before a few hundreds of Englishmen at Solway Moss. This disgrace broke the heart of James, who died not long xxvii i. ] DBA Til OF HENR Y. 121 afterwards, leaving as his successor an infant daughter Alary Stuart. Henry negotiated a marriage between the young Queen and his son Edward ; but the treaty to that effect was soon broken off by the Scots, and Henry's attempts to enforce its fulfilment by sending his army to ravage and burn their country only set them the more against the proposed match. Edinburgh itself was sacked and fired by the English under Edward Seymotir, Earl of Hertford, brother of Queen Jane Seymour. Irritated by French intrigues in Scotland, Henry, in alliance with Charles V., also entered upon war with France, and passing over to that country in 1544, he took Boulogne, which it was afterwards agreed should be given back at the end of eight years, upon payment of a sum of money, besides the pen- sion due by the treaty of 1525. The Scots were included in this peace. 7. Death of Henry. — Henry, who in his later years had become unwieldy and infirm, and suffered great pain, died Jan. 28, 1547. Nine days earlier, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, son of the Duke of Norfolk, and famous for his poetical talent, had been beheaded on a charge of treason. It is suspected that Surrey owed his death to the Seymours, who were now in favoui with the King, and between whom and the Howards there was bitter jealousy. The Earl of Hertford was among the sixteen "executors " of King Henry's will, to whom the government during the minority of his son was entrusted ; for Parliament had given Henry special powers with regard to the succession to his kingdom. In case Edward died childless, the crown was settled by Act of Parliament on the King's daughters, first on Mary and her heirs, then on Elizabeth and her heirs. After them, Henry bequeathed it to the descendants of his younger sister, Alary. 8. Defender of the Faith.— Henry was the first of oui EDWARD VI. [chap. Kings who bore the title of "Defender of the Faith." This he obtained in 152 1 from the Pope, Leo X., in return for his having written a Latin treatise against Luther, and be and his successors still kept it after they had ceased, in papal eyes at least, to deserve it. 9. Wales and Ireland.— In 1536 Wales was incorporated with England, and the English laws and liberties were granted to its inhabitants. Ireland, where England had almost lost its authority, such as it was, was brought under a somewhat stronger rule ; and in 1542 it was raised to the dignity of a kingdom, having been hitherto styled only a lordship. 10. The Navy. — Henry VIII. followed the example of his father in paying great attention to the navy. He con- stituted the Admiralty and Navy Office, and established the Trinity House and the dockyards at Deptford, Woolwich, and Portsmouth. CHAPTER XXIX. EDWARD VI. Edward VI; ride of the Protector Somerset (1) — beheading of Sey- 7) 1 our ; fall and beheading of Somerset (2) — the Duke of North- humberland ; death of the King and alteration of the succession (3) — the Reformation (4). I. Edward VI., 1547-1553. — The directions of Henry's will were at once infringed, the Earl of Hertford prevailing on his fellow-executors to make him Protector and governor of the young King his nephew. In accordance, it was said, with the late King's intentions, he was also created Dnke of Somerset. Ambitious and rapacious, the Protector was xxix.] DUKE OF SO M ERSE T. 123 yet beloved by the common people, for whom he had kindly feelings. He was a good soldier, and in the first year of his rule made a savage raid into Scotland, in hopes of enforcing the marriage treaty ; and his victory at Pinkie, near Mussel- burgh, strengthened his influence at home, although he did not bring back the young Queen, who in the course of the next year was sent into France as the betrothed of the Dauphin, afterwards King Francis II. In religious matters Somerset gave his support to the advanced Reformers, who had hitherto been kept down, and when Parliament met, the " Six Articles " and the old statutes against the Lollards were repealed, as well as Henry's harsh enact- ments concerning treason. All chantries (where masses were said for the souls of particular persons) and colleges, saving only the cathedral chapters, the colleges in the universities, and a few others, were suppressed, and their property made over to the crown. The King, who was only ten years old when he came to the throne, being brought up by men of strong Protestant views, naturally held their opinions ; and in piety and religious zeal he was beyond his years. Hugh Latimer, the most outspoken of the Reformed preachers, the most fearless rebuker of iniquity in high places, had a pulpit erected for him in the King's garden, where young Edward would sit and listen to sermons an hour long. The boy received an excellent education, and being intelligent, quick, and thoughtful, he made great progress. Even before he was eight years old he had written Latin letters to his father. 2. Fall of Somerset. — The first enemy Somerset had to deal with was his own brother, Thomas Lord Seymour of Sudeley, High Admiral of England, an ambitious and unprincipled man, who had married the widowed Queen Katharine Parr. Aiming at supplanting the Protectcr, he was himself destroyed by a bill of attainder, without being 124 EDWARD VI. [chap. heard in his own defence, and was beheaded March 20, 1549. Somerset's rule did not last much longer, his government proving a failure both at home and abroad The common people of the West rose in arms to demand the restoration of the mass, which had given place to the English Prayer-book ; the Norfolk and Suffolk men, headed by Ket, a tanner, broke out into insurrection against the landowners who were enclosing commons and turning arable land into pasture. With the insurgents in the East the Protector somewhat sympathised, and it was afterwards charged against him that he had at first given them en- couragement. His administration was wasteful ; he had made a vast fortune out of the Church property, and had given offence by building for himself a splendid palace (on the site of which stands the present Somerset House), pulling down churches and the cloister of St. Paul's to supply materials, or make room for it. The other lords of the council joined together to get rid of him, and he was deposed from the Protectorate. One of the faults alleged against him was having left Boulogne, which was now threatened by the French, in a defenceless state ; and, the country being un- prepared to carry on a war for it, his successors were obliged to give it back, though they received in compensation only a fifth of the sum promised to Henry VIII., and virtually surrendered the annual pension. But to the last Somerset was beloved, especially as the administration of his successors proved worse than his had been, and when, in 1552, he was beheaded on a charge of conspiring against his rival John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and other lords of the council, great was the sorrow. 3. The Duke of Northumberland. — Northumberland, who took the management of affairs after Somerset's fall, was the son of that Dudley who had been the evil agent of Henry VII. He appears in reality to have had no xxix.] DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 125 religion, but it suited him to set up for a thorough-going Protestant, and he was in consequence the idol of some of the more eager members of that party, although his government was tyrannical, and the people detested him. In 1553 the young King, who took much interest in public affairs, and whose coming of age was looked forward to with great hopes, fell dangerously ill. Northumberland foresaw that if the Lady Mary, who was known to disapprove of the doings of her brother's ministers in religious matters, came to the throne, his power would be at an end. He therefore persuaded the dying boy to alter the succession — a thing which he had no right to do without authority from Parlia- ment — by shutting out his sisters, and settling the crown on his cousin Lady Jane Grey, daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, and granddaughter of Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon. The young King, it is believed, was led to this by the fear that the Reformed faith would suffer if Mary reigned ; Northumberland's motive was the hope of setting on the throne his fourth son, Lord Guilford Dudley, whom he had just married to Lady Jane. Shortly after, Edward died at Greenwich, July 6, his last prayer being that England might be preserved from " papistry." The common belief was that Northumberland had hastened his end by poison, but of this there is no sufficient proof. 4. The Reformation. — The Reformation made rapid pro- gress in London and in the towns, especially in those on the sea-coast, but the country districts were slower in accepting it, and the Government pushed it on both further and faster than suited the mass of the nation. Somerset early issued injunctions to put away the pictures and images in the churches ; and the overthrow of crucifixes, the whitewashing of walls once adorned with paintings, and the destruction of stained glass, brought the change before the eyes of the simplest and moot ignorant. Gardiner, Edmund Bonner, i 2 6 EDWARD VI. [chap. Bishop of London, and other bishops who did not go all lengths with the party in power, were sent to prison ; and Northumberland filled their sees with Protestants, Nicholas Ridley, one of the ablest of the reforming clergy, succeed- ing Bonner in London. Out of the college and chantry property King Edward endowed grammar-schools at Shrews- bury, Birmingham, and other places ;.but great part of the wealth gained by stripping the churches of their plate, and suppressing and diminishing the possessions of bishoprics, went into the hands of the men in power and their friends, to whom the Reformation was dear chiefly for the sake of the plunder. Bishop Ridley, preaching before Edward at Whitehall, took occasion to speak of the distressed condition of the London poor ; upon which the young King, sending for the Bishop, asked his advice as to what should be done. Ridley suggested consulting the corporation of the City, whose conduct in founding hospitals and schools already formed an honourable contrast to that of the Government. The result was that the old house of the Grey Friars was chartered by the King as Chrisfs Hospital (vulgarly called the Bluecoat School) ; the Hospitals of .57. Thomas and St. Bartholomew were re-founded and re-endowed, and the King also made over the royal house of Bridewell for a workhouse. The Prayer-book of the Church of England was compiled in this reign by Archbishop Cranmer, who took the old Latin sen- ices for his groundwork. The first complete Prayer- book was published in 1 549, but many changes were made in 1552 under the influence of the more extreme Re- formers ; and Acts " for the Uniformity of Service " forbade the use of any other religious rites. The Lady Mary firmly refused to have the new service used in her house, although, after the fall of Somerset, attempts were made to constrain her to conform to the established worship. Tolerance was not in those days looked upon as a virtue, even by Reformers. xxx.] MARY. 127 A friend of Anne Ascue, Joan Bocher by name, who held opinions condemned by both of the two great religious parties, was in 1550 burned at the stake. CHAPTER XXX. MARY. Mary ; Lady Jane Grey (1) — the Spanish marriage ; Wyatfs in- surrection ; beheading of Lady Jane; reconciliation zvith Rome (2) — persecution of the Protestants (3) — loss of Calais ; death of Mary (4). I. Mary, iSSS-^SS. Lady Jane Grey.— It had been in- tended to keep Edward's death a secret until the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth had been secured ; but Mary had friends who gave her warning, and she at once made her escape into Norfolk. Her innocent rival, Jane Grey, was but sixteen, beautiful, accomplished, learned, and firm in the Reformed faith. She had known nothing of her father-in- law's ambitious schemes, and when he and four other lords came to her at Sion House, and knelt before her as their Queen, she received their information with astonishment and dismay. On the 10th July she was proclaimed ; but her reign only lasted nine days. The nation was unanimous in regarding Mary as the rightful heir, and thousands gathered round her. She was proclaimed, amid general rejoicing, on the 19th July, and not a blow being struck for Jane, Mary entered London in triumph at the head of a band of friends. The Duke of Northumberland, whose ambition had thus been baffled, was tried and beheaded, and to the dismay of the Reformers, died declaring himself to be of the 2 3 MARY. [chap. ancient faith. Simon Renard, the ambassador of Charles V., whom Mary chiefly consulted, urged that Jane and her husband should also die, but the Queen as yet was pitiful, and they were only kept prisoners in the Tower. 2. The Spanish Marriage. — Unfortunately for her popu- larity, Mary was sincerely devoted to the Church of Rome. The nation indeed, discontented with the reforming states- men of the last reign, was by no means Protestant at heart. The deprived bishops were restored, Gardiner was made Chancellor, the foreign preachers were ordered out of the country, and the mass was said as of old. But Mary wanted more than this ; and whereas her people wished her to marry some English nobleman, she had made up her mind to take the Emperor's son, Philip, for her husband. Everyone agreed in disapproving of her choice. The heir of a foreign kingdom would have other interests than those of England to look to ; and men feared lest the country should become a province of Spain. To hinder the marriage, Sir Thomas Wyatt raised a formidable in- surrection among the Kentish men, who marched upon London with the intention of seizing upon the Queen. The enterprise however failed, and after a skirmish at Temple Bar, Wyatt gave himself up. The first to suffer for this rebellion were two captives who had had no part in it. Mary, being persuaded that her former lenity had en- couraged rebellion, ordered the execution of Lady Jane and her young husband, Guilford Dudley, who were beheaded Feb. 12, 1554. Jane, with faith unshaken by the priest whom the Queen sent to convert her, died with gentle firmness. With more justice, Wyatt, as well as the Duke of Suffolk, who had been concerned in the insurrection, were put to death, and many other rebels shared their fate. The real design of the conspirators, it appeared, had been to raise to the throne the Lady Elizabeth and Edward Courtenay xxx.] THE PERSECUTION. 129 Earl of Devon, great-grandson of Edward IV., and so both were sent to the Tower. Renard, truly considering Elizabeth to be a dangerous rival, urged that she should be put to death ; but, as there was no evidence against her, she was only placed for a time in confinement at Woodstock. Philip of Spain came over in July, and the marriage took place. He was called King of England so long as the Queen lived, but, to the great vexation of himself and his wife, Parlia- ment would not consent that he should be crowned, or that he should succeed Mary if she died childless. The next step after the marriage was to bring about a reconcilia- tion with Rome. On the 30th November, 1554, the Lords and Commons met at Whitehall, went on their knees, and were absolved, together with the whole realm, from heresy and schism, by Cardinal Reginald Pole, who had come over as the Pope's legate. Yet the triumph was not so complete as it seemed. The Lollard statutes indeed were revived, the ecclesiastical legislation of Henry VIII. swept away ; but the Pope Was obliged to consent that the holders of lands and goods taken from the Church should remain in possession. Mary herself, more zealous than her subjects, restored most of the Church property which was still in the hands of the Crown, and re-established some of the old religious houses. 3. The Persecution. — The statutes against heretics were not revived for nothing. The fire was first kindled for John Rogers, a canon of St. Paul's, who had worked upon the translation of the Bible ; and, by the end of the reign, two hundred persons, or more, men and women, had died at the stake. In justice it must be said that most men at this time believed it right to punish erroneous opinions — a belief which the Romanists had the opportunity of carrying out to the full. The English, averse from wholesale slaughter and loving courage, were more won to the Protestant causeby these T K 130 MARY. [chap spectacles than by any arguments. It had been thought by many that the men of the new doctrines had no serious convictions ; but proving staunch on trial, they called forth a burst of admiration ; while Mary, and Bishop Bonner, who was one of the chief persecutors, have come down to posterity with the terrible epithet, " bloody," fixed upon them. Among the most notable of the martyrs were John Hooper, late Bishop of Gloucester, Ridley, late Bishop of London, who had preached in defence of the Lady Jane's claim to the crown, and the aged Latimer. These last two were burned together at Oxford, October 16, 1555, Latimer exhorting his companion to " play the man," and saying, " We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." Archbishop Cranmer, of less firm mould than the others, recanted ; but this humiliation did not save his life. Being brought to the stake, he abjured his recantation, and as an evidence of repentance, thrust the hand that had signed it, first into the flame. These were leading men, but among the laity the persecution did not strike high, labourers, artisans, tradesmen, private gentle- men at the most, being the usual victims. 4. Loss of Calais. — The marriage of Philip and Mary was unhappy. They were childless, and though Mary doted on her husband, he did not care for her ; she was a small, haggard, sickly woman, eleven years older than himself; and he had married her only to suit his father's policy. England, where he was regarded with suspicion and hatred, -/ftered him no attractions ; and when he left it to be- come, by the abdication of his father, King of Spain and sovereign of the Netherlands, he had little inducement to return. After this he only came over once for a few months to urge the Queen to join him in war against France ; she consented, and the result was disastrous. The Government had neglected to repair the defences of Calais, or to keep a xxxi.] ELIZABETH. 131 sufficient garrison in it; and in January 1558 it was taken by the French. It was no real loss ; but it was a terri- ble blow to English pride, and the Queen is reported to have said, " When I die, Calais will be found written on my heart." The unfortunate Mary, neglected by her husband, broken down in health, and having lost the love of her people, died November 17, 1558. Her death was followed within twenty-four hours by that of Cardinal Pole. From that time the power of Rome in England was at an end. CHAPTER XXXI. i ELIZABETH. Elizabeth (1) — the Reformed Church ; Romanists and Puritans ; Ire- land (2)— flight of 'Mary Queen of Scots to England ; her captivity and death (3) — struggle with Spain; Sir Philip Sidney; naval adventurers ; Walter Ralegh; Francis Drake ; defeat of the Armada (4) — the Earl of Essex ; rebellion of Tyrone (5) — mono- polies (6) — death of Elizabeth (7) — East India Company (8). I. Elizabeth, 1558-1603. — Elizabeth was welcomed by all when, in her twenty-sixth year, she succeeded to the crown. It soon appeared that she intended to support a moderate Reformation, although Philip supposed her principles to be still so unsettled that, soon after her accession, he offered her his hand on condition of her conforming to his Church. After some delay she refused him, as indeed in the end she did every one of her royal and noble suitors, although she gave hopes to many, and was earnestly pressed by Parliament to marry. She loved her country, although she had inherited her father's imperious and despotic nature ; her chief faults as a ruler were irresolution and want of openness ; her private K 2 1 32 ELIZABETH. [chap. weaknesses — personal vanity and a desire for flattery — might afford food for the ridicule of her enemies, but they did not prevent her being a great sovereign. She chose sagacious advisers, and, though she made favourites, she never suffered them to obtain dominion over her. Her chief minister was William Cecil, afterwards Baron Burghley and Lord High Treasurer, a wise statesman to whose counsels much of the success of her reign is to be attributed. Sir Francis Walsing- ham, and Robert Cecil, second son of Lord Burghley, are also notable among her advisers. 2. Religious Affairs. — The Reformed Church of England was now firmly established, and the supremacy of the Crown was restored by Act of Parliament, though without the title of Head of the Church. Almost all Mary's bishops were deprived for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, which declared the Queen to be supreme governor in all ecclesias- tical and spiritual things as well as temporal ; and Bonner was kept in prison for the rest of his days. Towards the end of 1559 Matthew Parker, a learned and prudent man, was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. The second Prayer- book of Edward, with some alterations, was restored, and a new Act of Uniformity forbade the use by a minister of any other, and imposed a fine on those who absented themselves from church. This bore heavily on the Roman Catholics, of whom after a while many withdrew beyond sea, and became a source of danger to Elizabeth ; while, in retaliation, those at home were harassed and persecuted under laws of increasing severity. Elizabeth's determination to make all her subjects conform to the rites which she established, was resisted, not only by the Romanists, but by the extreme Protestants, or " Puritans" as they came to be nicknamed, from their desiring a simpler and- purer form of worship : that is to say, one farther removed from that of Rome. Even the Reformation under Edward had not gone xxxi.] RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS. 133 far enough for them, still less this of the Queen, who retained ceremonies and practices which gave them great offence. The Puritan or non-conformist clergy and their friends did not wish to leave the Church, although they strove to mould it to their own views, and at last to alter its government, for many of them began to disapprove of episcopacy or government by bishops. By degrees too they took to holding religious meetings of their own. There sprang up also in the latter part of the reign a sect afterwards famous under the name of Independents, which avowedly separated from the Established Church. The chief instrument em- ployed to force the Puritans into conformity was the High Commission Court, appointed by Elizabeth, under the powers of the Act of Supremacy, to inquire into and punish by; spiritual censure, fine, imprisonment, and deprivation, here- sies, schisms, absence from church, and such like offences. Troublesome as the Puritans were to Elizabeth, they were staunch in their loyalty ; for it was no time for any Pro- testant to be disloyal, when the old faith and the reformed were struggling for life or death throughout Europe, and Philip, the mightiest prince of the age, was on the side of Rome. Elizabeth became the hope of the Reformed, and the Puritans forgave her their own wrongs in consideration of the help she gave their Protestant brethren in France, Scotland, and the Netherlands. In Irelajid similar changes were made, but there the Church in its new shape took no root, even the settlers of the pale, or English district, being little inclined towards it, and scarcely any trouble being bestowed upon winning them over, otherwise than by force of law. 3. Mary Stuart. — The person generally looked upon as Elizabeth's heir was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots and widow of Francis II., King of France. Though left out of Henry the Eighth's will (which however some believed not to have 1 34 ELIZA BE TH. [chap. been signed with the King's own hand, and therefore to be worthless), she was the nearest heir, being the granddaughter of his elder sister Margaret. Some of the Romanists regarded her as rightful Queen of England already, and, when she was in France, she had taken that title. She was one of the most fascinating women that ever lived, but, being a strong Roman Catholic, she did not suit the Protestants among her people. She also gave them ground to accuse her of great crimes, on account of which they forced her to resign her crown to her infant son, James VI., in the murder of whose father, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, she was believed to have been an accomplice. They placed her in captivity, from which she escaped, and flying to England, threw herself on Elizabeth's protection, May 16, 1568. But, contrary to her expectation, the English government detained her as a state prisoner, in which position she became as dangerous to Elizabeth as Elizabeth had once been to her own sister. Round the beautiful captive gathered a succession of con- spiracies against Elizabeth, formed by Romanist malcontents who looked to Spain for help. Thomas Percy and Charles Neville, Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, raised a Roman Catholic rebellion in the North, which was put down with extreme severity. Pope Pius V. in 1570 published a bull absolving Elizabeth's subjects from their allegiance, which in the end did more harm to the Pope's friends than to the Queen. Seminary priests (that is, priests from colleges established abroad for English Roman Catholics) and Jesuits poured into the kingdom, not only to keep up the Romanist worship, but, as was generally believed, to stir up their dis- ciples against the Queen. Many of these missionaries, after being tortured for the purpose of wringing out information, were put to the death of traitors. Torture was always contrary to law, but it had nevertheless begun to be em- ployed in the course of the preceding century, and it was in xxxi.] THE STRUGGLE WITH SPAIN. 135 common use under the Tudors. Meanwhile the Puritans, who had a majority in the House of Commons, from which Romanists were kept out by the exaction of the oath of supremacy from the members, began to call for the death of Mary. After she had been about nineteen years a captive, a plot, with which Walsingham through spies became early acquainted, was formed by Anthony Babington and many other young Roman Catholics against Elizabeth's life. A statute passed in 1585 had specially provided for the case of plots being made on behalf of any person claiming the crown, and had prescribed a mode of trial before a com- mission of peers, privy councillors, and judges. Mary was now charged with being accessory to Babington's plot, and was accordingly put on her trial before such a commission. She was condemned, and beheaded, Feb. 8, 1587, in the hall of Fotheringhay Castle. In the preceding year she had sent word to Philip that she had bequeathed her prospective rights upon England to him, having set aside her son as a Protestant. 4. The Struggle with Spain. — Philip had at first striven to gain Elizabeth's friendship, but the Queen being gradually drawn' on by her more Protestant ministers and subjects, Spain and England entered upon a course of bickering, and underhand acts of hostility : Elizabeth aiding Philip's revolted subjects, the Protestants of the Netherlands ; Philip encouraging the malcontents both in England and Ireland. At last the Queen, having openly allied herself with the people of the Nether- lands, who had formed themselves into the common- wealth of the United Provinces, sent out to their aid an expedition, commanded by her favourite, the handsome, polished, but worthless Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. This expedition did not effect anything; an engagement before Zutphen is memorable, because it cost the life of Sir 136 ELIZABETH. [chap. Philip Sidney, who was the darling of the nation for his talents and his virtues. It is told of him that having left the field mortally wounded he asked for some drink. But as he lifted the bottle to his lips, he saw a dying soldier, who was being carried by, glance wistfully at it. Sidney gave it him untasted, saying, " Thy necessity is yet 'greater than mine." The strife with Spain was in great measure fomented and kept up by a set of men much of the stamp of the old sea-kings, a passion for maritime adventure having taken possession of England. Martin Frobisher and John Davis have left their names to the Straits which they dis- covered while seeking for the North-west passage. John Hawkins, of Plymouth, was the first Englishman, or nearly so, who engaged in the negro-slave trade, in which so little shame was seen that the Queen granted him a Moor as his crest in memory of it. Walter Ralegh, of Devonshire, one of Elizabeth's favourites, attempted, though without success, to plant a colony on the coasts of North America ; and by his colonists the practice of smoking tobacco was intro- duced into England. To Ralegh, according to the common tale, belongs the credit of having first planted in Ireland the potato, a native production of America. Most famous of all is Francis Drake, also of Devonshire, who started in life as an apprentice in a Channel coaster. Drake was the first man who sailed round the world in one voyage. He and most of his fellows were a strange mixture of explorer, pirate, and Protestant knight-errant. To spoil and burn the Spanish towns in the New World, to waylay and capture the gold and silver laden ships that sailed to Spain, was at once profitable and virtuous in their eyes. When war was openly entered upon, Drake became a regularly commissioned officer, and in 1587, when Philip was known to be preparing to invade England, he entered Cadiz harbour and destroyed the ships and great part of the stares xxxi.] THE SPANISH ARMADA. 137 there ; in his own phrase, he " singed the Spanish King's beard." The threatened invasion, however, was actually attempted the next year. A mighty naval force, known by its Spanish name of Armada, that is, Fleet, was collected at Lisbon, and the flower of Spain joined in the enterprise, which, being undertaken at the instance of the Pope, Sixties v., was looked on as a holy war. Philip's general, A lexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, had another fine army ready in the neighbourhood of Nieuport and Dunkirk, for whose protection on its passage to England the Armada, com- manded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, was to make its way through the Channel to the North Foreland. Charles Lord Howard of Effingham commanded the English fleet, and with him were Drake, and Hawkins, and Frobisher, and others like them. Only some of the vessels belonged to the navy ; many were furnished by various cities, merchants, and private people. London is said to have supplied double the number of ships and men requested of it. Two armies were collected, one at Tilbury under Leicester, the other to defend the Queen ; and the mass of the English Roman Catholics came forward as zealously as any- body else, for though they might have invited foreign aid for Mary of Scotland's sake, they were not minded deliber- ately to make their country over to Philip. On the 19th July, Howard, who was at Plymouth, learned that the Armada — about a hundred and fifty sail — was off the Cornish coast ; and coming out with about sixty or seventy ships, he hung upon the enemy's rear, fresh vessels joining him daily until he mustered a hundred and forty. Medina Sidonia, fighting as he sailed along, anchored on the 27th in Calais roads. To drive him out, at midnight on the 28th eight ships were fired, and sent drifting with wind and tide among the Spaniards, who, seized with a panic, put to sea in disorder. At day- break they were attacked by Howard, Drake, and Lord Henry 17,8 ELIZABETH. [chap. Seymour, and though the Spaniards fought gallantly, they were completely at disadvantage ; in seamanship and gun- practice they were inferior to their adversaries, and their floating castles were no match for the active little English vessels. Had not the Queen's ill-timed parsimony kept her fleet insufficiently supplied with powder, the Armada would have been destroyed. As it was, Sidonia fled away north- wards, Howard and Drake, with part of the fleet, clinging to him till their scanty provisions began to run short. Even then the misfortunes of the Armada were only begun ; the gale rose to a storm, scattering it about in the seas of Scotland and Ireland, which were almost unknown to the Spaniards, and only fifty-four vessels lived to creep shattered home. The English rejoiced, though modestly, over their success. To them and to all Protestants it seemed that Heaven had fought for them. 5. The Earl of Essex. — Leicester dying in the midst of the rejoicing, was succeeded in the Queen's favour by Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, whose father, Walter Earl oj Essex, is noted for an adventurous but unsuccessful attempt to subdue and colonize Ulster. Young Essex, gallant but headstrong, acquitted himself brilliantly as the leader of an expedition which took the town of Cadis; but he was not fitted for the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, to which he was appointed that he might subdue the rebel O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone. The Queen found fault with his conduct, upon which Essex, believing that he was being undermined by his rivals at court, and presuming on Elizabeth's fond- ness for him, left his post unbidden, and abruptly pre- sented himself before her. But Elizabeth, not accepting his excuses, sent out Lord Mountjoy to bring Ireland into order, and inflicted humiliations upon Essex which his haughty spirit could not bear. With a view to removing the Queen's advisers by force, he made a wild attempt to xxxi.] MONOPOLIES. raise an insurrection among the Londoners. He was found guilty of treason, and beheaded in 1601, at the age of thirty- three. Tyrone, notwithstanding that an armament was sent from Spain to his aid, was reduced by Mountjoy to sub- mission, and received a pardon. 6. Monopolies. — A great abuse of the time was the prac- tice of the Crown to grant to favoured persons monopolies, that is, the exclusive right of dealing in some particular article. Thus Essex had had a monopoly of sweet wines, and had been much aggrieved when, during his disgrace, the Queen had refused to continue it to him, saying that " a restive horse must be broken into the ring by stinting him of his provender." In 1601 a list of these monopolies was read out in Parliament. "Is not bread among the number ? " said a member, adding a prediction that at any rate it would be there soon. Elizabeth, though imperious, knew how to yield gracefully, and seeing what a ferment was being raised, she sent word that she would revoke or suspend her ob- noxious patents. 7. Death of Elizabeth. — Queen Elizabeth died at Rich- mond, in the seventieth year of her age, March 24, 1603. Robert Cecil, her chief minister, affirmed that she declared by signs that King James VI. of Scotland should succeed her. This is not certain, but at any rate James was pro- claimed King of England. 8. The East India Company. — On the 31st December, 1600, a Charter of privileges was granted to a recently formed company of London merchants trading to the East Indies. This was the famous East India Company, and from this sprang the British dominion in India. 140 JAMES I. [chap. CHAPTER XXXII. JAMES I. James I. (i) — Ralegh sentenced to death ; imprisonment and death of Arabella Stuart (2) — the Puritans ; the Roma?iists ; the Gun- powder Plot (3) — James's favourites ; execution of Ralegh ; strife between King and Parliament; Bacon; the proposed Spanish marriage (4) — death of James ; his children ; Great Britain (5) — ■ plantation of Ulster ; baronets (6) — colonies and voyages (7) — translations of the Bible (8) — learning and - literature (9) — poetry and the drama (10). I. House of Stuart. James I., 1603-1625.— According to the will of Henry VIII. the crown should have gone to the descendants of Mary Duchess of Suffolk, but James VI. of Scotland, son of Mary Stuart and her second husband Lord Darnley, was the nearest heir by birth, the nation was willing to accept him, and after his coronation an Act of Parliament was passed declaring his right. His birth being the strongest point in his favour, it became his interest to encourage the new doctrine of " divine right" that is, the belief that an hereditary prince derives his authority from Heaven alone, and that therefore no laws can limit it, or take it from him. These dignified pretensions accorded little with the character and appearance of James ; for he was ungainly in person, unkingly in bearing, so timorous that he shuddered at a drawn sword ; and though learned, he had few qualities of a ruler. He had been brought up a Presby- terian, but became attached to the English Church on find- ing that its clergy treated him more respectfully than the Scots ministers had ever done. " No bishop, no King " was THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. then his phrase, and he soon learned to hate the Puritans, thinking them slack friends to monarchy. 2. Arabella Stuart. — In the first year of this reign, Sir Walter Ralegh was condemned to death on a charge of having conspired to raise Arabella Stuart, first cousin of James, to the throne. He was however reprieved, and spent thirteen years as a prisoner in the Tower. Arabella, having had no share in the plot, was unmolested until eight years later, when she privately married William Seymour, a descendant of the Duchess of Suffolk. This union of two possible pretenders to the throne gave alarm ; and Arabella was illegally shut up in the Tower, where she became insane and died. 3. The Puritans and the Romanists. The Gunpowder Plot.— Early in 1604, a conference between dignitaries of the Church and leading Puritan divines was held before the King at Hampton Court. Some slight alterations were made in the Prayer-book, and a new translation of the Bible was ordered. This was finished in 161 1, and is still our Authorized Version. The Puritans were not satisfied, as indeed nothing short of excluding from the Church all doc- trines but their own would have satisfied them ; but the way in which they were browbeaten by the King and the bishops was not likely to soothe them. As for the Roman Catholics, who had formed hopes of some indulgence from James, they were embittered by fresh severities, for which a fearful vengeance was devised. A Romanist gentleman, Robert Catesby, con- ceived the plan of blowing up the Parliament House with gunpowder on the day — November 5, 1605 — the King was to open the session. King, Lords, and Commons thus disposed of, Catesby and his confederates were to raise the Romanist gentry, and proclaim one of the King's younger children ; as the eldest, Prince Henry, would, it was expected, have accompanied his father, and perished with him. A cellar 142 JAMES I. [chap. under the House of Lords was hired, and barrels of gun- powder there laid, the task of firing the mine being deputed to one of the thirteen conspirators, Guido or Guy Faukes, a soldier of fortune. Everything was ready, when Lord Mounteagle, also a Romanist, was warned by an anonymous letter to keep away from Parliament. This he showed to Robert Cecil, then Earl of Salisbury ; investigation followed, and about midnight, on the eve of the 5th November, Faukes was seized in the cellar. On hearing of this, the other con- spirators fled, but were soon killed or taken ; the survivors, including Faukes, were executed. Catesby's crime bore bitter fruit for those he had hoped to serve, as the memory of the "Gunpowder Treason" deepened the hatred felt for Romanism by the English in general. New and more severe laws were made against " Popish recusants," (that is, those who refused to come to church), upon whom was imposed a new oath of allegiance, renouncing in the strongest terms the doctrine that princes excommunicated by the Pope might be deposed or murdered by their subjects or others. This oath caused a division among the Romanists, some taking it, others, at the bidding of the reigning Pope, Paul V., refusing to do so. As James was not disposed to perse- cution, the laws against the Romanists were, much to the dissatisfaction of the Puritans, not always executed. 4. Government of James. — After the death of Salisbury, a Scottish favourite, Robert Carr, created Earl cf Somerset, became all-powerful for some years. After him the royal favour passed to George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buck- ingham, a handsome young Englishman, whom James nicknamed " Steenie," and permitted to treat him with rude familiarity. Meanwhile the King's rule did not please his subjects. His foreign policy was unpopular ; for, in- stead of supporting Protestantism abroad, he was on friendly terms with Spain. In 1616, Ralegh had been let out of xxxii.] GOVERNMENT OF JAMES. 143 prison with leave to go on an expedition to Guiana, there to open a gold mine he averred he knew of. The expedition failed ; he came into conflict with the Spaniards, who, not without reason, complained of him as a pirate ; and on his return he was beheaded, not for any fresh fault he had com- mitted, but on his old sentence. The nation was indignant, for he was looked on as a sacrifice to the vengeance of Spain. Neither did James manage home affairs well ; he was ever at variance with his Parliaments, they striving after more freedom, he aiming at absolute power. The Parlia- ment of 1614 has had the epithet of " addled " fixed upon it, because ere it had passed a single Act the King dissolved it in anger ; after which he supplied himself with money by a "benevolence." In 162 1 a Parliament met which boldly attacked abuses and corruption ; the Lord Chancellor, Francis Bacon, one of the greatest of English philosophers, was charged by it with taking bribes, and thereupon dismissed from office with ignominy. But when the Commons ventured to touch foreign affairs, the King, telling them not to meddle, at once dissolved their House. One of his most unpopular schemes was the intended marriage of his son Charles Prince of Wales to the Infanta or Princess Maria of Spain. ' The Prince, accompanied by the favourite Buckingham, travelled in disguise to Madrid to see his intended bride, and a marriage treaty was concluded, but, to the great joy of the country, it was broken off. 5. Death of James. — King James died of ague, March 27, 1625. He was the author of many works in prose and verse, notably of a treatise against the practice of smoking tobacco. His wife was Anne of Denmark, and his children were Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died in 161 2 ; Charles, who succeeded him ; and Elizabeth, who married Frederick V. Elector Palatine. As the insurgent Bohemians chose her husband for their King, she is known as the Queen 144 JAMES I. [chap. of Bohemia. James took the title of King of Great Britain, and had a national flag devised, on which the crosses of the patron saints of England and Scotland, 67. George and St. Andrew, were blended — the first " Union Jack; "—but England and Scotland, though they had for the time fallen to one and the same sovereign, remained otherwise entirely separate. 6. Plantation of Ulster. — A few years after the King's accession, the Earl of Tyrone, together with another great chieftain of the north of Ireland, Cr Donnel Earl oj Tyrconnel, having engaged, or being suspected of having engaged, in a conspiracy, fled to foreign parts, and were attainted of treason. On their outlawry, and the rebellion in 1608 of a third chieftain, O'Dogherty, the greater part of Ulster was forfeited to the Crown, which thereupon granted out land in it to Scotch and English settlers, and these new- comers soon made it the most flourishing district in Ireland. The system of " planting " was extended to Leinster ; but, with apparent good, much evil was done. Many of the native owners were turned out, and several septs, or clans, were transplanted to other parts of the island. A sense of injustice rankled in the hearts of the Irish ; and they sighed for their old lords, tyrants and oppressors though these had been. In order, so he professed, to raise funds for the pro- tection of the Ulster settlers, James devised a new title of honour, that of Baronet, and required of all who received it, a sum of money, as much as would support thirty soldiers for three years. 7. Colonies and Voyages. — In 1607, some adventurers sent out by a London Company of Merchants founded, in Virginia, fames Town, the first permanent settlement of Englishmen in North America. In 1620, a number of Puritans, who had been driven from England to Holland by the laws against non-conformity, sailed from Delft Haven xxxii.] TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 145 for North America, and settled in New England. These are the most ancient of those colonies which afterwards, throwing off the rule of the mother-country, formed the United States of North America. Fresh efforts were made in this reign to find a north-west passage. Henry Hudson in 1610 sailed through the Strait and discovered the Bay- since called by his name. In those seas he perished, for his crew, which had suffered much from want of provisions, mutinied, and sent him and eight of his followers adrift in an open boat. Nothing more was ever heard of them. Further discoveries were made by Thomas Button, the first navigator who reached the eastern coast of America through Hudson's Strait, and by Bylot and Baffin, who dis- covered and penetrated to the most northern extremity of Baffin's Bay. 8. Translations of the Bible. — High among the early English Reformers stands William Tyndal, who, settling at Antwerp, devoted himself to translating the Scriptures, which he printed with side-notes and commentaries of his own. During the Primacy of Wa?'ham, Crammer's pre- decessor, efforts were made to stop the circulation of Tyndal's Testament by publicly burning in London all the copies which could be bought up— a proceeding which only supplied Tyndal with the means of sending forth fresh edi- tions. By and by there came a change in England, and the Bible which, under Thomas Cromwell's administration, was placed in the churches, was a compilation of Tyndal's scattered translations, collected, edited, and completed by his friend Miles Coverdale. In that same year Tyndal came to his end, being put to death near Antwerp as a heretic. Coverdale's Bible served as the basis for all succeeding translations. Upon this and other versions of the reign of Henry VIII. was founded the Bishops' Bible, edited by Archbishop Parker ; and although in the preparation of the T L 146 JAMES I. [chap. present Authorized Version extraordinary care was bestowed upon its translation from the originals, the eminent divines employed on the task adhered as closely as possible to the language and style of its predecessors. 9. Learning and Literature. — In the sixteenth century, classical learning began to flourish in England, the study of the ancient Greek language, till then almost unknown, being introduced. William Grocyn, who having acquired a know- ledge of Greek in Italy, had begun to teach it at Oxford about the end of the preceding century, is honoured as " the patriarch of English learning." He and a small knot of like-minded men in 15 10 brought over the great scholar of the Netherlands, Erasmus, to teach at Cambridge. Thomas Li nacre, eminent in medicine, who was the first president of the College of Physicians, also held high rank among men of learning. Sir Thomas More, a pupil of Grocyn, is the author of Utopia, a work in Latin, descriptive of an imaginary commonwealth, from which the epithet of " Utopian" is now applied to fanciful political schemes. Although education was not general, yet in a select circle of scholarly taste or exalted rank the standard was high. Lady Jane Grey, who spoke, as well as wrote, Greek, Latin, Italian, and French, and also understood Hebrew and Arabic, was especially renowned for her learning. When found at home reading Plato, while the rest of the household were out hunting, she accounted for her love of books by saying that her parents were so harsh and severe, that she was never happy except when with her tutor, who was always gentle and pleasant. Henry VIII., himself a good scholar, had his children carefully taught. Sir John Cheke, one of the tutors of Edward VI., was the first professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge. He was a Protestant, but in Mary's reign recanted to save himself from burning, and pined to death with shame at his own weakness. Queen xxxn. ] LEARNING AND LITERATURE. 147 Elizabeth could speak Greek fairly, Latin fluently, and French and Italian as readily as her mother tongue ; and these acquirements she kept up after she had ascended the throne, reading with her tutor Roger Ascham for some hours daily. Among the learned men who graced the reigns of Elizabeth and James was William Camden, author of the Britannia, a survey of the British Isles written in Latin, who founded in the University of Oxford an historical lecture, still called after him the Camden professorship. Francis Bacon, successively created Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans, who has already been spoken of as Lord Chancellor stands intellectually, though not morally, among the greatest of mankind. The philosophical work on which his fame rests is in Latin ; but to ordinary readers he is best known by his English Essays, a name which he was the first to give to that species of composition. The finest of the Elizabethan prose authors was Richard Hooker, Master of the Temple, who defended the established form of Church government against the Puritans. Two of Elizabeth's favourite courtiers held literary rank — Sir Philip Sidney, author of the Arcadia, a half chivalrous, half pastoral romance, which, though to modern taste tedious, was long exceedingly popular ; and Sir Walter Ralegh, who, while a prisoner in the Tower, employed himself in the laborious undertaking of writing a History of the World. This however he never finished. Much both of the poetry and prose of the time is deformed by a strained and fantastic style, of which the great master was Joh?i Lyly, from whose novel of Euphues it has got its name of Euphuism. 10. Poetry and the Drama. — The ill-fated Earl of Surrey, who died on the scaffold in 1 547, was the first to introduce blank verse. Although he is more to be admired for his taste and polish than for genius, he was the leader of a school of poets who followed Italian models. Of these L 2 JAMES I. was the great Elizabethan poet, Edmund Spenser, author of the Faery Queen, a long though unfinished tale of chival- rous adventure, veiling a religious and political allegory. The age was fertile in poets, and some of the most spirited of the English ballads belong to the reigns of the Queen and her successor. Dramatic art was now making an advance. Of the earliest attempts, the mysteries or miracle plays, we have specimens as old as the time of Edward III. These were rude representations of Biblical stories, acted in churchyards or streets, which, in the days of few books and little general education, were thought useful for teaching Scripture history to the people. Next came the moral plays or allegorical dramas, which, in the time of Henry VIII., were dis- tinguished by the introduction of a character called the Vice, who played a part much like that of Punch in the puppet-shows. The first regular English comedy was com- posed probably as early as the reign of Henry VIII., by Nicholas Udal, master first of Eton, and afterwards of Westminster School, who was wont to write plays for his scholars to act. Ralph Roister Doister was the uncouth name of this piece, which gave a picture of the manners of the London gallants and citizens. Under Elizabeth the taste spread, and a school of playwrights sprang up. These early dramatists however are almost forgotten, having been eclipsed by the glory of William Shakspere, the greatest name in English literature. Little is known of his life be- yond the mere outline. Born at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, he became an actor and playwriter, and also held a share in the Blackfriars theatre, which was built in 1575. Re- tiring in his latter days to his native town, he there died in 16 1 6. In the deep knowledge of human nature which his dramas display, no other has ever approached him ; and he is further distinguished by his healthy moral tone, and by the national spirit, ardent though without being narrow, xxxiii.] CHARLES I. 149 which pervades his historical plays. Other dramatists of high repute were Benjamin, or, as he is always called, Ben Jonson, and Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who wrote for the most part in concert, and so identified them- selves with each other that it is impossible to distinguish their respective shares in the plays bearing their joint names. After his comrades death, Fletcher is said to have been sometimes assisted by Philip Massinger^ the last of the great dramatic poets of the school of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Massinger died in the reign of Charles I. CHAPTER XXXIII. CHARLES I. Charles T. ; Henrietta Maria; Petition of Right ; murder of Buck- ingham (1) — Wentworth and Laud ; the Star Cha?7iber (2) — Ship- money (3) — the Long Parliament ; beheading of Strafford (4) — the Lrish Rebellion ; the Five Members ; the Civil War ; Presby- terians and Lndependents ; Oliver Cromwell ; battles of Mars- ton Moor and Naseby; Charles given up by the Scots (5) — the Covenant ; beheading of Laud (6) — the Army ; second Civil War (7)—" Pride's Purge;" the High Court of Justice (8)— trial and beheading of the LCing (9) — his children (10). I. Charles I., 1625-1649. The Petition of Right. — Shortly after his accession the young King married Henrietta Maria, daughter of the great Henry IV. of France — an alliance which was not liked, as the bride was a Roman Catholic. Charles himself, dignified in his bearing, well conducted, and religious, was welcomed as a great improvement on his predecessor ; but events soon showed that his father's 150 CHARLES I. [chap. maxims of arbitrary authority had sunk deep into his heart. The strife between King and Parliament began at once ; for while the King wanted money, the Parliament wanted redress of grievances and the removal of the favourite Buckingham. After dissolving two Parliaments within the space of a year, Charles had recourse to arbitrary methods of raising money, until a petty war with France so increased his difficulties that he had to summon a third Parliament. This, by grant- ing him five subsidies, obtained his assent to their Petition of Right, by which the recent illegal practices— arbitrary taxes and imprisonment, forced billetings of soldiers upon the people, exercise of martial law -were condemned (June 1628). Emboldened by victory, the Commons remonstrated against Buckingham as the cause of the national calamities ; — words which had a terrible effect, for a few months later the Duke was stabbed to death at Portsmouth by one John Felton, who thought by this crime to do his country service. Despite the Petition of Right, Charles still levied of his sole authority certain duties called tonnage and poundage. The Commons voted that whoever should pay them should be accounted an enemy to the liberties of England, and upon this the King again dissolved Parliament. Some of the members were sent to prison, where one of the most dis- tinguished among them, Sir John Eliot, died. 2. Wentworth and Laud. — Charles, now resolving to govern without parliaments, found two ministers to serve his purpose — Thomas Viscount Wentworth, and William Land, Bishop of London, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. These two laboured zealously together to make their master absolute — a scheme which they spoke of among themselves by the term of " Thorough" Wentworth was first made President of the Council of the North, a tribunal which had been set up by Henry VIII. after the putting down of the insurrection of 1536. Lord Wentworth now obtained xxxin.] SHIP-MONEY. 15 1 for it almost boundless power over the northern counties ; then he was removed to Ireland, which he governed on equally despotic principles ; while Laud devoted himself to forcing the Puritans into conformity to the Church. Ready instruments were found in the High Commission and Star Chamber courts, the latter being a court of members of the King's council which had by degrees usurped a power of punishing anything that could be called a contempt of the King's authority. Neither of these courts had been invented by Charles, but, extensive as their power had been before his accession, they now stretched it still further, and became still more harsh and inquisitorial. Puritans who had written books held libellous were objects of special rigour, and the Star Chamber, not content with fine and imprisonment, inflicted cruel and shameful punishments, which only served to excite admiration for the fortitude of the victims and hatred of the Government. 3. Ship-Money. — Meanwhile, after various devices for raising a revenue had been resorted to, a levy of "ship- money " (so called because it was professedly for the sup- port of a fleet), which in former days had been occasionally levied in time of war in the maritime counties, was made upon every shire. John Hampdeu, a country gentleman of Buckinghamshire, refused, as did also some others, to pay his share. On the matter being tried, the majority of the judges decided against him ; but the arguments in favour of the lawfulness of the tax were so weak, that Charles lost more than he gained by his victory, whi]e Hampden's courage raised him high in the estimation of his countrymen. 4. The Long Parliament.— In 1637, the year in which the decision in favour of ship-money was given, the Scots were driven into rebellion by an attempt to force upon them a liturgy like that of England. Charles, in 1639, marched 152 CHARLES I. [chap. against the insurgents, but, unable to do anything with an empty treasury and disaffected troops, he was reduced to patch up a treaty. In hopes of obtaining money, he called, early in 1640, a Parliament, which he soon dissolved ; but by the renewal of the Scottish war and the invasion of Eng- land by a Scottish army, he was that same year constrained to summon another, since famed as " the Long Parliament? By the Commons, Wentworth, now Earl of Strafford, and Laud were at once impeached of treason. Strafford was brought to trial, but after some time the Commons changed their course, and a bill of attainder was passed, to which Charles in tears gave his assent. The foremost in these proceedings was the great orator Jolm Pym, one of the leaders of the popular party. Strafford was beheaded May 1 2th, 1 64 1, and with him fell the system of government he had endeavoured to establish. The Star Chamber, the High Commission, and the Council of the North were abolished, and the levies of ship-money were declared to have been illegal. The Parliament also secured itself by an Act pro- viding that it should not be dissolved without its own consent. 5. The Civil War. — Although Charles had now yielded so much that many began to turn towards him, he was still mistrusted by the Puritan party. When, in the autumn ot 1 64 1, the Irish rose in rebellion and slaughtered the Ulster colonists, some suspected, though unjustly, that Charles had himself stirred up this outbreak, which soon became a general insurrection of the Irish Roman Catholics. The King's own violence was his ruin. Attended by armed men, he went to the House of Commons, there to seize Hampden, Pym, and three other leading members of the Opposition, whom he had charged with treason. Warning having been timely con- veyed, the accused had withdrawn, and thus his attempt failed. Six days later Charles fled from London, and after xxxiii.] THE CIVIL WAR. 153 his refusal to comply with the Parliament's new demand that the control of the militia should be given up to it, men saw plainly that a civil war was at hand. Sir John HotJiam, governor of the strong town of Hull, where there was a large magazine of arms, shut its gates against the King when he demanded admittance ; and his conduct was approved by the Parliament, which proceeded to call out the militia. Several moderately disposed members of the Lords and Commons withdrew to the King ; both parties made ready to draw the sword, and on the 22nd August, 1642, Charles set up his standard at Nottingham, and called on his sub- jects to rally round him. The two parties in this struggle are distinguished as Royalists and Parliamentarians, or more familiarly as Cavaliers and Roundheads. The last name is said by some to have been given because the extreme Puritans cropped their hair short, in opposition to the pre- vailing fashion of wearing it long. Robert Earl of Essex, son of Elizabeth's favourite, took command of the Parliament army, and opposed the King in person at Edgehill in War- wickshire, where, on the 23rd October, an indecisive battle, the first important action of the war, was fought. On the whole, things at first looked well for the King, whose cavalry gained many successes. Their leader, Pf'ince Rupert, a son of the Queen of Bohemia, was the terror of the Parliament's raw levies ; 'but he was rash and headlong, and his habits of plunder brought discredit on his party. With artillery and ammunition Charles was ill provided, though the Queen, then in Holland, procured what she could with funds obtained by the sale of her own and the crown jewels. In February 1643 she arrived with four ships, and landed at Bridlington, where the parliamentary admiral Batten fired so hotly upon the house in which she was lodged, that she had to take shelter in a neighbouring ditch. In June, the same year, the noble and blameless Hampden, one of the best of the 154 CHARLES I. [chap. Parliament officers, was mortally wounded in a skirmish with Rupert at Chalgrove. Another man of note, of the opposite party, perished not long afterwards in the battle of Newbury. This was Lucius Carey, Viscount Falkland, who, though he had withstood the King in the days of his misgovernment, nevertheless took up arms in his defence. To Falkland, whose one prayer was for peace, and who was often heard to exclaim that the war was breaking his heart, death came as a relief. About this time the Parliament entered into alliance with the Scots, who in the beginning of 1644 sent an army to its aid. Charles meanwhile made a truce with the insurgent Romanists in Ireland in order that he might bring over troops from that country, and summoned those of the Peers and Commons who adhered to his party to meet in Parlia- ment at Oxford, where they accordingly assembled. In the Parliament at Westminster, men of Presbyte?'ian opinions had hitherto been the prevailing party, but in the army the sect of the Independents was gaining power. Both were opposed to episcopacy or prelacy j but there they ceased to agree. The Presbyterians had a regular system of church government by councils of ministers and elders ; while the Independents looked on every congregation as an inde- pendent church, competent to direct itself without inter- ference from any other power. To these latter belonged the most vigorous of the Roundhead officers, Oliver Cromwell^ a Huntingdonshire gentleman, who raised among the Puritan freeholders of his county a famous regiment of horse, known as the Ironsides. After the battle of Marston Moor, July 2, 1644, in which the Royalists were defeated by the allied English and Scots, and Cromwell's men distinguished them- selves, the Independents in Parliament obtained the entire remodelling of the army, Essex being replaced by Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had shared in the glory of Marston Moor, with Cromwell as his second. The " new-model army " xxxiii.] RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS. 155 inflicted another defeat upon the Royalists at Naseby, June 14, 1645, so crushing as to render the King's cause thence- forth hopeless. Charles kept up the struggle till the following spring, when, in despair, he surrendered himself to the Scots army before Newark, and by it was subsequently delivered up to its ally the English Parliament. 6. Religious Affairs. — During the war, the Houses had bound themselves in a "solemn league and covenant" to endeavour the extirpation of popery and prelacy. This cove- nant—the condition upon which they had obtained the aid of the Scots Presbyterians, whose hearts were set upon establishing in England their own form of church govern- ment, — they ordered to be subscribed by all men in office and all beneficed clergy and generally by the whole nation. On non-compliance, numbers of clergymen were turned out of their livings. By an ordinance of Parliament, as the Acts of the two Houses were called, the aged Laud, who since his impeachment had lain apparently forgotten in the Tower, was condemned for high treason, and beheaded January 10, 1645 — an act of needless revenge, which did the Presbyterian party no credit. The use of the Church Liturgy, even in private families, was forbidden; and epi- scopacy gave place to the Presbyterian system, which however, owing to the rise of the Independents, was never fully established except in Middlesex and Lancashire. Large domains belonging to the Bishops and the Crown were seized and sold, and heavy fines were laid on the vanquished Cavaliers. 7. The Army. — The King remained a state prisoner at Holmby House, near Northampton, formore than four months. He was then carried off by Joyce, a cornet of Fairfax's guard, to the army, which consisting mainly of Independents, and objecting to have Presbyterianism forced upon it, was now the rival, not the servant, of Parliament. Charles, filled with 156 CHARLES I. hope by the disunion of his adversaries, negotiated with all parties, trying to play off one against the other. Meanwhile, the fiercer spirits among the soldiers became so violent against him, that at last, alarmed for his life, he made his escape from Hampton Court, where he had been lodged, but, not knowing whither to go, threw himself into the power of Colonel Hammond, governor of the Isle of Wight, by whom he was confined in Carisbrooke Castle, from which he after- wards made an unsuccessful attempt to escape. This was shortly before the outbreak of a second Civil War in 1648, when Royalist risings took place in Wales and various parts of England ; and a Scottish army made up of Royalists and moderate Presbyterians, and led by the Duke of Hamilton, in- vaded England on his behalf. But all these attempts were put down by the energy of Fairfax and Cromwell, the latter of whom routed the Scots in the battle of Preston. 8. " Pride's Purge." — Frightened at the temper of the army, the Parliament, though offering the most rigorous terms, sought a treaty with the King, with whom they carried on lengthened negotiations at Newport. But the army had other views. Charles was removed by soldiers to Hurst Castle, and as the Parliament seemed likely to come to an agreement with him, it was " purged," — that is, the entrance to the House being barred by Colonel Pride with a regiment of foot, more than a hundred members opposed to the army party were thus shut out. Thus "purged," the Commons, or rather the remains of them, voted that the King should be brought to trial for treason against the Parliament. The Lords refusing to concur, the Commons voted that the supreme authority resided in themselves, and had the House of Lords closed. For the King's trial a so-called High Court of Justice was appointed. The best known of its members are Cromwell, his son-in-law Henry Ireton, and the President of the Court, John Bradshaw. xxxiii.] TRIAL AND DEATH OF CHARLES. 157 9. Trial and Death of Charles. — On the 20th January, 1649, the King was brought from St. James's Palace before the High Court in Westminster Hall. Charles, bearing himself with kingly firmness and dignity, refused to acknow- ledge the jurisdiction of the tribunal. Marks of public sym- pathy for him were not wanting, and the soldiers' shouts of "Justice !" "Execution !" were mingled with counter-cries of " God save the King I" On the last day of the trial, Charles requested a conference with the Lords and Commons, but was refused, and sentence of death was pronounced upon him, as "a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good people of the nation." The names of fifty-nine members of the Court were subscribed to the warrant of execution. Charles resigned himself to his fate with calmness, taking a tender farewell of his young children, the Princess Eliza- beth, aged thirteen, and Henry Duke of Gloucester, who was but eight. The rest of his time was spent at his devo- tions, in the company of Dr. Juxon, Bishop of London, by whom he was attended on the scaffold before Whitehall, where he was beheaded, January 30. A few faithful adherents followed him to his grave in St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Within two days of the funeral, the House of Lords and the office of King were abolished by votes of the Commons. By taking the life of Charles his enemies in reality exalted his fame. The execution of a King was a thing hitherto unheard of, and Royalist and Presbyterian alike stood aghast. The mass of his subjects, forgetting his misgovernment and per- fidy, only remembered that he had been illegally condemned, and that free institutions seemed to have fallen with him. The Church, which throughout his many negotiations with the Puritans he had ever striven to maintain, styled him Martyr, and the Cavaliers well-nigh worshipped his memory. 10. Children of Charles. — Of the children of Charles, his eldest sons, Charles Prince of Wales, born 1630, and James 158 THE COMMONWEALTH. [chap. Duke of York, born 1633, each in turn became King. Mary married Prince William of Nassau, Stadholder of Holland, and her son was afterwards King William III. of England. Elizabeth and Henry Duke of Gloucester, who were in the power of the Parliament, were treated after their father's death like the children of a private gentleman. Elizabeth died in 1650 in Carisbrooke Castle, where she had been placed together with her brother Henry, who, two years later, was permitted to join his family abroad. He died soon after the Restoration. Henrietta Maria^ born 1644, married Philip Duke of Orleans. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE COMMONWEALTH. The Commonwealth (1) — the Irish War {2)— War with Scotland ; battles of Dunbar and Worcester ; escape of Charles (3) — the Dutch War (4)— the Long Parliament turned out by Cromwell ; the Little Parliament (5) — the Protectorate ; Oliver Cromwell ; offer of the Crown; " Oliver's Lords" (6)— -foreign affairs (7)— death of Cromwell (8)— religious affairs ; the Quakers (9) — Richard Crom- well '(10) — General Monk; final dissolution of 'the Long Parliament {ll)— Restoration of the King ; character of the Puritans (12). I. The Commonwealth, 1649 -1660. — The House of Commons, such as it was, had now become the ruling power, and by it a Council of State, of which Bradshaw was presi- dent, was appointed to carry on the government. The Duke of Hamilton, together with two Royalist noblemen taken in the recent risings, was beheaded ; and England was declared a Commonwealth^ to be governed without King or Lords. xxxiv.] IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. 159 Some voices however raised the complaint that the new government was worse than the old ; and in the army these malcontents — called " Levellers" because they held, or were classed by their enemies with those who held, that all degrees of men should be levelled, or placed on an equality as to rank and property — broke out into a mutiny, which was swiftly crushed by Cromwell. 2. Ireland. — Young Charles, who was regarded as King by every Royalist, was an exile abroad. His chief hopes lay in Ireland, where James Butler, Marquess of Ormond, the Royalist Lord-Lieutenant, gathered round him everyone, whether Romanist insurgent, Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, who would fight for the King. Against these the Parlia- ment sent out, as their Lord-Lieutenant, Cromwell, who by dint of unsparing severity well-nigh subdued the country in nine months, leaving Ireton to carry on his work. Under the rule of the Commonwealth, permission was given to the defeated Romanist leaders and their followers to enter the service of foreign states ; many of the Irish were shipped to the West Indies ; large confiscations of land were made, and many of the old proprietors were " transplanted " to lands assigned them in Connaught and Clare, while English " ad- venturers " (men who, upon the outbreak of the rebellion, had advanced money for quelling it, in consideration of forfeited lands to be allotted to them) and parliamentary soldiers were settled upon districts in Munster, Leinster, and Ulster. In short, the country was completely conquered. 3. War with Scotland. — Scotland, where Charles had ar- rived, and was accepted as King, was next invaded by Crom- well, who, attacking the Scots general Lesley at Dunbar, Sept. 3, 1650, totally routed him. In the course of the next year, whilst Cromwell was still engaged in Scotland, Charles and his army, suddenly crossing the Border, pushed as far as Worcester, where he was overtaken by Cromwell, and de- 160 THE COMMONWEALTH. [chap. feated on the anniversary of Dunbar. The Parliament had declared the adherents of Charles rebels and traitors, and as such three of the most distinguished of the prisoners suffered death. A reward of a thousand pounds was offered for the apprehension of Charles, who, having made his escape from the field, went through a succession of hazard- ous adventures, during which he entrusted himself to more than forty persons, none of whom ever failed in fidelity or caution. The Penderells, Roman Catholic labouring men, living at or about Boscobel in Shropshire, were the chief agents in his concealment. At one time, with hair cut short, and dressed as a peasant, he lay hidden in Boscobel wood ; at another, shrouded in the thick leaves of a great oak-tree, he watched in security the Parliament soldiers hunting up and down in search of fugitives. Having walked till he was footsore, he was glad, when he at last left Boscobel House for Moseley, the abode of a Roman Catholic gentleman, to ride the horse of the miller, Humfrey Penderell, who, to Charles' complaint of its jolting pace, replied that he must remember it was carrying the weight of three kingdoms. Moseley he left in the disguise of servant to a gentlewoman, Jane Lane, who rode behincVhim on a pillion, as the manner then was for ladies to travel. Finally he and his friend Lord Wilmot sailed in a collier vessel from Brighton, then a small fishing town. He was recognized by the master, who. however said he would venture life and all for him ; and thus, after so many perils, Charles landed safely in Nor- mandy. The war in Scotland was carried on by one of Cromwell's officers, General George Monk, who brought the country under the authority of the English Parliament. 4. The Dutch War. — In 1652 a war broke out with Hol- land, memorable as a trial of strength between Admiral Robert Blake, and the great Dutch seamen Martin Tromp and Michael de Ruyter. Once, after worsting Blake in xxxiv.] EXPULSION OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 161 the Downs, Tromp, it is said, sailed through the Channel with a broom at his mast-head, to signify that he would sweep the seas of the English — an insult which was after- wards avenged in three stubborn contests. Blake however, owing to ill-health, was not in the last of these battles, fought in July 1653, in which Tromp fell. One of the commanders of the English fleet was General Monk ; for in those days the naval and military services were not kept separate. Peace was made with Holland the next year, after the Parliament had ceased to rule. 5. Expulsion of the Long Parliament. — While this war was ' going on, the government was again changed ; for the rivalry between the Parliament — or " the Rtimp" as the remnant of the House of Commons was contemptuously called— and the army had ended in the triumph of the latter. On the 20th April, 1653, the Lord General Cromwell entered the House, and, after bitterly upbraiding the members, called in two files of musketeers, and pointing to the mace, the symbol of authority, bade a soldier " take away that bauble." He then turned out all the members, and locked the doors. Having thus made himself master of England, his desire appears to have been to restore the old constitu- tion, with himself for King. But he found a check upon his wishes in the army. This Puritan body, combining perfect discipline with burning religious zeal, was unlike any ordinary military force. Officers and soldiers prayed and preached together : the troops lived, said a foreigner, " as if they were societies of monks." These men were proud of their general, in whom they saw the union of soldiership and sanctity carried to perfection ; and most of them were willing that he should be head of the State, though the name of King was hateful to them. Cromwell therefore contented himself with forming a Council, and then summoned divers persons by name to serve in Parliament. This assembly T m 162 THE COMMONWEALTH. [chap. was by many called " the Little Parliament" and by the Cavaliers, " Praise-God Barebone's Parliament," after the quaint name of one of its members. In a few months' time, a majority of the members surrendered their powers to Cromwell, who thereupon took the title of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland (December 16, 1653). 6. The Protectorate. Oliver Cromwell, 1653-1658. — With few friends except among the soldiers, the Protector had for enemies, not only the Royalists, but also the Republicans, who looked upon him as the destroyer of the Commonwealth. In the beginning of 1655, a Republican plot and a Royalist insurrection were alike crushed, the Republicans being leniently treated, but not so the Cavaliers, some of whom were executed, and others sold for slaves in the West Indies. Many other schemes were formed for the Protector's over- throw, and even for his assassination ; but he kept himself well informed of all that was going on, and his rule was too strong and vigilant to be shaken off. The Protector's first Parliament, of Commons only, questioned his authority, and was dissolved by him in anger. The next Parliament proposed that he should take the title of King, which he would probably have gladly done ; but a number of the officers of the army, and others who were in favour of a Common- wealth, opposed it so strongly that he thought it better to refuse. Almost all the old forms of the constitution were however restored under new names. The Protector was en- throned with all but kingly pomp in Westminster Hall, and there were again to be two Houses of Parliament. The " Other House," as the Commons called it, was to be a House of Lords, but it proved a failure. A few of the old nobles were invited, who almost all kept aloof; members of the Protector's Council, officers, and others, mostly taken fro n the House of Commons, made up the rest. But the xxxiv.] THE PROTECTORATE. 163 Commons made such difficulties about giving them the title of Lords, that Cromwell dissolved the Parliament, February 4, 1658. As Scotland and Ireland were now united with the English Commonwealth, representatives from those countries sat in the Parliaments of the Protec- torate. The English rule in Scotland was maintained by an army of ten thousand men under the command of Monk. 7. Foreign Affairs. — Whatever might be thought of the Protector's home rule, the glory of his foreign policy dazzled even his opponents. Under him England became one of the most formidable powers in Europe ; and France, Spain, and Holland alike courted his friendship. Blake, upholding everywhere the honour of the English flag, enforced repara- tion for damage to the English commerce from the Duke of Tuscany, and chastised the pirates of Barbary. In 1655 the West Indian possessions of Spain were attacked, and the island of Jamaica, then belonging to that country, was taken by the Protector's forces. Two years later, the daring Blake fought his last fight, attacking and burning, under a tremendous fire from the batteries on shore, the Spanish treasure-ships in the harbour of Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe. Blake did not live to receive the applause of his country- men ; he died within sight of Plymouth, August 17, 1657. Cromwell, taking Queen Elizabeth as his model, also made himself the protector of the Reformed faith throughout Europe, and interfered to check the Duke of Savoy's op- pression of the Vaudois, or Protestants of Piedmont. In the last year of his rule, he gave the country a compensation for the still regretted Calais, the town of Dunkirk being taken from the Spaniards in 1658 by the allied English and French forces, and retained by England. 8. Death of the Protector. — Oliver, who was in ill-health, did not long survive the death of his favourite daughter, Eli- zabeth Claypole. He died of ague, on his " Fortunate Day," M 2 164 THE COMMONWEALTH. [chap. the anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester, Sept. 3, 1658. He left two sons, Richard and Henry, the elder of whom was proclaimed Protector, his father, on his deathbed, having been understood to name him for his successor. The cha- racter of Oliver Cromwell is still a subject of dispute. Royal- ists, Presbyterians, and Republicans joined in denouncing him as a hypocrite ; yet there are grounds for considering him a sincere enthusiast. His genius cannot be doubted. For the first forty years of his life he never saw war, yet he proved a great general ; bred in a private station, he became a great prince, even his enemies admitting that he bore himself with dignity. His power and wisdom extorted an unwilling admiration, and in after days, when a foreign fleet insulted our shores, nvn looked back with something of regret to the mighty Oliver, who "made all the neighbour princes fear him." * 9. Religious Affairs. — During this period arose the sect of the Quakers, as the world in general called them, or Friends, as they called themselves, founded by George Fox, son of a weaver. They were at first looked on with scorn, and were much harassed, though the Protector, tolerant by inclination, treated Fox kindly. The fallen Church of England was, on the whole, not very harshly dealt with, while freedom was allowed to the various Puritan sects, none being suffered to oppress the others. Even the Jews wjere allowed to build a synagogue in London. 10. The Protectorate. Richard Cromwell, 1658-1659. — - Great was the vexation of the Royalists on finding that Richard Cromwell took his place as quietly as any rightful King. Gentle, docile, and of ordinary abilities, the young man had made no enemies ; but the army scorned the rule of one who had never distinguished himself in war. After eight months, the malcontent officers recalled the "Rump" to power, and Richard, without a struggle, gave up his office, xxxiv.] THE RESTORATION. 165 and retired into private life, whither he was followed by his brother Henry, who, during the Protectorate, had governed Ireland with ability. 11. General Monk. — The Rump was no sooner restored than its quarrel with the army began again, and in a few months it was expelled by the leader of the military party, General John Lambert, who thought himself a second Oliver Cromwell. But Monk, the commander of the English army in Scotland, refusing to acknowledge the government set up by the officers in London, marched with his forces towards England, and fixed his head-quarters at Coldstream on the Tweed, in memory of which one of the regiments which com- posed his vanguard is still called the Coldstream Guards. At this news, the people at once broke out against the new government, and refused to pay taxes ; the fleet at the same time sailed up the Thames, and declared for the Parliament. Lambert, who had- march e .1 to the north to stop Monk, was forsaken by his soldiers; and Monk, the ruler of the hour, en- tered London, February 3, 1660. Cold and silent, he for some days let not a word fall that could betray his real intentions, but at last he declared for a free parliament ; — an announce- ment which was received with every mark of joy, amidst the ringing of bells and the blaze of bonfires. The Presbyterian members, who had been " purged " out by Pride, again took their seats, and Parliament, after issuing writs for a general election, decreed its own dissolution, March 16. Thus ended that famous " Long Parliament " which, twice expelled and twice restored, had existed for twenty years. 12. The Restoration. — The new Parliament, or rather Convention, for, not having been summoned by the King, it was not in law a parliament, met April 25, the Peers now returning to their House. Monk meanwhile had been in secret communication with the exiled Charles, who issued from Breda a declaration to his " loving subjects," wherein 1 66 CHARLES II. [chap he promised pardon for past offences to all, " excepting only such persons as shall hereafter be excepted by Parliament," and also " a liberty to tender consciences." On the 8th May, seven days after this declaration was received Charles II. was proclaimed King, and the fleet having been sent to convoy him from Holland to Dover, he made his entry into London, May 29, in the midst of almost universal rejoicing. On his road he passed the Commonwealth army, drawn up on Blackheath to give a reluctant welcome to the King whom they abhorred. Thus fell the Puritans, a class who rendered great political service to their country, and who were at first much to be respected for their conscientious devotion to what seemed to them to be right. But they committed the error of trying to make all men religious afte» their own pattern. The Long Parliament suppressed public amusements, ordered Christmas to be kept as a fast-day, and assigned punishments of unprecedented severity to breaches of private morality. Religion, or the appearance of it, was made a necessary qualification for office ; and the result was that the name of Puritan became synonymous with that of hypocrite, and the unnatural restraint of the Commonwealth was succeeded at the Restoration by an outbreak of profligacy. CHAPTER XXXV. CHARLES II Charles II (1) — the Convention Parliament (2) — the Noncotif or mists (3)— Ireland (4) — the King^s marriage; Tangier; Bombay; sale of Dunkirk [$)—the Plague Year {6)— the Great Fire (7) — the Dutch War (8)— fall of Clarendon ; the Triple Alliance, xxxv.] THE CONVENTION PARLIAMENT. 167 Treaty of Dover; the Cabal (9) — the Popish Plot (10)— Habeas Corpus Act (it) — Whig and Tory; the Dukes of York at: A Monmouth; the Whig Plots ; death of Charles (12). 1. House of Stuart. Charles II., 1660-1685. — Charles II. began his reign with everything in his favour. No measure was ever more acceptable to the nation than was the Restoration ; no conditions were made with him, no new restrictions laid upon him ; the year of his return was styled, not the first but the twelfth of his reign, which was thus reckoned to have begun from the time of his father's death. Unfortunately Charles had few qualities which merited the love bestowed upon him. He had talents, easy good-temper, and the man- ners of an accomplished gentleman, but neither heart nor principles. So far as he had any religion, he was secretly a Roman Catholic ; but the main object of his life was to be amused and to avoid trouble. 2. The Convention Parliament. — The Convention Parlia- ment — for by its first statute it declared itself to be a par- liament — passed an Act of Indemnity by which the promised general pardon was granted ; most of the late King's judges were excepted from its benefits. Of these regicides thirteen were executed, and others were left in prison for life. The bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were, on the next anniversary of the late King's death, dragged out of their tombs at Westminster, and hanged on the gallows at Tyburn. The Act of Indemnity however was far from pleasing the distressed Cavaliers, who found that it barred them from legal remedy for their losses during the late troubles, and their feelings were consequently very bitter. The Parliament also abolished the now useless and oppressive tenures by knight service, and deprived the King of the prerogative of purveyance and pre-emption. In compensation, he received an excise upon beer, a tax first introduced by the Long Parliament. The army was disbanded as soon 1 68 CHARLES II. [chap. as possible ; and if Parliament had had its wish, there would have been no military force except the militia ; but Charles gradually contrived to spare enough from his revenue to form, and to maintain, though without the sanction of law, a small standing army. 3. The Nonconformists. — In the new Parliament, which met May 1661, the Cavalier party had completely the upper hand. The Corporation Act 'was passed, by which every officer of a corporation was required to communicate according to the rites of the Church of England, and to swear his belief that taking arms against the King was in all cases unlawful. The Bishops were restored to their seats in the House of Lords ; and the Liturgy was revived. A stringent Act of Uniformity, requiring all persons holding ecclesiastical pre- ferment to declare their assent to everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer (which had been recently revised), drove about two thousand ministers from their benefices, as the Royalist incumbents had been turned out before them. This was followed at intervals by harsh Acts against the Nonconformists and their religious meetings. Charles, for the sake of the Roman Catholics, was himself not inclined to be hard upon nonconformity ; but his motive was sus- pected. In 1673, he felt constrained to give his assent to the Test Act, which, though it was aimed in particular at the Romanists, shut out the Protestant Nonconformists also ; one immediate effect was to oblige the King's brother, James Duke of York, who had by that time avowed himself a Papist, to resign his place of Lord High Admiral. Under this Act, all persons holding civil or military office were required to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, to subscribe a declaration against transubstantiation (the distinguishing doctrine of the Church of Rome upon the Eucharist), and to communicate according to the Anglican rite. 4. Ireland. — In the other parts of the British Islands the xxxv.] THE PLAGUE YEAR. 169 royal authority was re-established without difficulty. Scot- land became again a separate kingdom ; in Ireland, the Church was restored, and a parliament proceeded to settle the conflicting claims of the dispossessed Royalists and Romanists on the one side, and of the adventurers and soldiers, Cromwell's colonists, on the other. After long wrangling, the Cromwelhans gave up a third of their gains ; but numbers of Irish claimants who protested, truly or untruly, that they had had no share in the rebellion of 1 641, obtained neither restitution nor compensation, and raised bitter complaints. 5. Tangier, Bombay, and Dunkirk. — In 1662, Charles married the Infanta of Portugal, Katharine of Braganza, receiving as part of her dowry the fortress of Tangier in Africa and the island of Bombay in India. Tangier was abandoned before the end of the reign as worthless ; Bombay after a short time was made over to the East India Com- pany. In the above-mentioned year, Dunkirk was sold to Louis XIV. King of France, a transaction which roused general indignation, the more so as it was believed that the motive was the gaining funds to keep up a profligate court. 6. The Plague Year. — In 1665, during an unusually hot and dry summer, the Plague broke out in London with a fury such as had not been known for three centuries. Most of the rich, the Court among the first, fled from the stricken city ; the stout-hearted Monk, whose services in the Re- storation had gained him the title of Duke of Albemarle, re- mained as the sole representative of government, although, as he said, he should have thought himself much safer in action against the Dutch. The shops were shut up, the grass grew in the streets ; rows of houses stood empty, or marked on the doors with a red cross and the words, " Lord have mercy on us/' — the sign that the pestilence was within. By winter I7 o CHARLES II. [chap. time the worst was over ; but in these six months it is said that more than 100,000 people perished. 7. The Great Fire of London. — Hardly had London re- covered from the scourge of plague when another evil befell it. On the 2nd September, 1666— the Annus Mira&iiis, or " Year of Wonders" as the poet Dryden named it— an accidental fire broke out in Pudding Lane, near Fish Street. The neighbouring houses, being of wood, quickly caught the flames which, driven by an east wind, soon wrapped London in a blaze which made the night as light as day for ten miles round. At this fearful time, Charles, usually so care- less and indifferent, displayed an unexpected energy whilst superintending, together with his brother the Duke of York, the pulling down of houses, for the purpose of checking the flames. At last, wide gaps having been made in the streets by blowing up the buildings with gunpowder, and the wind abating, the fire was stayed, though not until after it had burned for three days, and laid London in ashes from the Tower to the Temple and Smithneld. The column known as " the Monument" marks the spot near which the fire began. Old St. Paul's being among the buildings which perished, it was replaced by the present church, the work of the great architect Sir Christopher Wren. 8. The Dutch War. — These calamitous years were further marked by a naval war, arising out of commercial rivalry, with the Dutch. One battle in the Downs, fought in June 1666, was contested for four days ; the Dutch were com- manded by De Ruyter, the English by Albemarle and Prince Rupert. Louis XIV. gave some assistance to the Dutch, but after a while he entered into secret negotiations with Charles, and did no more for his allies. The English had some suc- cesses, but the supplies voted for the war being squandered by the Court, the vessels were laid up unrepaired, and the sailors left unpaid till they mutinied. In 1667 a Dutch fleet TREA TY OF DOVER. 171 sailed up the Medway, burned the English vessels at Chatham, and blockaded the river Thames — a disgrace which sank deep into the a-ation's heart. Peace was made soon afterwards. 9. Treaty of Dover. — The anger of the nation was some- what appeased by the dismissal of the Lord Chancellor, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clai-endon, hitherto the King's chief adviser, and who was disliked, though for different reasons, both by courtiers and people. Being impeached by the Commons, Clarendon fled the country, and died in exile. The King's advisers now took the popular step of forming the Triple Alliance between England, Holland, and Sweden, in order to check Louis XIV. in his career of conquest. But Charles had other schemes at heart, and ere long he sold him- self to France by the secret Treaty of Dover, May 22, 1670. Under this he engaged to declare himself, as soon as might be prudent, a Roman Catholic, to join in a war against Holland, and otherwise to serve Louis' designs ; while Louis engaged to pay him a large subsidy, a yearly pension during the war, and to aid him with an army if any insurrection should break out in England. The leading ministers of the Crown at this time are known as the " Cabal: " — a term used in much the same sense as Cabinet, but applied more particularly to them in consequence of its comprising the initials of their names or titles, Clifford, Lord Arlington, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Ashley (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury), and the Duke of Lauderdale. Of these, only a few were entrusted with the secret of the King's promise to declare himself a Roman Catholic. For some time before this reign that which we call the cabinet — consisting of a small number of persons selected by the sovereign, whose existence as a body is still unrecognized by law — had begun to draw to itself the functions originally belonging to the whole council. The war with Holland was 172 CHARLES II [chap. declared in 1672, the necessary funds being raised by '"shutting the Exchequer," that is, by suspending the pay- ments due to public creditors. Peace however was made in two years. 10. The Popish Plot. — In 1678, the nation, already not without some suspicion of the real plot of Charles and Louis against its religion and liberty, was driven wild by the alleged discovery of a "Popish Plot " for the assassination of the King and the massacre of all Protestants. Titus Oates, a man of infamous character, was the chief witness to it ; and by him and by others who made a profit of' perjury, the lives of many innocent Romanists were sworn away. Under the influence of the popular feeling, an Act was passed which, by the most stringent test, shut out Papists (the Duke of York excepted) from either House of Parliament and from the royal presence. 11. Habeas Corpus Act. — The famous Habeas Corpus Act was passed in 1679. The Great Charter had already established the immunity of every freeman from arbitrary imprisonment ; but in practice various ways were found of violating this right. The object of this Act was effectually to provide that no man should be long detained in prison on a criminal charge without either the legality of his im- prisonment being proved in open court, or his being brought to trial. In times of public danger, the operation of this statute is sometimes suspended by Acts giving the Govern- ment power for a limited period to imprison suspected persons without bringing them to trial. 12. Whig and Tory. — In the same year, 1679, the party names of Whig and Tory first came into use. Whig was a nickname given to the insurgent Presbyterians of Scotland, and from them it was transferred to those English politicians who were opposed to the Court, and who were now bent on shutting out the Duke of York from the throne on account xxxv.] WHIG AND TORY. 173 of his religion. Those who were against this scheme were called Tories, the name by which the Romanist outlaws who then haunted the bogs of Ireland were known. The King had no legitimate children ; but the eldest of his illegitimate sons, James Duke of Monmouth, was put forward by some of the Whigs as a claimant. Monmouth was the darling of the common people, who believed him to be of lawful birth, and who were fascinated by his grace and winning manners. For the last four years of his reign, Charles, irritated by the persistent attempts to exclude his brother from the succes- sion, ruled without a Parliament. Many of the Whigs began to plan insurrections, while a few of the most desperate among them formed the " Rye- House Plot" for the assassi- nation of the King and his brother. These projects being betrayed, several executions followed ; amongst others, those of the upright and patriotic William Lord Russell, and of Algernon Sidney, an ardent Republican. Both Russell and Sidney are thought to have been wrongfully convicted. Monmouth, who had been concerned in the Whig plots, went abroad ; and his rival the Duke of York after a while resumed his office of Lord High Admiral. While wavering as to his future policy, Charles was seized with a fit, and after lingering a few days, died on the 6th February, 1685. On his death-bed, after the Bishops had vainly pressed him to take the Sacrament, his brother secretly brought him a monk, from whose hands he received the last rites of the Romish Church. The people mourned him with genuine sorrow, for with all his faults he had never lost his personal popularity; while his brother's accession to power was dreaded. 74 JAMES II. [chap. CHAPTER XXXVI. JAMES II. James II. {i)—the Western Rebellion ; beheading of Monmouth ; the Bloody Assizes (2) — -niisgovernment of James ; Declaration of Indulgence (3)— trial of the Sez>en Bishops (4) — birth of the Pretender (5) — invitation to the Prince of Orange (6) — landing of the Prince; flight of the Queen and A'iug (7) — return and second flight of James ; the Declaration of Right ; the Crown accepted by the Prince and Princess of Orange (8) — Literature (9) — Science {\o)— Architecture (11) — the Huguenots (12). 1. James II., 1685-1688. — James Duke of York came to the throne under the disadvantage of holding a faith abhorred by the majority of his subjects ; but as he was thought a man of his word, his assurance that he would defend the Church of England and respect the laws was relied on. Yet he soon tried the Protestant loyalty by going in royal state to mass, and other evidence of a changed condition of affairs was not wanting. 2. The Duke of Monmouth.— Four months after the accession of James, the Duke of Monmouth, instigated and accompanied by a knot of Whigs who, having been implicated in the Plot of 1683, had found shelter in the Low Countries, landed in Dorsetshire in arms. At Taunton, June 20, 1685, he assumed the title of King. The Western peasantry and townsfolk flocked to his standard ; but none of the Whig nobles joined him, as he had hoped ; and on the 6th July, he was defeated on Sedgeinoor by James's troops. His peasant infantry made a gallant stand, the Mendip miners in particular fighting desperately, though deserted xxxvi.] THE WESTERN REBELLION. 175 by Monmouth, who, seeing that the day was lost, fled away. Two days later, worn out with hunger and fatigue, he was captured whilst hiding in a ditch. He had been attainted by Act of Parliament shortly after his landing, and was be- headed on the 15th July, whilst his followers were treated with fearful severity. Several were summarily hanged by the royal general, the Earl of Feversham, and by Colonel Percy Kirke, a hard-hearted and lawless man, who was left in command at Bridgewater. The CJiief Justice Jeffreys, notorious for his brutal demeanour on the judgment-seat, and for the delight he seemed to take in passing sentence, came down to hold the " Bloody Assizes" as they were named. The first victim was the widow of one of Cromwell's lords, Alice Lisle, who had given shelter to two flying rebels. She was beheaded at Winchester, intercession for her life having in vain been made with the King. The services of Jeffreys, who boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all his predecessors since the Conquest, and who at the same time made a fortune by the sale of pardons, were rewarded with the Great Seal. 3. Government of James. — The King, now at the height of power, set his heart upon obtaining a repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act, upon keeping up a large army, and, above all, upon abolishing or dispensing with the laws which shut out Roman Catholics from office. Finding that his Parliament, though strongly Tory, would not endure his keeping officers of his own religion in the army, he prorogued it, and disregarding the advice of the wiser among the English Romanists and of the Pope, Innocent XL, who wo 1 ild have had him govern according to law, gave himself up to the secret councils of a knot of violent men, headed by a Jesuit named Pet re. Those of his ministers and judges who stood in the way of his schemes were dismissed, favour being shown to none except those who would lend them- 176 JAMES II [chap. selves to his purposes ; and from that, even loyal Tories shrank. Ireland was entrusted to the government of the Romanist Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, who detested the Protestant settlers, and filled all offices with men of his own creed. Although two Acts of Parliament had abolished the High Commission Court of Elizabeth, and forbidden the erection of any similar tribunal, anew Ecclesiastical Commis- sion, with Jeffreys at its head, was set up for the purpose of coercing the clergy ; and a series of attacks were made upon the Church. One in particular which excited great indigna- tion, was the ejection by the Ecclesiastical Commission, of the Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, for having main- tained a President legally elected by themselves against two unqualified persons recommended one after the other by the King. Finding meanwhile that the Tory gentry and the Anglican clergy, hitherto such staunch friends to the Crown, were all against him, James began to court the Protestant Dissenters ; and in hopes of conciliating them, as well as of serving his own religion, he published, April 4th, 1687, a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending all penal laws against nonconformity, and dispensing with all religious tests. In judging of the King's conduct, it should be re- membered, that, whether the statutes he thus set aside were good or bad, it was the duty of an English King to govern according to the constitution, and that in issuing the Decla- ration of Indulgence James committed an unconstitutional act. Three months later he dissolved the Parliament, which had never met since its prorogation in 1685, and set himself, by new modelling the borough corporations, which then returned a majority of the representatives of the Commons, and by every other means in his power, to ensure the election of a more subservient one ; but everywhere he found a resolute spirit of resistance. 4. The Seven Bishops. — In 1688 the King issued a second xxxvi.] THE SEVEN BISHOPS. 177 Declaration of Indulgence, which he ordered to be read at the time of divine service by the officiating ministers of all churches and chapels. A petition against this order was thereupon signed and presented by William Sancroft, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, and six Bishops of his province. This the King received with great anger, and being further in- censed at the resistance of the most part of the clergy, he resolved to bring the petitioners before the Court of King's Bench on a charge of seditious libel. "The Seven Bishops " were committed to the Tower, amid marks of public sym- pathy and respect from all quarters, even the sentinels at the Traitors' Gate asking their blessing. Their trial, at which not one of the judges ventured to say that the De- claration of Indulgence was legal, ended with a verdict of " Not Guilty;" and at this result the national delight knew no bounds. James received the news at Hounslow, where his army was encamped. As he was setting out for London, hearing a great shout, he asked what it meant. "Nothing," was the answer, "the soldiers are glad that the Bishops are acquitted." " Do you call that nothing?" said James, who felt bitterly how complete his defeat had been. 5. Birth of the Pretender. — During this exciting time was born, June 10, fames Francis Edward, son of King James and his second wife, Mary of Modena — an event which, much as it elated the King's partisans, in reality hastened their downfall. By his first wife, Amie Hyde, daughter of Lord Clarendon, the King had two children, Mary and Anne, both Protestants, and married to Protestants, the one to her cousin William Henry, Prince of Orange Nassau and Stad- holder of Holland, the other to George Prince of Denmark. The nation had therefore hitherto endured in the belief that the next reign would set things right. But the birth of this son changed the whole prospect, and in their vexation T N 178 JAMES II [chap. the people raised a cry that the infant Prince was no child of the King and Queen. 6. Invitation to William. — The leading malcontents now took a decisive step. On the day of the Bishops' acquittal, June 30, a secret invitation to the Prince of Orange to come over at the head of a sufficient force was despatched, with the assurance that the mass of the people would support him. This paper, signed in cipher by the seven chiefs of the conspiracy — the Earls of Shrewsbury, Devonshire, and Danby, Lord Lumley, Henry Compton Bishop of London, Admiral Russell, and Henry Sidney (the last two cousin and brother to the Russell and Sidney who had been beheaded in the previous reign) — was carried to Holland by Admiral Herbert, disguised as a common sailor. Unwitting of the perils thickening around him, James went on in his course. To ascertain the temper of the army, the regiment now called the 12th of the Line was drawn up in his presence and told that all who would not subscribe an engagement to assist in carrying into effect his Majesty's intentions con- cerning the test must quit the service. To the King's amazement, the soldiers, with but few exceptions, at once laid down their pikes and muskets. In truth, so much had the English army caught the spirit of resistance, that he sent over for Irish troops of his own creed, raised and trained by Tyrconnel. In vain did Louis of France warn James of his danger ; not till the Prince of Orange and his armament were ready to sail did the King open his eyes. Then, terror-stricken, he attempted to conciliate his subjects by abolishing the Ecclesiastical Commission, and making other marked concessions ; but it was too late. 7. Landing of William. — William put forth a Declaration stating that he was coming to protect the liberties of England, and to secure the calling of a free parliament, which should redress grievances and inquire into the birth of the Prince xxxvi.] FLIGHT OF JAMES. 179 of Wales. On the 5th November, 1688, being well served by the wind, which prevented the King's fleet from intercepting him, he landed at Torbay, where he was received by the common people with good will, though it was some days before any men of note joined him. Gradually adherents of rank came in ; Lord Delamere and the Earls of Devon- shire and Danby raised the North in his cause ; officers of the Royal army, chief among them Lord Churchill, after- wards the great Duke of Marlborough, went over to him ; and these defections frightened James into retreating before the invader. The King's distress was aggravated by finding that even his daughter Anne had, together with her favourite, Lady Churchill, fled to the northern insurgents. " God help me!" exclaimed he, "my own children have forsaken me." Rather than come to terms with his subjects, he began to plan the escape of his family and himself. On a stormy night the Queen, escorted by the French Count of Lauzun, stole out of Whitehall with her infant child, and fled to France. At three o'clock in the morning of the nth December the King set out to follow her. Whilst crossing the Thames in a wherry, he flung the Great Seal into the stream, whence it was accidentally fished up after many months. 8. The Interregnum. — As there was now no govern- ment, such peers as were at hand took upon themselves a temporary authority, and sent to the Prince of Orange, requesting his presence in London. The City was almost in a state of anarchy, but the mob showed no disposi- tion towards bloodshed, except in one case. The Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, disguised as a collier sailor, being dis- covered in an alehouse at Wapping, was in peril of his life. At his own entreaty, the Lords sent him to the Tower, where he died in 1689, his end being hastened by his intem- perance. Meanwhile the King had not succeeded in leaving N 2 i8o JAMES II [chap. the island, and having been stopped near Sheerness by some rough fishermen, who took him for a fugitive Jesuit, he re- turned to London. The Tories, who had considered them- selves freed from their allegiance by his desertion, felt that the case was altered when he was still in his kingdom. To frighten him to a second escape was now the policy of William, who, sending his troops to take possession of Whitehall, signi- fied his desire that James should withdraw. The fallen King thereupon retired, escorted by Dutch soldiers, to Rochester, where, being guarded with intentional negligence, he soon carried out his enemies' wishes by taking flight, December 22, to France, and there was received with generous kindness by Louis XIV. At the invitation of an assembly of peers and commoners, the Prince of Orange took on himself the government, and summoned a Convention of the Estates of the Realm, which met January 22, 1689. After long dis- cussion, this Convention resolved, "that it hath been found by experience to be inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom to be governed by a Popish Prince," and that King James II., "having endeavoured to subvert the constitution," " having violated the fundamental laws," and "having withdrawn himself out of the king- dom," had abdicated the government, and that the throne had thereby become vacant. That there might never again be any room for dispute between the sovereign and the nation, a Declaration of Right was drawn up, which asserted the ancient rights and liberties of England ; and in entire confidence that these would be preserved by William, the Lords and Commons offered the crown to him and his wife. The offer, formally made on the 13th February, was accepted; and thus was completed the English Revolution. The sove- reignty of Ireland went with that of England ; and a few months later the Crown of Scotland was bestowed upon William and Mary by the Estates of that country. xxxvi.] LITERATURE. 181 9. Literature. — Among the divines of the Stuart period, Jeremy Taylor, who died in 1667, is celebrated for his devo- tional works and for his sermons, the finest that had yet been heard in the English Church. Clarendon, noted as the minister of Charles II., is also famous as the historian of the stirring times through which he lived. His History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, despite its inaccu- racies and Royalist prejudices, is one of the great works of English literature. Izaak Walton, " the Father of Angling," as he is called, published, in 1653, The Complete Angler, which is more than a mere treatise upon fishing. Its quaint grace and feeling for rural scenes render it in- teresting even to those who care nothing about its subject. John Bunyan, the greatest of allegorists, born in 1628 near Bedford, was brought up to the trade of a tinker, and served for a short time as a soldier in the parliamentary army. Joining himself to the Baptists, he became noted as a preacher ; and it was after the Restoration, while lying in Bedford gaol for the offence of upholding "unlawful meet- ings and conventicles," that he composed the first part of the Pilgrim's Progress. This religious allegory became the delight of pious people among the poor, although it was more than a century before the genius of its author was acknowledged by literary critics. Of the poets of the time of Charles I., Abraham Cowley was in his own day accounted unrivalled, though he is now but little read. Another noted poet was Edmund Waller, who employed his poetical talents to praise Cromwell during the Protectorate, and Charles II. at the Restoration. Samuel Butler was the author of Hudi- bras, a burlesque poem against the Puritans, the hero, from whom it has its name, being a half-crazy Presbyterian justice, who undertakes the reform of abuses The Commonwealth party though not i;i general favoured by the wits and verse- writers, could claim for its own one of the greatest poets of i82 JAMES II. [chap. England. John Milton, who wrote in defence of the execu- tion of Charles I., and held the post of Latin Secretary to the Council of State, published his chief work, Paradise Lost, in 1667. Many however of his beautiful minor poems were written before the Civil Wars began. He died in 1674, having been blind for more than twenty years. The reaction against the Puritan over-strictness showed itself strongly in the polite literature of the time of Charles II., above all in the comic dramas, which were a disgrace to the age — not that they lacked wit or humour or dramatic skill, but because they were morally bad to a degree which testi- fies to the debased state of the society which delighted in them. Writing for the stage was then the most profitable employment for an author, and John Dryden, chief of the poets of the Restoration school, spent his best years upon dramatic composition, for which his talents were unsuited. As a lyric poet, and especially as a satirist, he stands high, one of his most famous works being the satiric poem of Absalom and Achitophel, under which names the Duke of Monmouth and his political friend the Earl of Shaftesbury are aimed at. 10. Science. — Among the famous men who lived under the first Stuart Kings was the physician William Harvey, who made the discovery of the circulation of the blood. The Restoration period, however politically discreditable, was a time of great advances in science. The Royal Society, which numbered among its first members men illustrious in chemistry, in astronomy, in mathematics, in botany, and in zoology, was established shortly after the Restoration. John Flamsteed, from whose time dates the beginning of modern astronomy, was the first Astronomer- Royal, the Observatory at Greenwich being founded by Charles II. for the benefit of navigation. The greatest name in science is that of Isaac Newton, famed for his wonderful discoveries in mathematics XXXVI.] ARCHITECTURE. iSj and natural philosophy. He was born in Lincolnshire in 1642, and died in 1727, in his eighty-fifth year. His chief work, the Principle/,, was published in 1687. 11. Architecture. — Under the Tudors Gothic architecture had begun to go down. Italian details became more and more mixed with it, and the style called Elizabethan was the result. The pure Italian style, in imitation of ancient Roman architecture, was brought into England early in the seven- teenth century by Inigo Jones, and superseded Gothic, which was now little regarded or understood. Sir Christopher Wren, admirable in the style of his age, failed when he imitated Gothic, as the towers he added to Westminster Abbey still serve to show. His finest work is the cathedral church of St. Paul, which was completed in 17 10. He died in 1723, at the age of ninety, and was buried in the crypt of his own great church, with this epitaph : — "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice :" ("If thou seekest his monument, look around "). 12. The Huguenots.— In 1685 Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, under which the Huguenots or French Protestants had hitherto enjoyed a certain amount of reli- gious liberty. In consequence of this revocation and the ensuing persecution, thousands of brave, intelligent, and in- dustrious men of that faith fled from his dominions, carrying their valour or their skill to other lands. Many of these refugees settled in Spitalfields, London, and there introduced the manufacture of silk. Others, taking military service with the Prince of Orange, turned their swords against their former King;. :84 WILLIAM AND MARY. [chap CHAPTER XXXVII. WILLIAM AND MARY. WILLIAM III. William and Mary ; the Non-Jitrors (i) — war in Ireland; siege of Londonderry ; battle of the Boyne (2) — battle of La Hofrne ; Peace of ' Ryswick ; the National Debt ; the re-coinage ; Assassina- tion Plot; the Bank of England (3) — death of Queen Mary (4) — the Peace ; the Spanish Succession ; death of William (.5) — Legis- lation ; Bill of Rights ; Act of Settlement and other Statutes (6). 1. William and Mary, 1688-g — 1694. William III., 1702. — From youth upwards one idea had possessed the soul of William of Orange — that of breaking the power of Louis XIV. — and he valued his English kingdom chiefly as a means towards this end. Though weak in body, the energy of his spirit was unconquerable, and no danger ever daunted him. His manners however were cold, his temper sour, and he roused the English jealousy by placing men of his own nation about him. His wife was an amiable woman ; but the Jacobites^ or extreme Tories, who adhered to James, never ceased to taunt her for having ousted her father. Many Tories thought the deposition of the King wrong, and from this scruple, about four hundred clergymen and members of the Universities, with Sancroft and six other bishops at their head, resigned their preferments rather than swear allegiance to the new sovereigns. These men, who could boast that live out of the famous " Seven Bishops" were among them, were known as the Non-jurors. 2. Ireland. — As yet William was King of Ireland in little more than name. That country was divided between the Romanist "Irishry," or original Irish, together with the de- xxxvn.] WAR IN IRELAND. 185 scendants of the Norman-English settlers, probably about a million in number, and the Protestant " Englishry," consist- ing of about 200,000 English and Scotch colonists, who owned more than four-fifths of the property of Ireland, and whose inferiority in number was compensated by their superiority in wealth and civilization. The Lord Deputy of Ireland, Tyrconnel, invited James over from his refuge in France, and raising his standard with the motto, " Now or never ! Now and for ever ! " called his countrymen to arms. The whole Irish race rose in answer, — not that they cared for James, but because they desired independence, — and Tyrconnel soon mustered a mighty though half-savage host. Louis of France furnished arms, money, and officers, and James, thus equipped, landed in Ireland in March 1689, and held in Dublin a Parliament of his adherents, in which he gave his consent to the great Act of Attainder, whereby between two and three thousand Protestants were attainted of treason. The Englishry meanwhile stood gallantly at bay in Ennis- killen and Loidonderry. The latter city, under the govern- ment of Major Henry Baker and an aged clergyman, George Walker, was besieged by James's forces ; and though reduced to extremity of hunger, its defenders hardly able to keep their feet for very weakness, it held out for a hundred and five days, until relieved from England. At the same time the Enniskilleners routed the Jacobites at Newton Butler. In the summer of the next year, William himself went over to Ireland. England, dreading the power of Louis XIV., and provoked by his interference, had joined the general league of the chief powers of Europe against France. William's departure therefore was straightway made the occasion of an attempt upon England by the French in concert with the Jacobites, and Herbert, now Earl of Torrington, was igno- miniously worsted in an engagement with the French fleet off Beachy Head. But comfort came in the news of a 1 86 WILLIAM AND MARY. [chap. decisive victory won by William on the ist of July, 1690, over the French and Irish at the Boyne. The conduct of the rival Kings was strikingly diverse. William, his sword in the left hand — for his other arm was crippled by a wound — led his troops through the Boyne river, and was fore- most in the fight ; James looked on from a safe distance, until, seeing the day going against him, he galloped off, and reviling his Irish army, made his way to the coast, whence he sailed for France. Meanwhile the French admiral, Tonr- ville, finding that, contrary to the prediction of the exiled Jacobites, the country did not rise to join him, departed, after having sacked the defenceless town of Teignmouth. The reduction of Ireland to England was effected the next year by the Dutch General Giukell, afterwards created Earl of Athlone, who gained, July 12th, 169 1, the battle of AgJirim over the Irish and their French general, St. Ruth, who fell in the fight. Limerick, their last stronghold, surrendered to Ginkell in October, its gallant defender, Patrick Sarsfirfd, and as many as would follow him, being permitted to pass to the French service. The domination of the colonists was now assured, and rigorous laws were made to hold down the Romanists, the bravest and best of whom, denied all chance of rising in their own land, entered the service of foreign states. 3. The War with France.— In 1692, during William's absence on the Continent, another French invasion was pro- jected ; but the allied English and Dutch fleets, commanded in chief by Admiral Russell, attacked and defeated Admiral Tourville in the Channel, chased the enemy to the Bay of La Hague, and there burned his ships in the sight of James. There were great rejoicings at this victory, not merely because the people were proud of the exploit, but because it had saved the island from invasion. On land the struggle against France was chiefly carried on in the Netherlands, xxxvii.] THE RE-COINAGE. 187 where William led his army in person. At last Louis, worn out by the long war, consented to acknowledge the Prince of Orange as King of Great Britain ; and this led to the general peace which was made at Ryswick in 1697. Although the English had not to fight on their own soil, this war put a great strain upon their resources. In 1692, the year of La Hogue, the land-tax was first imposed, and, this being found insuffi- cient, the Government next raised money by a loan. Thus began the National Debt. Among the difficulties of the country must be reckoned the bad state of its silver coin, arising from the fraudulent practice of "clipping." The coinage of additional money, with its edges so milled that it could not be clipped without detection, seemed only to aggravate the evil ; for every man tried to pay in light, and to be paid in heavy coin. At last, in 1696, an Act was passed for a new coinage, and while this was going on, much inconvenience and even hardship was caused by the scarcity of silver, although the Mint, with the great philo- sopher Isaac Newton at its head, coined faster than it had ever done before. Fortunately at this moment, when the patience of the nation was thus severely tried, the King happened to be in special favour, owing to the general indignation at a recently detected Jacobite conspiracy for his assassination on his way back from hunting. In the excitement caused by this discovery, more than four hundred of the Commons solemnly pledged themselves to stand by William in life or to avenge him in death, and their example was generally followed throughout the nation. The manage- ment of the re-coinage reflected great credit upon the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Montague, a young Whig, noted for bringing about the foundation, in 1694, of the Bank of England, on a plan devised by a Scotsman named Paterson. 4. Death of Mary.— In 1694, on the 28th December, 1 88 WILLIAM HI. [chai>. Queen Mary had died of small-pox. Not long afterwards by her husband's orders, the unfinished palace of Greenwich was turned into an hospital for seamen of the Royal Navy ; and thus, in honour of her memory, was carried out the wish she had formed at the time when difficulty was found in providing for the many wounded at La Hogue. The additions to the palace were made by Sir Christopher Wren. 5. The Spanish Succession. — After the Peace of Ryswick came a time of sore mortification to William. Not only did the Commons insist on having the greater part of the army disbanded, but they further forced him to send away all his foreign troops, even his favourite Dutch Guards. Fresh iil-feeling arose between the King and the Commons on the subject of the disposal of forfeited land in Ireland, much of which he had bestowed on his personal friends. The Com- mons constrained him to give his assent to an Act for annulling all his Irish grants, and applying the forfeitures to the public service. In 1700 Charles King of Spain died childless, bequeathing his vast dominions to Philip of A)ijou, a grandson of Louis XIV. To prevent such an increase of the French power at once became William's aim ; and his cause was served by the imprudence of the French King. In September 1701 James II. died, and Louis, in the face of the Treaty of Ryswick, recognized his son, whom the Whigs called " the Pretender" as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. This roused general indignation. A Parliament met, which requested William to make no peace with France until reparation for this affront was made. The King's health was breaking down, but, nerved by thoughts of the work before him, he still bore up. In February 1702 whe-n he was riding at Hampton Court, his horse fell over a mole-hill, and the King was thrown, and broke his collar-bone ; sinking under the shock, he died on the 8th March, in his fifty- second year. As Queen Mary had no children, the Crown xxxvil.] LEGISLATION. 189 according to the settlement made by the Declaration and Bill of Rights, passed to the Princess Anne of Denmark. 6. Legislation. — Chief among the statutes of this reign stands the Bill of Rights, which, after reciting the Declaration of the Convention, declared it, with some additions, to be law. The levying of money for the use of the crown, without grant of Parliament, the keeping of a standing army in time of peace, unless by consent of Parliament, were herein declared illegal. The right of subjects to petition, of electors freely to choose their representatives, the right of the legislature to freedom of debate, the necessity of frequent parliaments, were affirmed. The methods by which in late years the administration of justice had been tampered with, the imposition of excessive fines, the infliction of cruel and unusual punishments, were condemned. The power, which James II. had illegally exer- cised, of dispensing with or setting aside laws by regal autho- rity was abolished ; and a Papist, or even the husband or wife of a Papist, was made incapable of wearing the English crown. The Toleration Act, though not affording complete re- ligious liberty, substantially gave all that was wanted by the Protestant Dissenters ; but Romanists and deniers of the Trinity were excluded from its benefits. The oaths of allegiance and supremacy were replaced by new and simpler forms, that of supremacy consisting mainly of a renunciation of the Pope's authority. The first Mutiny Act gave the sovereign a temporary power of punishing mutiny or de- sertion by the special jurisdiction known as martial law. Similar Acts, limited to a year's duration, are still the only means by which the crown can legally keep an army. These statutes were all passed in the first year of William and Mary. In 1695 the press became free ; hitherto nothing could be published without the licence of an officer appointed by the Government, but now this censorship was given up, and newspapers at once made their appearance. In the ic,o WILLIAM III [chap. next year was passed the Act for regulating of trials in cases of treason. Hitherto the law had placed those accused of high treason at great disadvantage, and before the Revolu- tion such trials had often been little better than judicial murders ; by this Act, among other provisions for securing the accused person a fair trial, it was enacted that he should have a copy of the indictment delivered to him five da) s before trial, and should be allowed to make his defence by counsel. The Act of Settlement, passed in 1701, settled the crown, in default of heirs of Anne or of William, upon the granddaughter of James I. and daughter of Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia, the Princess Sophia, Electress 'of Hanover, and her heirs, being Protestants. There were other families nearer in the order of inheritance than the House of Hanover, but they were passed over as being Roman Catholic. Some articles were inserted in the Act of Settlement, to take effect only after the succession under the new limita- tion to the House of Hanover. Of these, two of the most important were, that whosoever should hereafter come to the possession of the crown, should join in communion with the established Church of England ; and that the judges should hold their offices during good behaviour, not as formerly, at the royal pleasure. In the following year a statute was passed which imposed on members of parlia- ment, civil and military officers, ecclesiastics, lawyers and others, an oath of abjuration, by which they abjuied the title of the pretended Prince of Wales, and bound them- selves to maintain the settlement made of the crown. xxxv in.] ANNE. 191 CHAPTER XXXVIII. ANNE. Prince George of Denmark ; Anne; the Duke and Duchess of Marl- borough ( 1 ) — War of the Spanish Succession; battles of Blenheim and A' am Hies; taking of Gibraltar; the Earl of Peterborough ; battle of Almanza ; Sir Cloudesley Shovel; battles of Oudenarde and Malplaquet (2) — the Union of England and Scotland (3) — rise oj the Tories; Peace of Utrecht (4) — death of Anne (5) — Queen Anne's Bounty (6). I. Anne, 1702-1714. — The Queen's husband, Prince George of Denmark, of whom Charles II. said that he himself had tried him, drunk and sober, but there was nothing in him, was too insignificant in character to have any influence. From girlhood, Anne had been ruled by the handsome and domineering Sarah, wife of Churchill ; and so close was their friendship that they corresponded with each other under the names of Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman, the latter being adopted by the favourite to denote her frankness. John Churchill, Earl, and afterwards Duke, of Marlborough, who within a week of Anne's accession was made Captain General of the Forces, was the ablest man of his time as a general and statesman, though he owed his favour with Anne chiefly to his wife's influence. Brave though gentle, and of imperturbable serenity of temper, distinguished by the care and humanity which he showed towards prisoners of war, his character was yet stained by avarice and treachery. After having at the Revolution deserted James for William, he had since been disgraced for intriguing with James ; nevertheless William had lately given him high command, 192 ANNE. [chap. foreseeing, it is said, that he would be the moving spirit in the next reign. Though his wife sided with the Whigs, who supported the late King's war policy, Marlborough himself passed at the time for a Tory, and thereby gained increased influence with the Queen, who loved the Church and the Tories, whom she preferred to call " the Church party" A dislike of armed interference in continental politics con- tinued to be a mark of a Tory until after the French Revolution, when the two parties changed places in that respect. 2. War of the Spanish Succession. — King William's last work, an alliance of England, Holland, the Emperor, and other European powers against Louis XIV. and his grand- son, survived him. The war with France was shortly declared, the allies supporting the claim of the Archduke Charles of Austria to the Spanish crown. Marlborough, in command of the allied English and Dutch forces, now entered upon that course of splendid achievements which gained him the high place he holds among generals. On the 2nd August, 1704, he won, in concert with the Imperial commander Prince Eugene of Savoy, the great battle of Blenheim over the French and Bavarians under Marshal Tallard, who was there taken pri- soner. Marlborough, in reward of his services, received the royal manor of Woodstock, upon which was afterwards built the Palace of Blenheim. Another great battle, that of /fami- lies, was won by him two years later on the 12th May ; but meanwhile the allied arms had been less successful in the Peninsula, though the rock and fortress of Gibraltar, valuable as the key of the Mediterranean, were taken by Admiral Sir George Rooke and the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, and have ever since remained in the keeping of England. Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, a clever but eccentric man, who flew about the world, seeing, it was said, more kings and more postilons than any other man in Europe, for a xxxviii.] UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 193 while carried all before him in Spain ; but as his advice was disregarded, he left in disgust. After this, affairs were mismanaged, and in 1707 the allied English, Dutch, and Portuguese were, in the battle of Ahnanza, utterly routed by the Duke of Berwick, an illegitimate son of James II. Other disasters followed. Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who from a cabin- boy had risen to be one of the best of the English admirals, was lost with four of his vessels on the rocks of Scilly. It is said that he was thrown on shore, and reached, worn out with fatigue, the hut of a woman, by whom he was murdered for the sake of a ring and other valuable property he had upon him. The next year was more fortunate, Marlborough and Eugene gaining the battle of Oudenarde, and the island of Minorca being taken. Other successes brought Louis to seek terms of peace ; but the allies required more than he would yield, and, though his navy was swept from the seas and his people were starving, his kingdom yet nerved itself for another campaign, in which Marlborough gained the bloody and fruitless victory of Malplaguet. 3. The Union of England and Scotland. — The U~7iion of England and Scotland into one Kingdom by the name of Great Britain was brought about in 1707. Thenceforth there was only one Parliament for the two countries, and English, Welsh, and Scots were all included in the common name of British. A national flag — the same as that which had been ordered by James I., but which had fallen into disuse — was appointed for the United Kingdom. 4. Ascendency of the Tories. — In 1709 it chanced that one Dr. SacJieverel preached two sermons, one before the Judges of Assize at Derby, the other before the Lord Mayor at St. Paul's, in which the Doctor spoke against the toleration granted to Dissenters, and put forward the then favourite Tory doctrine of non-resistance ; that is, that nothing could justify a subject in taking up arms against his rightful T O 194 ANNE. [chap. sovereign. The Whigs, who felt this as a slur upon ihe Revolution, impeached him ; he was condemned by the Lords, but his sentence was so light that the result was looked upon as a victory by his Toiy friends ; and the com- mon people, who were all for "High Church and Sacheverel," made great rejoicings. Soon after this, the Tories came into power, having on their side the Queen's reigning favourite, Abigail Afasham, a bed-chamber woman who had gradually supplanted the haughty Duchess of Marlborough. The new Tory ministers, Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and Henry St. John, afterwards Viscount Bolingbroke. set themselves to put an end to the war, and this they brought about in an underhand manner, keeping their allies in the dark. Marl- borough was charged with peculation, and dismissed from employment, and the Tory Duke of Ormond was sent out in his place, with secret orders not to undertake any con- siderable enterprise. The other allies, deserted by the British government, finally agreed to the Peace of Utrecht \n 17 13. By this Great Britain received the French colony of Acadie or Nova Scotia, and the island of St. Christopher, and kept Gibraltar and Minorca ; while the French King ac- knowledged Anne as Queen of Great Britain, guaranteed the succession of the House of Hanover, and engaged to make the Pretender withdraw from the French dominions. Yet the Jacobites placed great hopes in Bolingbroke, v/ho appears to have intended to bring about the succession of the Cheva- lier de St. George (as the Pretender was more courteously called), whom he and other Jacobites urged, but in vain, to turn Protestant. This question of succession was brought more strongly before men's eyes by the death of the aged Princess Sophia, whereby her son George Louis, Electa? of Brunswick- Luneburg, became heir to the throne, all Anne's children having died in their youth. 5. Death of Anne. — The Queen's death was hastened by xxxix.] GEORGE I. 195 her agitation at a violent dispute in her presence between Oxford and Bolingbroke, who were now open rivals. Boling- broke so far prevailed that Oxford was dismissed from his office of Lord High Treasurer. Within a week the Queen was struck by apoplexy, and died August 1, 1714. Before her death she defeated the hopes of Bolingbroke and the Jacobite party by delivering the Treasurer's staff to the Duke of Shrewsbury — the same Shrewsbury who had signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange — bidding him " use it for the good of her people." 6. Queen Anne's Bounty is a still existing benefit which was conferred by Anne upon the Church by restoring to it for the increase of the poorer livings the first-fruits and tenths of benefices which were paid formerly to the Pope, and afterwards to Henry VIII. and his successors. CHAPTER XXXIX. GEORGE I. George I.; impeachment of Bolingbroke, Oxford, and Ormond ; the Riot Act (1) — the Pretender (2) — the South Sea Scheme (3) — death of George (4) — the Septennial Act (5). I. House of Hanover or of Brunswick-Liineburg. George I., 1714-1727. — George, Elector of Brunsunck-Litne- burg (otherwise of Hanover), was proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland without a single Jacobite stirring a step. But he made no great haste to take possession of his king- dom ; and, whether through indifference, fear, or natural O 2 196 GEORGE L [chap. slowness, let six weeks pass before he, in company with his eldest son, landed at Greenwich. The new ruler, though well received, was not a man to excite much loyalty. He was fifty- four years of age, small of stature, and awkward ; he could speak no English, so that he had to be taught by rote a few words wherein to address his first Par- liament ; he had left his wife shut up in a German castle, and his private life was not such as to command any respect. As a King, he was honest and well-intentioned ; but his excessive attachment to his native dominions proved a source of embarrassment to his ministers and of discontent to the nation ; and, except as a symbol of Protestantism and constitutional government, he had never any attraction for his English subjects. His first ministry was composed almost wholly of Whigs ; and the new Parliament proceeded to impeach Bolingbroke, Oxford, and Ormond on charges of misconduct in the transactions relating to the Peace of Utrecht, and of intriguing with the Pretender. Bolingbroke had taken alarm early, and fled to France, whither Ormond soon followed him. Acts of attainder were passed against both the fugitives ; Oxford, standing his ground, was sent to the Tower, but, within two years, was released on acquittal. These proceedings increased the discontent of the Tories, which had already broken out in riots. The disturbances became so serious as to lead to the passing of the Riot Act, under which an unlawful assembly which does not disperse on command of a magistrate becomes guilty of felony. 2. The Pretender. — On the 6th September, 171 5, the standard of the Pretender was raised in the Highlands by the Earl of Mar, at the head of a Scottish force, with a handful of North-country Englishmen. He had counted upon a Jaco- bite rising in the West of England ; but the government, by arresting the influential members of the party, crushed this intended insurrection. The North-country rebels, being xxxix.] THE PRETENDER. 197 defeated at Preston, surrendered on the 13th November, and the same day the Scots were engaged by John Campbell Duke of Ar gyle at Sheriff-Muir in a drawn battle, which was practically a victory for the King. Later in the year the Pretender himself appeared in Scotland ; but he found his affairs gc.ng so badly that he soon slipped away with Mar to France, and the insurgents broke up. Seven noblemen were se-itenced to death for this attempt ; of these three were respite i, and two escaped, one of them, the Earl of Nitliis- dale, oy the help of his wife, getting out of the Tower in worn an's clothes the day before that which was fixed for his execution. The Earl of Derwentwater and Viscount Ken- mi re, together with about thirty other persons, all taken in arms, suffered death. This was not the only attempt in favour of the Pretender made during this reign. Charles XII., King oj Sweden, being eager to revenge himself upon George for having bought from Denmark and added to Hanover the d'jchies of Bremen and Verden which had been taken from Charles, planned, in connexion with the Jacobites, an invasion of Scotland ; but the conspiracy was discovered and crushed early in 171 7. A fresh chance was afforded the Pretender by a war the next year between Great Britain and Spain. A Spanish force, under Jacobite refugees, was sent from Cadiz in 1 7 19; but the greater part of the fleet which carried them was shattered by a storm, and constrained to return. 3. The South Sea Scheme. — In 1720 England went half mad over the famous South Sea scheme. The South Sea Company, which had a monopoly of trade to the Spanish coasts of South America, engaged with the government to buy up certain annuities which had been granted in the reign of William and Maiy, for the purpose of reducing the Public Debt. The annuitants were invited to exchange their stock for that of the South Sea Company. A rage for speculation set in upon the country ; the 100/. shares of the Company 198 GEORGE I. [chap. went up to 1,000/. ; then they fell, a panic followed, and thousands of families were ruined. The people became furious against the directors ; and, though the estates of the latter were confiscated by Parliament for the benefit of the sufferers, the punishment was exclaimed agaili2* as too mild. Robert Walpole, whose financial skill was well known, became first minister of the Crown ; and by his management the government was helped through its difficulties- The state of confusion into which the country was throvvn, as well as the birth of a son to the Pretender, stirred up the Jacobites again to plot an invasion. Francis AtterbWy, Bishop of Rochester, being found to be concerned in this conspiracy, was deprived of his bishoprick and banished. 4. Death of George. — In the summer of 1727, the Kir'g left England for Hanover, and, being struck by apoplexy en his road to Osnabriick, died in his carriage in the nig it of the 10th June. By his wife, Sophia Dorothea, Princes? of Zell, he left one son, George Augustus, Prince cf Wales, with whom he was for some time notoriously 01? bad terms. 5. The Septennial Act. — By a statute, known as the Triennial Act, passed under William and Mary, no Parlia- ment could last longer than three years. But after the rebellion of 17 15, when the government was loth to face a general election, this statute was repealed by another which lengthened to seven years the term for which a parliament might last. This — the Septennial Act, as it is called — is still law. XL.] GEORGE II. 199 CHAPTER XL. GEORGE II. George II.; administration of Walpole (i)—war with Spain; Anson s voyage (2) — War of the Austrian Succession; battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy (3) — the Young Pretender ; battle of Culloden ; end of the Stuart line (4) — war with France ; shooting of Byng ; Pitt's administration ; death of Wolfe; ac- quisition of Canada (5) — India ; Clive ; " the Black Hole''' (6) — death of George (7) — reform of the kalendar (8) — the Eddystone Lighthouse (9) — rise of Methodism (10) — lite?-ature (il). I. George II., 1727-1760. — George II., like his father the late King, was German by birth, German in feeling and politics, attached to his native dominions, and for their sake ever interfering in Continental affairs. Like his father also, he was at variance with his son, Frederick Prince of Wales, a weak young man, who was popular chiefly because the King was unpopular. George II. could however speak English fluently, and, so far, he had the advantage over his predecessor. In character he was methodical, parsimonious, stubborn, and passionate, of an intrepid spirit, and fond of war. His private life was not creditable, yet he was, after his fashion, sincerely attached to his clever wife, Caroline of Brandenburg-Anspach) who had the art of ruling without seeming to rule. For the first ten years of his reign he was managed by the Queen, and through her by Sir Robert Walpole, whose constant policy was to keep England at peace and himself in power. One of Walpole's financial plans however was very near displacing him. This was a scheme for extending the Excise duties, which were already most unpopular. The Tories and the discontented Whigs or " Patriots" combining against it, contrived to lash the country into such a fury that it was well-nigh ready to rebel. GEORGE II. [chap. Walpole therefore, though confident of the advantages of the measure, gave it up, saying that he would never be the minister to enforce taxes at the expense of blood. 2. War with Spain. — A similar clamour, excited by the means which the Spaniards took to check contraband trade with their South American colonies, and by their alleged cruelties towards English seamen, at last drove Walpole into a war with Spain in 1739. Except in the taking of Porto Bello by Admiral Vernon with six ships, the war was not very successful. Commodore Anson, who was sent out to harass the coasts of Chili and Peru, made a voyage round the world, in which he suffered terrible hardships, losing numbers of his crews from scurvy, and only bringing home his own ship, the Centurion. This expedition, though not politically pro- fitable, raised the fame of British seamanship. Meanwhile Walpole, whose reluctance to enter upon this war had made him thoroughly unpopular, resigned, and thereupon was called to the House of Peers as Earl of 0?ford. His steady friend Queen Caroline had died in 1737. 3. War of the Austrian Succession.— In 1741 began the War of the Austrian Succession, in which Great Britain became entangled, and took the side opposed to France. The nation disliked being thus mixed up with Continental quarrels ; and when Hanoverian and Hessian troops were taken into British pay, the indignation was great. " It is now too apparent," said William Pitt, the boldest speaker among the " Patriots," " that this powerful, this great, this mighty nation, is considered only as a province to a des- picable Electorate." In the summer of 1743 the King joined his army in Germany, and defeated the French in the battle of Dettingen, where George fought on foot at the head of his right line. The battle of Fontenoy, 1745, in which the allies were defeated by the French under Marshal Saxe. is further memorable for the heroic courage XL.] THE YOUNG PRETENDER. 201 shown by the British and Hanoverian infantry. Peace was made at Aix-la-Chapelle {Aachen), in 1748. 4. The Young Pretender. — Early in this war the French government had secretly invited to France Charles Edward Stuart (who was called the Young Pretender and the Young Chevalier, to distinguish him from his father James the Old Pretender), and had planned an invasion of England in his favour. With this intent, an expedition put to sea in 1 744, but it was scattered by a storm. The next year, 1745, Charles, with seven followers, landed in the Highlands, and there mustered a small force of adherents. After routing the royal general, Sir John Cope, at Preston-Pans, and receiving some small supplies of money and arms from France, Charles entered Cumberland, and with four or five thousand men, pushing on for London, advanced, to the great dismay of the capital, as far as Derby. But here the hearts of the rebel officers failed them ; marvellous as their success had been, there was no such rising in their favour as Charles had reckoned upon. Jacobitism existed in England merely as a traditional faith, or as a method of expressing discontent, not as a belief for which men would peril their lives and properties. Charles, unwillingly yielding to the wishes of his officers, retreated to Scotland, and, after gaining a victory at Falkirk, was over- thrown by the King's favourite son, William Duke of Cum- berland, at Culloden on the 16th April, 1746. The English victory was tarnished by the cold-blooded slaughter of wounded enemies on the battle-field, and by the atrocities afterwards committed in the disaffected country — cruelties which gained for Cumberland the nickname of " The Butcher? For their share in this insurrection, known in popular Scottish phrase, from the year in which it took place, as ''''the Forty-five" the Earl of Kilmarnock, Lords Balmerino and Lovat, Charles Radclife (brother to the late Earl of Derwentwater), and a number of other per- GEORGE II [chap. sons, nearly eighty in all, were put to death. An Act of Grace in the next reign restored their estates to the de- scendants of those who had forfeited them. As for Charles, he wandered alone among the Highlands for five months hunted from place to place by the soldiers, till, after many perils, he escaped in a French vessel. His future life was a sad one. Driven, in accordance with a stipulation of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, from France, he wandered about the Continent, forming vain schemes for another invasion, and falling at last into degrading habits of drunkenness. He died Jan. 30, 1788, leaving no legitimate children. His younger brother Henry Benedict, Cardinal York, died in 1807, and thus ended the ill-starred line of Stuart. 5. War with France.— Disputes about the boundaries of the English and French settlements in North America soon plunged the country again into strife. The French encroached upon the English colonists ; these resisted, and thus the mother countries were ere long engaged in hostilities. The war began disastrously for the British, the most grievous blow being the taking of the island of Minorca, in 1756, by the French ; while Admiral Byng, sent out from Gibraltar to relieve the garrison, sailed back again after a partial and indecisive engagement with the French squadron. This slackness cost the unfortunate admiral his life ; he was tried the next year by court-martial, and shot for not having done his utmost. The King had provided as far as possible for the safety of Hanover by entering into an alliance with Frederick the Great of Prussia, and thus England was drawn into the Seven Years' War between that prince and a confederacy of Continental powers. The English were at this time in the depths of despondency, regarding themselves as utterly degenerate, and ready to be enslaved. Since Walpole there had been no great minister in power. The popular favourite, Pitt, was now made Secretary of State, but he was too much xr..] INDIA. 203 disliked by the King to be allowed to keep his office long. He knew his own powers : " I am sure," he said, " that I can save this country, and that nobody else can." In June 1*757, the King was constrained again to accept him as his minister. Under his administration the war was carried on with new vigour, till at last the tide turned, and successes by sea and land came as fast as misfortunes had before. In November 1759, Admiral Hawke gained off the coast of Brittany a signal victory over the French. In September the same year, Ja?nes Wolfe, a young general of Pitt's choosing, scaled the almost inaccessible heights on which Quebec stands, completely defeated the French army, and fell in the moment of victory. As he lay dying, he heard an officer exclaim, "They run !" "Who run ?" asked Wolfe, raising himself. " The enemy." " Then I die happy." Five clays later Quebec capitulated, and within a year the whole of the French colony of Canada was in the hands of the British. 6, India. — In India an empire was being won. The chief European powers there were the French and the English East India Companies. Successive Charters and Acts had raised the English Company almost into a sovereign power ; it kept a small army, held law courts, and had authority to make peace and war with non-Christian princes and people. Still the object it pursued was simply the Indian trade, of which constantly renewed Acts of Parliament gave it a monopoly, and it did not at first aspire to empire. The foundations of its dominion were laid by Robert (after- wards Lord) Clive, a. young officer of the Company, who, though without any military training, proved himself a great general and statesman. Clive broke the power of the French, who at one time seemed about to gain the pre- eminence in the Peninsula, and made the English Company the real lords of Bengal by the great victory he won ovei 204 GEORGE II. [chap. the Nabob of that province, Suraj-ad-dowla, at Plassy, June 23rd, 1757. Suraj-ad-dowla had in the preceding year taken the English settlement at Calcutta,— an event memorable for the horrible fate of the English prisoners there captured, who, a hundred and forty-six in number, were, in the hottest season, crowded into a cell not twenty feet square, known as the " Black Hole. " Only twenty-three of the captives survived the night. 7. Death of George. — In the midst of these conquests, George died suddenly at Kensington of heart disease, Oct. 25,1760. His eldest son Frederick Prince of Wales having died in 1751, the King was succeeded by his grandson, George William Frederick, Prince of Wales. Between the accession of George II. and the withdrawal of the country from the Seven Years' War in 1763, the National Debt was more than doubled. 8. Reform of the Kalendar. — In 175 1 was passed the statute for the reform of the kalendar. The Julian Kalen- dar (so called because it owed its origin to Julius Caesar) made the year too long at the rate of three days nearly in four hundred years. In the 16th century the error had been corrected under a regulation of Pope Gregory XIII., and the alteration, or New Style, had been in course of time accepted by most Christian countries. But in the British dominions people still went on with the Old Style, until at length the day they called the first of the month was in other lands the twelfth — in short, they were eleven days wrong in their reckoning. By the statute of 175 1, these nominal days were dropped out of the month of September, 1752, and the New Style adopted. The memory of the ignorant opposition made to this reform is preserved in a picture by the contemporary painter Hogarth, where a Whig candidate for Parliament is represented as flattering the prejudices of the mob by having a banner inscribed. XL.] RISE OF METHODISM. 205 " Give us our eleven days." By the same statute, the legal year, instead of beginning, as formerly, on the 25th March, is reckoned from the 1st January. 9. The Eddystone Lighthouse. — Three lighthouses have been built one after another on the Eddystone Bock. The first was swept away in a storm, together with its architect Winstanley and the workmen who were busied in repairing it ; the second, built mainly of timber, was destroyed by fire in 1755. To John Smeaton, a great civil engineer, was entrusted the task of replacing it, which he did by the present fine tower of stone, completed in 1759. Smeaton also made Ramsgate harbour, improved wind and water mills, and did many other useful works. 10. Rise of Methodism. — In this reign began the religious movement known as Methodism, of which the promoters were two clergymen of the Church of England, George Whitejield and John Wesley. The name of Methodists first sprang up at Oxford, where it was given in scorn to a small association of young members of the University, who adopted a devout and rigid method of life, kept fast days, meditated and prayed, and visited the prisoners and the sick. Of this band were John Wesley, his brother Charles, afterwards noted as a writer of hymns, and Whitefield, who, after he had taken orders, began to preach with wonderful effect. His earnestness, his eloquence, his vehement action, and fine voice, which, it is said, could be heard a mile off, gave the first impulse to Methodism, which was then simply an awakening of a spirit of enthusiastic devotion, and that too among classes who had hitherto been neglected. When the parish churches were closed against the new teacher, Whitefield preached in the open air, which he first did to the colliers near Bristol, moving them to tears by his fervid oratory ; and his example was followed by his associate Wesley. Methodism was frowned upon by the clergy, and 2o6 GEORGE II. [chap. held up to ridicule on the stage ; its preachers were pelted and maltreated by the mob, but nevertheless it grew and prospered. The two great preachers however ere long diverged from each other in opinion : Whitefield, who died early, was the leader of the Calvinist section of the Method- ists ; Wesley, who died in 1791 at the age of eighty-seven, was the founder of the sect called after him, Weslcyan. He gave his followers a complete and elaborate organiza- tion, although it was not his intention to found a separate sect, but rather an order or society within the Church of England. The Methodists however, being harassed and almost constrained to declare themselves dissenters, gra- dually formed themselves into a distinct body. 11. Literature from the Revolution to George III. — The Whigs of the Revolution were fortunate in being able to show on their side some of the chief names of the age. To them belonged Isaac Newton, and the great jurist and politician, Lord Somers, who was one of the counsel for the Seven Bishops, and chairman of the committee by which the Declaration of Right was drawn up. Of them also was John Locke, who in 1684 had, for no crime but his friendship with the Whig leader Lord Shaftesbury, been ejected by the government from his studentship at Christ Church, Oxford. A s'aunch supporter of civil and religious liberty, he wrote in defence of toleration ; while his high fame as a philosopher was established by the publication in 1690 of his Essay concerning Human Understanding. A less illustrious writer of the same political views was Gilbert Burnet (made Bishop of Salisbury after the Revolution), a clergyman of Scottish birth, author of the History of the Reformation in England, the first volume of which gained, him the honour of a vote of thanks from Parliament, which was then excited by the Popish Plot. He left a History 0) his Own Time, which was published after his death in 171 5. XL.] LITERATURE. 207 The age of Anne was long looked upon as the most brilliant period in English literature. Among its chief ornaments was the Whig Joseph Addison, who wrote both poetry and prose, but was far superior in the latter. In his own day his most admired work was the tragedy of Cato, now little esteemed ; with modern readers his fame rests on the Tatler and the Spectator, two periodical papers set on foot by his friend Richard Steele, to which Addison was the chief and the best contri- butor. His peculiar charm lay in his refined and delicate humour, and he did the greatest service to morality by purifying literature from the taint of the Restoration, and showing that wit was not necessarily allied with vice, nor virtue with dulness. Daniel De Foe, a dissenter, who early in Anne's reign had been set in the pillory for writing an ironical pamphlet professing to express the views of a bigoted churchman, was the author of one of the most renowned and popular of English fictions, the Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. His skill lay in giving such an air of reality to his tales — for he wrote many— that the reader can hardly believe them to be merely works of imagination. Similar power was possessed by the great satirist Jona- than Swift, who went over from the Whig to the Tory party, and became Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. The best- known and most read of his works is Gulliver's Travels, the hero of which describes nations of pygmies, of giants, of speaking and reasoning horses, with a simplicity and minute- ness which make his wildest marvels seem like truth. Under this form Swift conveyed the most stinging satire on the court of George I., the politics of Europe, the follies of spe- culative philosophers, and the vices of mankind. Another Tory wit, John Arbuthnot, is believed to have been the author of the History of John Bull, a burlesque account of the negotiations and war of the Spanish Succession, 2o8 GEORGE II. [chap. From this satire arose the now familiar national name of " John Bull." To the reign of George II. belong the famous novels, Pamela, and the Histories of Clarissa Har- lowe and Sir Charles Graudison, by Samuel Richardson, whose name stands high among English authors, though his tales are too long-winded to be popular at the present day. Three other noted writers of fiction, Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett, and Laurence Sterne, are best remem- bered by their respective novels of Tom Jones, Roderick Random, and Tristram Shandy. Smollett also wrote a History of England, part of which is generally appended as a continuation to the History of England by the Scottish philosopher, David Hume, who only carried his work down to the Revolution. This work of Hume's became the generally received version of English history — ■ a position which it hardly deserved, as, though good in style, it is one-sided and inaccurate. Matthew Prior, noted as a writer of light and sparkling verse, flourished in the reigns of William and Anne. Alexander Pope, who was born in 1688, and died in 1744, is one of the great poets of England. His Rape of the Lock, 3. mock-heroic tale of a fashionable beauty whose long ringlet was secretly cut off by one of her admirers, and his moral and satirical poems, among them the Dunciad, in which he fell savagely upon the inferior authors of his day, are his chief works. His translation of the Iliad of Homer is a fine poem in itself, though he caught little or nothing of the spirit and tone of his original. Terseness, point, harmony, and cutting satire often becoming ferocious and coarse, are Pope's characteristics ; his versification was the admiration of his contemporaries, for before him no one had written heroic couplets with such smoothness. In creed he was a Romanist, in character violent and spiteful, and in person small and deformed. John Gay was the author of the xl.] LITERATURE. 209 Beggars' Opera, of the Fables, and of the popular ballad of Black-Eyed Susan. Nicholas Rowe, who died in 17 18, was a playwriter of note, although one of his best tragedies, the Fair Penitent, was stolen from Massinger, whose works had fallen into neglect. Addison, as has been already said, wrote poetry, and some of his hymns are to be found in most hymn-books. The hymns also of Isaac Watts, a dis- senting minister, are still among the most popular compo- sitions of their kind. Equally well known are the beautiful Morning and Evening Hymns of Thomas Ken, the good Bishop of Bath and Wells, who bore his part among the Seven Bishops, and who yet refused, from conscientious scruples, to withdraw his allegiance from James. The poems called the Seasons, which have always been popular, though they are marred by frequent pompousness and affectation, are the work of James Thomson, a Scot by birth, who died in 1748. Thomson, in conjunction with David Mallet, wrote the masque of Alfred, which contains the fine national ode of Rule, Britannia. This song, though commonly attri- buted to Thomson, is thought by some to have been written by Mallet ; the music to it was composed by Dr. Arne. Edward Young, who flourished under Anne and the first two Georges, wrote the Night Thoughts, a series of poems in proof of the immortality of the soul and against unbelief in Chris- tianity. William Collins, who died in 1756, was in his own time little appreciated, although he was one of the best lyric poets of his century. He is however surpassed by Thomas Gray, whose famous Elegy in a Country Churchyard was published in 1749. A scholar and student, devoting himself chiefly to reading, Gray wrote but little, and with great care. Among his best pieces is the noble ode of the Bard, which, being founded upon the tale of the massacre of the Welsh bards, unluckily branded Edward I. with the unde- served name of tyrant. T P GEORGE III. [chap CHAPTER XLI. GEORGE III. George III. ( I )— Treaty of Paris (2)— John Wilkes (3) —revolt of the North American Colonies; foundation of the United States ; war with France ; death of Chatham ; war with Spain a?zd Holland ; invasion of Jersey ; Rodneys victory of the 12th April ; siege of Gibraltar (4) — the lord George Gordon Riots (5)— insanity of the King ; joy at his recovery ; the Prince of Wales ; Pitt and Fox (6) — War of the French Revolution ; lord Hcnvis victory of /he 1st June; suspension of cash payments f>y the Bank of England ; battle of St. Vincent ; Nelson ; mutiny of the Channel Fleet ; press-gangs; mutiny at the Nore ; battle of Cam perdown ; Napo- leon Buonaparte ; his expedition to Egypt; battle of the Nile ; defence of Acre ; death of Tippco Sahib ; confederacy of Russia, Denmark, and Sweden ; battle of Copenhagen ; battle of Alex- andria ; Peace of Amiens (7) — zuar with Buonaparte ; detention of English travellers; Buonaparte seizes Hanover ; threatens to invade Great Britain ; overthrows the Austrians and Russians ; battle of Trafalgar ; death of Nelson ; death of Pitt ; Berlin Decree ; bombardment of Copenhagen (8) — Arthur Welles ley ; battle of Assye ; Peninsular War; battle of Vimiera ; death of Sir Joint Moore ; battles of Talavera, Salamanca, Vitoria, and Toulouse; fall of Buonaparte (9) — return of Buonaparte to France ; battle of Waterloo; surrender of Buonaparte (10) — war with the United States ; bo?nbardment of Algiers (11) — National Debt ; ge?teral distress ; the Luddites ; death of George III; Princess Charlotte (12)— Royal Marriage Act (13) — inde- pendence of the Irish Parliament; Irish Rebellion rf 1798 ; Union of Great Britain and Ireland (14) — Indian affairs; Ceylon; discoveries and improz'ements (15) — Harvard; abolition of the Slave Trade ; Rom illy (16) — literature, end of 1 8th century (17) — early igth century literature (18) — painting (19). I. George III., 1760-1820. — George III., eldest son of Frederick Prince of Wales and Princess Augusta of Saxe- Gotha, though not highly educated, was pleasing in manners xli.] AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 211 and appearance, well-conducted, and well-intentioned. The nation, hitherto constantly grumbling at its foreign kings, who were never so happy as when out of their kingdom, hailed with delight the accession of a born Englishman ; and the Tories, who during the late reigns had been in the position, unusual to them, of the party opposed to the court, transferred the loyalty formerly bestowed on the House of Stuart to their new ruler. About a year after his acces- sion the King married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg- Sirelitz. 2. Treaty of Paris. — The " Great Commoner" as Pitt was called, resigned office in 1761, on his proposal to declare war against Spain — which had recently allied itself with France — being opposed by his colleagues. The war nevertheless broke out ; but peace was made as soon as possible with both countries by the Treaty of Paris, 1763, under which Great Britain kept Canada and some other conquests from France, regained Minorca, and obtained Florida from Spain. 3. John Wilkes. — With the peace began a time of fierce factions and unpopular ministers. In 1763 the government made itself odious by its illegal arrest of John IVilkes for libelling it in a paper called the North Briton. Wilkes after- wards became still more famous as the subject of a struggle between the House of Commons and the freeholders of Middlesex, who maintained their right to return him for their representative, although, having been expelled the House, he was— so the Commons, by a stretch of power, had resolved — incapable of being elected into that parliament. 4. The American War of Independence. — The severance of thirteen North-American colonies from the mother country took place in this reign. The government had attempted to tax these colonies to defray in part the expenses of pro- tecting them ; the colonists -denied the right of the British P 2 212 GEORGE III. [chap. legislature to tax them while they were unrepresented in Par- liament. The first measure of this kind, the Stamp Act, was repealed within a year, as the colonists were on the verge of rebellion ; but a duty of threepence a pound laid on tea was retained as an assertion of right. Upon this the men of Boston in Massachusetts threw overboard the cargoes of tea brought into their harbour, and as severe measures were taken by way of punishment, the breach widened till actual war began; and on the 4th July, 1776, the colonies, under the name of the United States of America, declared their independence. The capitulation in the next year of the British General Burgoyne, at Saratoga, led to the acknowledgment by France of the new States, and the consequent extension of the war to that country. Pitt, now Earl of Chatham, had protested against the taxation of the colonies, but he could not bear the idea of seeing the British Empire dismembered by France. Though very ill, he insisted on going down to the House to speak against yielding at this crisis. In the act of addressing the Peers, he sank down in a fit ; and, after lingering a few weeks, he died, May nth, 1778. Spain joined France in 1779; an( i within two years Great Britain found another foe in Holland. The capitulation in 1781 of Earl Cornwallis to the French and Americans at Yorktown was the crowning disaster ; and at last the King unwillingly consented to recognize the United States. Among the memorable events of this war are the French invasion of Jersey, which was defeated by a gallant young officer, Major Pierson, who fell in the fight ; Admiral Sir George Rodney's victory, April 1 2th, 1782, in the West Indies over the French fleet, whose admiral, the Count de Grasse, was compelled to strike ; and the famous defence of Gibraltar by General Eliott against the forces of France and Spain for three years and seven months. Peace was made in 17.83, and Minorca and Florida xli.] PITT AND FOX. 213 were given back to Spain. In North America, Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and the Hudson's Bay country still remained part of the British Empire. 5. The Lord George Gordon Riots. — In June 1780, there were great riots in London ; the populace, led by the half- crazed Lord George Gordon, being inflamed by the repeal of some enactments against the Romanists. For nearly a week the capital was in the power of a furious mob, who burned Newgate, and destroyed the fine library of the Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield. 6. Pitt and Fox. — In 1788 the King was afflicted with insanity, and though he recovered for a time, he had fresh attacks. About 181 1 he permanently lost his reason, after which his eldest son, George Augustus Frede?ick, Prince of Wales, ruled in his stead as Regent. There was great joy at his first recovery ; for, though his obstinacy of disposition had at one time made him unpopular, of late his kindly manners and simple life had endeared him to his subjects ; while the Prince was thought so ill of that his rule was dreaded. The leading statesmen of the day were C/iarles James Fox, and William Pitt, second son of Lord Chatham. The first was a man of ability and eloquence, generous and patriotic, but a gambler, and disliked by the King as the companion and supposed corrupter of the Prince of Wales. Pitt, the rival of Fox, and his equal in talents and eloquence, had become prime minister in his twenty-fifth year, and his power surpassed even that of his father. 7. War of the French Revolution. — In 1789 there began in France the political troubles which led to the Great French Revolution, in which the King, Louis XV L, lost both his crown and his life, and a Republic was set up. Pitt was at first inclined to leave France to arrange its own affairs ; but as the Republicans plainly showed an intention to extend theii 2*4 GEORGE III. [chap. principles by force of arms, and their violence and crimes culled forth a strong feeling against them among the English upper and middle classes, war broke out, the French being the first to declare it. Admiral Eai'l Huwe, on the ist June, j 794j gained a hard- won battle in the Channel, and the English felt justly proud of the humanity they had shown in saving the lives of drowning enemies, whose government had only five days before forbidden quarter to be given to any Englishman or Hanoverian. But the land operations were for the most part signal failures, and Great Britain, some of her allies having fallen off, sought, but ineffectually, for peace. There was much discontent at home ; while the government was harsh and even arbitrary, and the cost of the war was heavy, the Bank of England being, in February 1797, so drained that it stopped cash payments. Next month came the news that on the 14th February Sir John Jervis, with only fifteen sail of the line to the enemy's twenty-five, had defeated, off Cape St. Vincent, the fleet of Spain, then in alliance with France. In this action two ships were boarded and taken by Commodore Horatio Nelson, the greatest of the many great sailors of Britain. But the trust of the nation in its navy received an alarming shock from the sudden mutiny of the Channel Fleet, when ordered to sea. The sailors were not without grievances to excuse them. The Crown had a right to impress seamen, and the press- gangs, hated and feared in every port, carried men off by force to the King's ships, where the pay was small and the food bad. The sailors demanded an increase of wages to be secured to them by statute, and a pardon ; and, after some delay, Lord Howe was sent to meet the mutineer leaders with the required Act and the King's pardon in his hand. On the 17th May the fleet put to sea. A second and more violent mutiny broke out in the ships at the Nore, but, as this did not extend to the other fleets, obedience x li . ] WA R OF THE FR ENCH RE VOL UTION. 2 1 5 was re-established in a few weeks, and the ringleaders were tried and executed. The sailors made ample atonement by fighting valiantly in the victory won October nth, by Admiral Adam Duncan, off Camperdown, over Admiral Van Winter and the fleet of the Dutch, who at that time formed a Republic dependent upon France. For the next eighteen years the history of Europe is the history of Napoleon Buonaparte, who by surpassing military genius raised himself to be despotic ruler of France, and annexed or reduced to vassalage all the western part of the Continent of Europe. In 1798, when he was still only a general of the French Republic, he undertook an expedition to Egypt, escaping on his passage Nelson and the English fleet, who were looking out for him. After Buonaparte had landed, Nelson found the French fleet lying in the Bay of Aboukir, and there defeated it in the great Battle of the Nile, August 1, 1798. Being wounded in the head, he was carried below, when the surgeon left the patient then under his hands to attend to him. " No ! " said Nelson, " I will take my turn with my brave fellows." For this victory he was created Baron Nelson of the Nile. Acre was gallantly held against Buonaparte by Sir Sidney Smith and the Turks ; while Tip poo Sahib, Sultan of Mysore in India, an old foe of England, to whom the French gave hopes of aid, was vanquished and slain at the storming of Seringapatam by General David Baii'd. In December 1800, Russia, Denmark, and Sweden formed a confederacy to resist the code of maritime law upheld by England, but the death of the Czar soon put an end to this war, during which Nelson took or destroyed the Danish fleet in the battle of Copen- hagen. In Egypt the batde of Alexandria, March 21, 1801, was gained by Sir Ralph Abercromby over the French, who before the end of the year evacuated that country. Wearied of war, Great Britain, which had once haughtily 216 GEORGE III. [chap declined negotiation with Buonaparte, was now glad t< conclude a peace at Amicus, 1802, although nearly all hei conquests were thereby surrendered. 8. War with Buonaparte. — The peace was short-lived, a dispute about the possession of Malta leading to the re- newal of hostilities in 1803. In retaliation for the seizure of French vessels without a formal declaration of war, a practice which England maintained to be lawful, Buonaparte arrested all the English in France, 10,000 peaceful travellers, and detained them for the next eleven years. He seized Hanover, and collected troops and transports at Boulogne for the invasion of Great Britain. The nation boldly pre- pared itself for the expected struggle, nearly 400,000 volun- teers being quickly enrolled. In August 1805, Buonaparte, who had now taken the title of Emperor of the French, determined at last to cross the Channel ; but the fleet on which he counted for the protection of his transports had been chased up and down the seas by the British, and was now, together with that of his ally Spain, blockaded in Cadiz. He turned away, and swooping upon the armies of Austria and Russia, with which countries Pitt had formed a coalition, laid them prostrate. Lord Nelson, meanwhile, as soon as the French and Spanish fleets came out, attacked them off Trafalgar, October 21, 1805, hoisting, before the action began, the famous signal, "England expects every man to do his duty." Proudly careless of his life, he stood on the deck of his ship, the Victory, with the stars of the different orders with which he had been invested glittering on his breast, thus making himself a mark for the enemy's riflemen. In the heat of the action he received his death-wound from a musket ball, and, though the victory was so complete as to put an end to all plans of invasion, the joy of Britain was clouded by sorrow for the loss of her hero. Another great man died early the next year — Pitt, whose heart had been XLT.] THE PENINSULAR WAR. 217 broken by Buonaparte's triumph over the coalition. The French conqueror now set himself to ruin British trade, issuing, in revenge for the blockade of the ports between Brest and the Elbe, the Berlin Decree* which declared a blockade of the British Isles, and prohibiting the Continent, as far as his power reached, from all correspondence or trade with them. Retaliatory orders were issued by the English government, and further orders by Buonaparte, till between them the whole foreign trade of neutrals was stopped. In August 1807, Copenhagen was bombarded by the British, in order to force the Danes to give up their fleet, which was understood to have been placed at the disposal of Buonaparte for an invasion of England. 0. The Peninsular War. — At last Britain found a soldier who could match Napoleon — Arthur Wellesley, who had distinguished himself in India, of which country his brother the Marquess Wellesley was Governor-general, and where he himself had carried on a successful war with the Mahratta chiefs, over whom he gained the battle of Assye, September 23, 1803. In 1808, Buonaparte having seized the kingdoms of Portugal and Spain, the Spanish patriots called upon Eng- land for help, which was promptly given, and thus began the Peniiisular War, an obstinate struggle Oi six years, in which Sir Arthur Wellesley, though not as yet opposed to Buonaparte himself, triumphed over several of his generals. On the 2 1st August he defeated the French general Jnnot at Vimiera, but his superior officer would not follow up the victory, and the enemy was allowed to evacuate Portugal under the Conve?ttion of Cintra. Towards the end of the year Sir John Moore entered Spain, but being forced to retreat, fell at Coruha, January 16, 1809. Wellesley, being soon afterwards raised to the chief command, henceforth conducted the war with great generalship. On the 28th J uly, he defeated Marshal Victor at Talavera, an achieve- 2i 3 GEORGE III. [chap. ment for which he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Wellington. He had many difficulties in carrying on the war ; for, while the French generals took by force every- thing they needed, the British generals, allies of Spain, had no such resource, and were hard put to it for provisions. His perseverance however triumphed over every obstacle. Among the celebrated actions of the war are the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and San Sebastian ; the victory of Salamanca over Marshal Marmont, July 22, 181 2 ; and that of Vitoria on the 21st June, 181 3. Step by step the French, now commanded by Marshal Soult, were driven across the Pyrenees into their own country, where the battle of Toulouse was fought, April 10, 1814; while the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, now allies of England, had already entered Paris. Buonaparte abdicated, and was allowed to hold the sovereignty of the little isle of Elba. 10. Battle of Waterloo. — Not a year had passed when Buonaparte returned to France. His old soldiers rallied round him, while the English commander-in-chief, now Duke of Wellington, and the Prussian general Bliicher, gathered their forces together in the Netherlands. After a severe engagement between the English and French at Quatre Bras, Wellington and Buonaparte joined battle near Waterloo, June 18. 1815. The day was stubbornly contested, the British standing with the utmost firmness for nearly eight hours, until the Prussians came up to their support. The Imperial Guard, the flower of Buonaparte's army, then making a desperate charge upon the British, was beaten back ; upon this, Buonaparte, seeing that all was lost, fled ; the victory, gained at a terrible cost of life, was complete, The allies thereupon entered Paris ; while Buonaparte, finding it impossible to carry out his design of escaping to the United States, surrendered himself on board the British man-of-war Bdlerophon, and was sent captive to St. Helena, where he xli.] DEATH OF GEORGE III. 219 ended his days. The conquests which were kept by Great Britain at the end of these wars were the Cape of Good- Hope, the Dutch possessions in Ceylon, and Berbice and other Dutch settlements in Guiana ; the islands of Mauritius and the Seychelles, taken from the French ; some West Indian islands, from the French and Spaniards ; and in Europe, the islands of Malta and Heligoland, the latter of which had belonged to Denmark. 11. War with the United States. Bombardment of Algiers. — In 1812 war was declared against Great Britain by the United States, who were irritated at the damage to their trade arising out of the orders issued in retaliation for the Berlin Decree, and who disputed the claim of Great Britain to impress her subjects found on board American vessels. This contest, in which the United States attempted, though without success, to conquer Canada, was brought to an end early in 181 5. The last military operation of this reign was the English and Dutch bombard- ment in 1 8 16 of Algiers, whose Dey or prince was thereby compelled to set free nearly two thousand Christian slaves. 12. Home Affairs. — The National Debt had been more than trebled by the war ; and as years of strife had impoverished all Europe, there was now scarcely any foreign market for British manufactures, and little demand for labour at home. In 1 8 16 came a season of scarcity, and with wheat rising* to famine prices, and a surplus of labour, the distress and dis- content of the people were great. The " Ltiddites" (that is, bands of workmen leagued to break the stocking and lace frames which interfered with their employment,) who had first arisen in 18 12. and had never been thoroughly put down, now revived with new violence. The blind and aged George III. died, January 29, 1820, at Windsor Castle, leaving six sons and five daughters. His eldest son, the Prince Regent, who had borne rule for the last nine years, 220 GEORGE III. [chap. had only one child, Princess Charlotte Augusta, who in 1816 married Prince Leopold 0/ Saxe-Coburg, and died the next year. 13. The Royal Marriage Act. — In 1772 was passed the Royal Marriage Act, by which the descendants of George II. (other than the issue of princesses married into foreign families) are incapacitated from marrying under the age of twenty-five without the consent of the sovereign. After that age, marriage may be contracted upon due notice, unless both Houses of Parliament signify their disapprobation. The King's anger against his brothers, the Dukes of Gloucester and of Cumberland, who had both made mar- riages which displeased him, led to this measure. 14. Irish Affairs. — In 1782 Ireland obtained the indepen- dence of its Parliament, thus ceasing to be dependent upon Great Britain, though subject to the same King. During the War of the French Revolution an association of malcontents called the United Irishmen entered into correspondence with France, from which more than one expedition was sent to their aid. Of these the most formidable, under General Hoche, was scattered by a tempest ; a smaller one in 1 798 made its way into Longford, where it was constrained to surrender, while the United Irishmen, who rose in rebellion, were put down with cruel severities. After this outbreak had been quelled, Ireland was, on the 1st January, 1801, united to Great Britain, and thenceforth sent her represen- tatives to the British Parliament. The cross of the patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick, was at the same time added to those of St. George and St. Andrew on the national flag. 15. Indian Affairs. Discoveries and Improvements. — During the long reign of George III. there were many wars in India, Hyder Ali, Rajah of Mysore, his son and successor Tippoo, and the Mahratta chiefs Scindia and Holkar, being anions the most formidable enemies. Warren Hastings^ xli.] DISCOVERIES AND IMPROVEMENTS. 221 who in 1774 became the first Governor-general, ranks as one of the greatest of English statesmen who have borne rule in the East ; and to his abilities it was owing that at the close of the American War of Independence, Great Britain, whilst losing elsewhere, had increased her power in India. Hastings was in 1786 impeached by the Commons on charges of injustice, oppression, and extortion ; but after a trial by the House of Lords, which was spun out over seven years, was acquitted. Lord Cornwallis, who became Governor-general in 1786, waged a successful war with Tippoo Sahib ; and the British dominion was still further strength- ened and extended under the governorships of the Marquess Wellesley and the Marquess of Hastings. The whole of Ceylon was also in 18 15 brought under British rule. New openings for colonization were made by the researches of Captain James Cook, who in 1768 started on the first of his voyages. In the course of these he sailed round New Zealand, which seems to have been unvisited by Europeans since its discovery by the Dutchman Tasman in 1642, and surveyed the eastern coast of New Holland or Australia, to which he gave the name of New South Wales : he also discovered New Caledo7iia. On his third voyage, in 1779, when the great navigator was at the Sandwich Islands, a. group which he had discovered and named, he was slain in a sudden fray with the natives. Among his other high merits, Cook was distinguished by the justice and fairness of his dealings with the tribes he visited, and by his care and success in preserving his crews from that former scourge of seamen, the scurvy. Some years after his death New South Wales was colonized as a place of transportation for criminals. Van Diemeiis Land or Tasmania, which had been discovered by Tasman, and New Zealand also, began to be colonized in the early part of the nineteenth century. Not less important were the triumphs of science and enterprise at home. Dr % 222 GEORGE Jh Edward Jenner, whose name should ever be remembered with gratitude, was the inventor of vaccination as a preventive of small-pox, his first experiment being made in 1796. Great advances were made in astronomy and chemistry, and vast improvements were effected in the arts of industry, which raised Britain to her present position as a manufacturing country. Navigable canals had begun to be constructed. Early in the reign of George III., James Brindley made the famous canal from Worsley to Manchester, a work of which the engineering difficulties were then thought so great that Brindley and his employer Francis Egerton, Duke of Bridgewater, were looked on as madmen for engaging in it. The manufacture of pottery was raised to a flourishing condition by J osiah Wedgwood ; and that of iron, by Dr. Roebuck's process of smelting by pit-coal instead of charcoal. Machinery was applied to spin and weave cotton, the spinning frame being first made in 1768 by Richard Ark- •wright, originally a barber of Bolton. But the crowning achievement of the age was that of the Scotsman James Wall, who, though not actually the inventor of the steam- engine, so improved it as to place a new power in the hands of mankind. Steam-boats came into use about 1812. A few years earlier, gas began to be employed, Pall Mall being first lighted with it in 1807. 16. Reforms.— Among the notable men of this reign must be named some who spent their lives in endeavouring to remedy the evils and abuses around them. John Howard is famous for his labours in the reform of prisons. Being in 1773 High Sheriff of Bedfordshire, he was shocked by the condition in which he found the gaols, and he thereupon devoted himself to the task of examining into their state throughout the country, and of calling the attention of Par- liament to them. Such inquiries were undertaken at no small hazard ; for the prisons of the time, without order or XLI. ] LITER A TURE. 2 2 3 discipline, with their inmates left at the mercy of hard and extortionate gaolers, were dens so foul and infected that to enter them was risk of life. Thomas Clarkson and William Wilbe?-force are honoured as the leaders of the party which did away with the slave-trade. Although, as was decided in 1772 by the Court of King's Bench at Westminster, slavery could not legally exist in England, her colonies, like those of other nations, employed the labour of negro-slaves, who were imported in vast numbers from Africa. Clarkson was the first who effectually stirred up public feeling against this cruel traffic, which the society of Quakers had already de- nounced. He and his associates were seconded in Parliament by Wilberforce, the son of a Hull merchant, and, at last, after agitating the matter for nearly twenty years, they succeeded in 1807 in obtaining the passing of an Act abolishing the slave-trade. Fox, although he did not live to see the measure carried through Parliament, did much towards bringing it about. Sir Samuel Romilly is distinguished for his efforts to improve the penal laws, which at that time were — nominally at least, for they were seldom executed — the most severe in Europe. Romilly, by his exertions, obtained the doing away of the punishment of death in the case of many small offences. 17. Literature— End of Eighteenth Century. — Dr. Samuel Johnson, the author of the well-known English Dictionary, reigned in the early years of George III. as a kind of literary sovereign, although as an author he belongs equally to the preceding reign. It was in 1737 that he first went up to London with his pupil Garrick, afterwards so famous as actor, to seek his fortune by writing, which was then but an an ill-paid trade. After many years of hardship, his fame became established. George III., soon after his accession, granted him a pension, and Johnson, reverenced by the new generation around him, who looked up to his judgment, and 224 GEORGE III. [chap. admired his sonorous, balanced, and Latinized style, spent the rest of his life in comfort. His biography, written by his devoted worshipper James Boswell, who noted his every word and action, has done almost as much to perpetuate his fame as any of his own works in. verse or prose. Horace Walpole, youngest son of Sir Robert, and author of the wild romance of the Castle of Otranto, showed his power chiefly in his letters, which extend over the period from 1735 to 1797, and by their liveliness and ease, their fund of gossip and anecdote, have won him the praise of " the best letter- writer in the English language." Oliver Goldsmith, an idle, good-natured, and improvident man, ever in difficulties, was the author of a novel, the Vicar of Wakefield, a poem, the Deserted Village, and a comedy, She stoops to conquer, which have all been equally popular. In 1769, during the struggle between the House of Commons and Wilkes, began to appear the famous Letters of Junius, a series of powerful and savage attacks, mainly directed against the then prime minister, the Duke of Grafton, and his friends. " Junius" — for so his letters were signed — concealed himself so well that it has never been known for certain who he was. Adam Smith, a Scotsman, published in 1766 his great work on political economy, entitled A11 Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Edwara Gibbon, the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is distinguished by the wide range of his learning, by his coldly majestic style, and by his power of grave and quiet sarcasm, which, being himself an unbeliever in Christianity, he par- ticularly delighted in directing against the early professors of the faith. The drama was enlivened by the brilliant comedies of the Rivals and the School for Scandal, which were written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In poetry there is for some time little to note except the verse of Goldsmith ; LITERATURE. 225 but in the later part of the century there arose a poet who had the vigour to discard the monotonous and mannered style which had been in vogue ever since the days of Pope. This was William Cowper, whose poems are marked by deep religious feeling, by a genuine love of nature, and by a sarcastic power hardly to be looked for in one who was morbidly sensitive, and at times afflicted with melancholy madness. He died in 1800. 18. Early Nineteenth Century Literature. — Cowper's works were the first symptoms of that awakening of the spirit of poetry which took place about the end of the eighteenth century. The times were such as make poets ; for the great upheaving of the French Revolution, which brought forth as it were a new world, and the long struggle with Napoleon, inspired new ideas of liberty and fresh ardour of patriotism. The opinions of the Jacobins, as the extreme revolutionists in France were called, took strong hold of two young poets, Robert S out hey and his great companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who however both sobered down in after-life. Southey, whose fierce republicanism had once afforded sub- jects for the witty parodies of Hookham Frere and George Canning in the Anti-Jacobin, turned into a somewhat bigoted Tory. Both he and Coleridge belonged to what was called the Lake School, of which William Wordsworth waf; the head. The circumstance of these three fellow-poets at one time all living in the Lake country gave rise to the name, which was peculiarly applicable to Wordsworth from the minuteness and truth with which he described the scenery and people of his native North. As his theory and style of poetry altogether differed from those of any writer before him, and were not of a kind to be popular, Wordsworth had to encounter much derision before his position as a man of genius was established. Thomas Campbell, whose works breathe a spirit of patriotism T O 226 GEORGE III. [chap. and a rational love of freedom, is chiefly remembered by his shorter poems, such as the spirited songs of Ye Mariners of England, written in expectation of war with Denmark, and the Battle of the Baltic, commemorating Nelson's attack on Copenhagen in 1801. Sir Walter Scott was long the most popular poet of his day, and when he lost that position, he became the most popular novelist. In 1805 he surprised the world by the wild warlike vigour of the Lay of the Last Minstrel. This was followed up by other metrical romances of Scottish and English chivalry. More perhaps was done by Scott than by anyone else to call forth that appreciation of the literature, art, feelings, and manners of the Teutonic and Celtic races which was gradually dis- placing the exclusive admiration of Greek and Roman an- tiquity. He took to prose when he saw that his poetical renown was waning before that of a younger rival. This was George Gordon, Lord Byron, whose first cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, published in 181 2, had such immediate success that, as he himself said, he woke one morning and found himself famous. Byron led a wild and unhappy life, and, splendid as his poems are, they are marred by moral faults which increased with his years. In 1824, when only thirty-six years of age, he died at Mesolongi, whither he had gone to fight for the Greek patriots against Che Turks. His friend Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose peculiar religious and social opinions had made him so unpopular that he left England, had been drowned in the Mediterranean two years earlier. Shelley has been called " the Poet of Poets," because his writings, though not suited to ordinary minds, can be appreciated by those who are themselves poets. In prose the most notable works of the time were Scott's Waverley Novels, by which he won a still higher place than that to which he had attained as a poet. Waverley , the first of the set, was published anonymously in XLi.] PAINTING. 227 1814, and was quickly followed by a host of other novels and romances. Those in which he drew the characters of his countrymen, of Scottish Jacobites and Scottish Puritans, are considered to be his best. Another novelist, in a very different line, was Jane Austen, who represented the ordinary uneventful life of the English middle classes with exquisite truth and humour. 19. Painting. — Nothing has hitherto been said about painting, because England was behindhand in the art, and it was not until the time of the Georges that a native school was formed. The most famous names in the early history of painting in England are those of foreigners. Hans Holbein, whose flattering portrait of Anne of Cleves had a share in leading Henry VIII. to send for her as his bride, was a German. Sir Anthony Vandyck, the great artist who has preserved for us the features of Charles I. and his nobles, was a native of Antwerp. The Vandeveldes, father and son, both noted sea-painters, belonged to Holland, from which country the elder one was invited by Charles II. Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey Kneller, the first of whom portrayed the beauties of the court of Charles II., the other, those of the court of William III., were Germans. There were indeed some good native painters, such as Willium Dobson, who has been called the English Vandyck ; Robert Walker, who painted Cromwell and most of his officers ; and Samuel Cooper, a fine miniature painter of the days of the Commonwealth and Charles II. But after these, portraiture, and indeed all branches of painting, went down, until an eminent artist arose in William Hogarth, who flourished under George II. He was the son-in-law of Sir James Thornhill, a. painter much in request during the reigns of Anne and George I. for the decoration of palaces and public buildings, whose best works adorn the dome of St. Paul's and the hall of Greenwich Hospital. Q 2 228 GEORGE III. [chap. Hogarth struck out a style of his own, painting satirical scenes, sometimes humorous, sometimes gloomy and tragic ; and his pictures, drawn from the life of all classes, are records of the costume and the manners of his age. In 1768, four years after Hogarth's death, was founded the Royal Academy, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great portrait-painter of England, was the first president. Reynolds is accounted the founder of the English school of painting. Other noted artists of the time are Richard Wilson, a painter of landscape, and Thomas Gainsborough, of land- scape and portraits. Among the many pictures of Benjamin West, who was born in Pennsylvania, then a British colony, and who became the favourite artist of George III., one of the most celebrated is the Death of General Wolfe, in which, instead of representing the figures in ancient Greek or Roman costume, as was then the fashion with painters, he had the good sense to depict them in dresses such as they actually wore. The successor, though not the equal, of Reynolds in portraiture was Sir Thomas Lawrence, who, from the early part of the nineteenth century until his death in 1830, possessed the public favour. Sir David Wilkie, a wScotsman, drew admirable scenes of village and farmhouse life ; and the great landscape painter Joseph Mallord William Turner was in the middle of his career at the end of the reign of George III. Thomas Bewick, a Northum- brian, is famous for his beautiful woodcuts of beasts, birds, and rural scenes. XLii.] GEORGE IV. 229 CHAPTER XLII. GEORGE IV. George IV. ; Cato Street Conspiracy (i) — Queen Caroline {2)— foreign affairs ; battle of Navarino (3) — li Catholic Emancipation''' (4) — • death of George IV. ; Metropolitan Police force ; Burmese War {$). 1. George IV., 1820-1830. — Within a month of the acces- sion of the Prince Regent as George IV., discovery was made of a plot, which is known as "the Cato Street" or " Thistlewood Conspiracy" for assassinating the King's ministers at a Cabinet dinner. On this charge the ringleader, Thistlewood, was hanged, together with four accomplices. 2. Queen Caroline. — In 1795, when still Prince of Wales, George, yielding to his fathers demand, and tempted by the prospect of payment of his debts, had married his cousin, Caroline Princess of Brunswick-Wolf enbiittel, an indiscreet and coarse-mannered woman, from whom he soon separated. Not long after his accession, a bill of pains and penalties was brought in by the ministry to degrade and divorce her on charges of misconduct. After an examination of witnesses before the House of Lords, the bill was finally abandoned, to the delight of the populace, who were all on the Queen's side. But the King was determined to resist her claim to be crowned as his consort, and in this he was supported by the Privy Council. The Queen, being resolved to be present at the coronation, appeared early on the morning of the cere- mony before the doors of Westminster Abbey, but was everywhere refused admission. Not long after this humi- liation she was taken ill, and died August 7, 1821. 3. Foreign Affairs. — The foreign policy of Great Britain during this period, particularly when guided by George Canning, diverged from that of her allies, Austria, Russia, 230 GEORGE IV. [chap. and Prussia. These, having joined together in the "Holy Alliance" as they called it, made themselves the opponents of revolution, and of reform won by revolution, throughout Europe ; while England refused to assent to the principle of interference in the internal affairs of other states. The last official act of Canning as prime minister was to settle a treaty between Great Britain, France, and Russia, with the view of putting a stop to the cruel warfare carried on by the Turks in Greece, which had risen against their yoke. The hope that the object of the treaty would be attained without fighting was not realized, for the allied fleet and that of the Turks and Egyptians came unexpectedly to a battle in the port of Navarino (October 20, 1827), when the Turkish fleet was in great part destroyed. 4. Catholic Emancipation. — The chief measure of this reign was the Catholic Emancipation Act. Till the reign of George III. the Papists had remained subject to penal laws of such severity that the great lawyer Blackstone could find no better defence for them than that they were seldom put in force. But by later statutes many of these restrictions and penalties had been removed from those Romanists who would take a certain prescribed oath, and at last all grades in the army and navy were virtually opened to them. From both Houses of Parliament, and from certain offices, fran- chises, and civil rights, they were still shut out by the oath of supremacy, and by the declarations required of members of Parliament and holders of such offices against transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, and the sacri- fice of the mass. On the Union with Ireland, Pitt thought himself bound to remove these disabilities ; but King George III. made it a point of conscience to refuse to entertain such a measure. Canning was always in favour of the emanci- pation, but after his death in 1827 the hopes of the Romanists were cast down by the accession to office of xi.ii.] DEATH OF GEORGE IV. a ministry opposed to their claims. About the same time, the " Catholic Association " in Ireland showed its power by the election of the popular Roman Catholic politician Daniel CConnell to a seat in Parliament. It was now felt necessary by the ministry to bring in a bill for ad- mitting Romanists to Parliament, to all civil and military offices and places of trust or profit under the Crown (except those of Regent, Lord Chancellor in England and Ireland, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and a few others), and to corporate offices, upon their taking an oath to support the existing institutions of the State, and not to injure those of the Church. The Duke of Wellington, who was at that time prime minister, avowed in the House of Lords that he had brought forward this measure in order to avert civil war. The bill received the royal assent on the 1 3th April, 1829. In the previous year a concession had been made to the Protestant Dissenters by repealing so much of the Corporation and Test Acts as required persons taking office to communicate according to the rites of the Church of England. 5. Death of George IV. — The King, who passed the latter years of his life in seclusion, died at Windsor Castle, June 26, 1830. During his reign the laws relating to the trial and punishment of offences were consolidated and amended the penalties being made less severe, but more certain ; and the Metropolitan Police force, which greatly increased the security of London, was established in 1829 by Mr. (after- wards Sir Robert) Peel, who was at that time Secretary of State. For about two years, from 1824 to 1826, the English in India were at war with their neighbours the Burmese, each side having gradually extended their possessions till they met those of the other. The war ended successfully for the Bri- tish, who gained some territory thereby. George IV. was suc- ceeded by his brother William Henry, Duke of Clarence. 232 WILLIAM IV. [chap. CHAPTER XLIII. WILLIAM IV. William IV. ; the Reform Bill; new party names (i) — Abolition of Slavery (2) — death of King William ; Hanover separated from Great Britain ; refor?ns ; East India Company (3) — burning of the Houses of Parliament (4) — railways ; Stephenson (5). I. William IV., 1830-1837. The Reform Bill. — William Duke of Clarence, who had passed his early life in the navy, came to the throne in troublous times. Soon after his ac- cession, rick-burning and machine-breaking spread alarm through the Southern agricultural counties ; and the great question of Parliamentary Reform was pressing for im- mediate consideration. The system of parliamentary ?-e- prese?itation had long stood in need of reform. New towns had sprung up, but they were unrepresented ; ancient but decayed boroughs, containing perhaps seven, six, or even one elector, still returned members. The property in such boroughs was, in the majority of in- stances, in the hands of some one large owner, by whom the elections were controlled, and whose influence and nomination were notoriously bought and sold ; elec- toral rights were various, and in most towns a small corporation, open to control and corruption, exclusively pos- sessed them. The necessity of improving upon this state of things had been seen by many politicians, among them the two Pitts, the younger of whom had three times brought forward plans 'of reform. But it was not until 1816 that, mainly owing to the cheap publications of William Cobbett, Reform became a popular cry, and clubs sprang up in which xliii.] * THE REFORM BILL. 233 universal suffrage and annual parliaments were advocated. These, and more violent projects, tending at times to riot and insurrection, had led to the adoption of stringent provisions for repressing sedition. Nevertheless, during the Regency and the reign of George IV., the question of Reform had been raised at intervals in Parliament, and the public desire for it continued to increase. This feeling had been strongly displayed at the elections for the new Parliament ; and great was the indignation at finding from the King's speech, and the language held by the Duke of Wellington, that no Reform was to be looked for from the Government. Such was the ferment that the King was advised against going in state to dine at the Guildhall, as usual at the be- ginning of a reign, 'and Wellington and Peel resigned office a few days afterwards, when they were succeeded by a ministry under the leadership of Earl Grey. On the 1st March, 1831, Lord John Russell, on the part of the new Government, brought in a Reform Bill, which was so much more sweeping than had been expected that it was received by the Opposi- tion with mingled amazement and scorn. The ministry, being defeated, prevailed on the King to dissolve the Parliament. A new House of Commons, elected to the cry of " The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill" sent the desired measure up to the Lords, by whom it was rejected. In- cendiary fires, and riots at Derby, Nottingham, and Bristol, marked the autumn of 1831, whilst public excitement became general and intense. A third Reform Bill was brought in by the ministry, and passed by the Commons ; and on finding both the Crown and the people against them, the Peers were at last induced to give up their opposition to the measure, which became law, June 7, 1832. Reform Bills were also passed for Scotland and Ireland. By the Act of 1832, fifty-six boroughs were disfranchised, and forty- three new ones, together with thirty county constituencies, 234 WILLIAM IV. [chap. were created ; a lol. householder qualification being esta- blished in boroughs, and the county franchise extended to copyholders, leaseholders, and tenant occupiers of premises of certain values. The Reformed Parliament, the object of great hopes and greater fears, met January 29, 1833. Setting vigorously to work, it passed several important Acts ; with- out however realizing the forebodings of the anti-Reform party, who had thought a revolution was at hand. It was about the beginning of this reign that the Tories took the name of Conservatives, as denoting that they sought to pre- serve the ancient institutions of the country. Their political opponents were already known by the name of Liberals. That of Radical had come up about 1818, being then applied to those who desired a radical reform of Parliament. 2. Abolition of Slavery. — Although the slave-trade had been put down wherever English power reached, slavery still existed in the Colonies. In August, 1833, was passed a measure of which Englishmen are justly proud — the Act for the Abolition of Slavery, at the cost of twenty millions sterling in compensation to the slave-owners. 3. Death of King William. — The King died at Windsor Castle, June 20, 1837. By his wife Princess Adelaide ofSaxe- Meiningen, he had two daughters, who both died in infancy. He was succeeded on the throne of Great Britain and Ire- land by her present Majesty, Alexand?'ina Victo?'ia, the only child of his brother Edward Duke of Kent. The succession to the throne of Hanover (which in 181 5 had been constituted a kingdom) being limited to the male line, that country passed to Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, fifth son of George III., and thus became separated from Great Britain. Among the important Acts of this reign are those for the reform of the poor-laws and of municipal corporations. Alter- ations were also made in the constitution of the East India Company. The government of the British territories in India XLi I [. ] RAIL WA YS. 235 remained in its hands, but it ceased altogether to be a com- mercial body. 4. The Houses of Parliament. — On the 16th October, 1834, the Houses of Parliament were accidentally burned down. Westminster Hall was happily saved from the destruction. In the next reign the Parliament houses were replaced by the present building, the work of Sir Charles Barry. 5. Railways. George Stephenson. — The autumn of 1830 is memorable for the opening of the Liverpool a7id Man- chester Railway, on which passenger carriages were drawn by a locomotive steam-engine at the speed of a race-horse. Neither the road nor the engine were wholly new things ; for wooden tramways had been used in collieries as early as the 17th century, while many of the improvers of the steam-engine had thought of turning it to locomotive purposes, and some had succeeded in so doing. But no one had made locomotives at once economical and efficient before George Stephenson, who by degrees greatly improved both engines and roads. Stephenson was a self-taught Northumbrian, who from an engine-fireman had risen to be engineer of a colliery near Killingworth, and who amongst his other inventions had devised a safety-lamp for the use of miners, upon the same principle as that constructed about the same time by the great chemist Sir Humpluy Davy. Still, with all that Stephenson had yet done, the advantages of locomotives were doubted, so that many would have preferred to use horses on the new Liverpool and Manchester line. But steam-power carried the day, and Stephenson and his son Robert constructed the famous engine " Rocket." From that time dates the use of railways and railway engines, whose promoters had once been jeered at for thinking that a speed of twenty miles an hour might possibly be attained with safety, and that stage-coaches and post-chaises might be superseded. 236 VICTORIA. [chap. CHAPTER XLIV. VICTORIA. Quten Victoria; the Prince Consort (1) — abandonment of the protective duties on corn (2) — the Chartists (3) — wars in China, India, and elsewhere; the Crimean War (4) — the Indian Mutiny ; Chinese wars ; the Abyssinian expedition (5) — Canada (6) — legislation ; penny postage ; newspapers ; parliamentary reform ; legislation for Ireland (7) — Arctic voyages; the Franklin expedition ; inventions (8) — literature (9). 1. Victoria, 1837. — Although called to the throne in a time of political restlessness and discontent, Queen Victoria, then only eighteen years of age, was received by her subjects with warm loyalty. On the 10th February, 1840, her Majesty mar- ried her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Got ha. The Prince, whose public and private conduct gained him the respect of the whole nation, died December 14th, 1861. 2. The Repeal of the Corn Laws. — The chief question of the time was the repeal of the Corn Laws, or laws laying heavy duties on the importation of foreign corn. Many upheld these restrictions, on the ground that home agricul- ture ought to be encouraged, or protected, by keeping up the price of corn, and that a country ought, as far as might be, to depend upon itself for its supply of food. On the other side, those who held Free-trade doctrines argued that the effect of the Corn Laws, so far as they were operative, was to set, for the benefit of the landowners, an artificial limit to the wealth and population of the kingdom in general. A number of zealous free-traders, in 1839, formed an association, the Anti-Corn-Law League, which employed itself in enlighten- ing, by speech and writing, the public mind as to the ill effect xliv.] REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS. 237 of protective laws. The League gradually made way ; but it was not till 1846, when the failure of the potato-crop was threatening a fearful famine in Ireland, that its cause triumphed, the leader of the Conservatives, Sir Robert Peel, then prime minister, bringing in and carrying, to the dismay of many of his party, bills for abolishing, or reducing to a merely nominal amount, the duties on foreign corn, cattle, and other productions. This repeal of the corn duties, though carried in 1846, did not come into complete operation till 1849. The honour of the measure was attributed by Peel to Richard Cobden, the foremost of the free-trade politicians, whose doctrines — that every man and every nation should be free to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market, without the laws interfering to favour some particular class of producers — are now recognised and acted upon in Great Britain. 3. The Chartists. — Side by side with the Corn-law struggle went the Chartist agitation. The Chartists were for the most part working men, who suffered from the dis- tress then generally prevailing, and who looked to further reforms in the system of parliamentary representation for the means of mending their condition. Their name came from their "People's Charter" the document in which they set forth their demands — universal suffrage, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, the division of the country into equal electoral districts, "the abolition of the property qualifica- tion of members, and payment for their services. After some rioting in 1839, the Chartists remained tolerably quiet until 1848, when, excited by the revolutions which took place that year in France and other parts of the Continent, they determined to make show of their strength. Muster- ing on the 10th April, on Kennington Common, they de- signed to march through London to the House of Commons, carrying a petition embodying their demands, which they 23* VICTORIA. [chap. boasted, though not with truth, to bear more than five million signatures. This was to be presented by Feargus O "Connor ; one of the members for Nottingham. Both the Government and the great body of the people met this threatening move- ment with firmness. The Londoners, to the number of a quarter of a million, enrolled themselves as special con- stables ; the Chartists were not allowed to recross the bridges in procession, and the whole affair passed off quietly, without the troops which the Duke of Wellington had posted out of sight, but at hand, having any need to show themselves. From this time the Chartists ceased to be of any importance as an organized body ; but three of the reforms for which they contended have sinct been carried out by the Acts which abolished the property qualifications, and granted well-nigh universal suffrage, and vote by ballot. 4. Wars in China, India, and elsewhere. The Crimean War. — The wars of this reign hitherto have been waged in distant parts of the world. In 1840, England, together with other powers, took the part of the Sultan against Mohammed Ali, Pasha of Egypt, and Acre was bom- barded and taken by the fleet under Admiral Stopford and Commodore Napier. In this action war- steamers were employed for the first time. In the same year a war with China arose out of the attempts of the Chinese Imperial Government to put down the contraband trade in opium carried on between India and that country. One of the results was the cession of the island of Hong-Koiig to Great Britain. A war which began in 1838 in Afghanistan is memorable for the disasters which befell the British troops in occupation of that country. Forced by a rising of the natives to retreat from Cabul, in 1842, they were cut off almost to a man in the mountain passes. After these misfortunes had been retrieved, a war with the Ameers of Sind broke out in 1843, of which the result XLiv.] THE INDIAN MUTINY. 239 was the conquest of that country by Sir Charles Napier, a soldier trained in the Peninsular War, who further distin- guished himself by the success with which as Governor he ruled the territory he had won. At the end of 1845, and again in 1 848, there were wars with the Sikhs of the Pun- jaub, ended by the victory of Goojerat, won by Lord Gougk, February 2 1 st, 1849, and the annexation of the Punjaub to the British dominions. To these was added, in 1852, the province of Pegu, taken from the Burman Empire. In 1854, Great Britain and France, afterwards joined by the King of Sardinia (now of Italy), engaged, on behalf of the Turks, in a war with Russia, which was mainly carried on in the Crimea. The chief actions were the victories of the Alma, September 20th, and of Inkerman, November 5th. During the winter the British army investing Sebastopol, ill supplied with food or shelter, in the bitterest weather, underwent grievous suffering and loss. The siege lasted 349 days, at the end of which time the place was evacuated by the Russians in September 1855 ; and in the course of the next year peace was made. 5. The Indian Mutiny. Chinese Wars. The Abys- sinian Expedition. — Early in 1857 the mutiny of the Sepoys, or native soldiers of the East India Company's army, excited by a mistaken idea that some interference with their religion was intended, came like a thunder-clap upon the English. The regiments at Meerut, having risen in mutiny, and killed a number of English men and women, •marched into Delhi, where, amid like slaughters, they pro- claimed its nominal King as Emperor of Hindustan. At Cawnpore the European garrison were treacherously slain, after having surrendered on terms to the rebel Nana Sahib, who, upon the approach of General Henry Havelock's troops, proceeded to murder all the English women and children in his hands. After entering Cawnpore, Havelock, who had 240 VICTORIA. [chap. inflicted many defeats upon the mutineers, succeeded, in company with Sir James Ontram, in relieving the beleaguered garrison of Lucknow. There the two generals remained until Sir Colin Campbell, afterwards Lord Clyde, came to their aid, and, forcing his way in, brought off the garrison, together with the sick, the women, and children. The mutiny, which had at first threatened the overthrow of the British dominion, was put down in the course of the next year, when, by Act of Parliament, August 2nd, 1858, the government of India was transferred from the Company to the Crown. Among military matters there only remain to note fresh quarrels with China in 1856, and again in i860, when the allied English and French entered Pekin ; the formation of the Volunteer force in 1859, under the fear of a French invasion ; and the successful Abyssinian Expedition, sent out in 1867, under the command of Sir Robert Napier (now Lord Napier of Magdald), to rescue certain British subjects and other Europeans held captive by Theodore King of Abyssinia. 6. Canada. — The beginning of the reign found Lower Canada in a state of discontent, which soon broke out into revolt. Peace however was before long restored, and a better system of policy was established. At a later period, in 1867, the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were by statute federally united into one Dominion under the name of Canada, with a constitution similar in principle to that of Great Britain and Ireland, bein^ ruled by a Governor- General in the name of the Queen, and two Houses of Parliament. 7. Legislation. — In 1840 the scheme proposed by Mr., afterwards Sir Rowland Hill, for the carriage of letters throughout the United Kingdom at uniform rates, now well known as the " penny postage? was put into practice. The immediate consequence was that the number of letters sent xliv.] LEGISLATION. 241 through the post was more than doubled, the former high rates of postage having acted as a check on letter writing. In 1855 the stamp duty on newspapers ceased to be compul- sory. In 1858 an Act was passed empowering either House of Parliament to modify, in the case of Jews, the oath re- quired to be taken by members. The House of Commons has availed itself of the provisions of this Act to admit Jewish representatives. In accordance with a prevalent desire for further parliamentary reforms, a new Reform Bill was in 1867 brought in and carried by the Conser- vative ministry then in power, of which the chiefs were the Earl of Derby and Mr. Disraeli. By this, which became law August 15th, 1867, a vote was given, in boroughs, to all ratepayers and to persons occupying lodgings of the yearly value of 10/., and the county franchise was greatly extended. By an Act passed in 1872, votes in parliamentary elections are to be given by ballot, instead of open voting, as hereto- fore. In 1869 and 1870 great changes were made in Irela?id by measures carried by the Liberal ministry under the leader- ship of Mr. Gladstone. By one Act the Irish Church was disestablished ; and by another, out-going tenants became entitled to compensation in respect of improvements made by them on their holdings. 8. Discoveries and Inventions. — From 1818 fresh efforts had been made to find a north-west passage, and Sir Edward Parry and Sir John Franklin explored far into the Arctic regions. Franklin's last expedition was made in 1845, and from this neither he nor his companions ever returned. After several expeditions under various leaders in search of him, in the course of which at least three north-west pas- sages have been discovered, Captain (now Sir Leopold) Af'Clintocfc, who went out in 1857, found at Point Victory a paper which had been left there in 1848 by the then survivors of the Franklin party, recording the death of Sir John in T R 242 VICTORIA. [CHAP. XLIV. 1847, and the subsequent abandonment of their ice-beset vessels. The various branches of science have been culti- vated with ardour and success during the present period. Early in the reign photography and electric telegraphs were brought into use ; the latter have since been greatly de- veloped, and more than one submarine cable has been laid down from Ireland to America. 9. Literature. — Among authors (living writers not being taken into account), Thackeray, Dickens, and Lord Lytton are to be noted as novelists. Thomas Arnold and George Grote are distinguished for their histories of Rome and Gi-eece; Henry Hart Miiman, Dean of St. Paul's, for the History of Latin Christianity. Henry Hallam, author of the Consti- tutional History of England, is characterized by his judicial impartiality ; Lord Macaulay, who tells, from the point of view of a Liberal politician, the story of the Revolution of 1688, combines the brilliancy of romance with many of the best qualities of an historian ; while the labour and research of Kemble, Paigrave, and Lingard have all likewise tended to give us more accurate and vivid ideas of the earlier History of England. INDEX, Abolition of Slavery, Act for the, 234. Abyssinian expedition, 240. Acre, defence of, 215 ; bombardment of, 238. ^Elfgifu, or Elgiva, 18. ./Elfheah, or St. Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, 20. ^Elfthryth, or Elfrida, 19. ./Ethelbald, Kin?, 12. iEthelbert, King of Kent, conversion of, 9 ; laws of, 14. .(Ethelbert, King, 12. ./Ethelred I., King, 12. i^Ethelred II., King, 19, 20. /Ethelstan, King, 16. yEthehvulf, King. 12. Aghrim, battle of, 186. Agricola, Cnseus Julius, 3. Aidan, St., Bishop of Lindisfarne, 10. Aix la-Chapelle, Peace of, 201, 202. Alban, St., 4. Albert, Prince Consort, 236. Alexandria, battle of, 215. Alfred, or /Elfred, Kii'g, 12; reign, 13 ; death, 15. Alfred, son of yEthelred, 22, 23. Algiers, bombardment of, 219. American War of Independence, 212. Amiens, Peace of, 216. Angles, 1, 5, 9. Anglo-Saxons, 5. Anne, Queen (Princess of Denmark), 177, 179, 189; reign, 191 ; death, 195. Anne ot Bohemia, Queen (wife of Richard II.), 83. Anne Boleyn, Queen (wife of Henry VIII.), 116— 118. Anne of Cleves, Queen (wife of Henry VIII), 118, 227. Anne Neville, Queen (wife of Richard III.), 102, 103, 106, 108. Anselm, St., Archbishop of Canter- bury, 41, 43, 44. Anson, Commodore, voyage of, 200. Antoninus Pius, Emperor, 4. Architecture, 31, 65, 183. Arkwright, Richard, 222. Armada, the Spanish, 137. Arthur, British prince, 6, 86, 113. Arthur of Britanny, 56. Arthur, Prince of Wales, marriage and death of, 113. Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, 84. 85. 9i- Assye, battle of, 217. Athenree, battle of, 73. Atterbury, Francis, Bishop of Roches- ter, 198. Augustine, St., Archbishop of Canter- bury, 9. Australia, 221. Austria, Leopold, Duke of, 54. Austrian Succession, War of the, 200. Azincourt, battle of, 93. Babington, Anthony, 135. Bacon, Francis, 143, 147. Baffin's Bay discovered by Bylot and Baffin, 145. Balliol, John, King of Scots, 68. Bank of England, founded, 187 ; stops cash payments, 214. Bannockburn, battle of, 73. Barnet, battle of, 103. Baronet, title of, 144. Barons, 32, 33. Barons' Wars, with John, 58, 59 ; with Henry III ,62, 64. Beachy Head, battle of, 185. Beckf t, Thomas, Archbishop of Can- terbury, 49—51, 87, 119, R 2 244 INDEX. Bedford, John, Duke of, 91, 96, 97. Benevolences, 103, 107, 112, 143. Berlin Decree, 217, 219. Bertha (wife of King iEthelbert of Kent), 9. Bible, 81, 120, 141, 145. Black Prince, the, 78. See Edward Prince of Wales. Blake, Robert, Admiral, 160, 161, 163. Blenheim, battle of, 192. Boadicea, or Buddug, revolt of, 3. Bolingbroke, Henry of, see Henry Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Viscount, 194—196. Bombay, 169. Bonner, Edmund, Bishop of London, 125, 130, 132. Bosworth, battle of, 108. Boyne, battle of the, 186. Bradshaw, John, 156, 158, 167. Bretigny, Peace of, 78. Bridgewater, Francis Egerton, Duke of, 222 Brindley, James, 222. Britons, the, 1 — 5. Bruce, E Iward, in Ireland, 73. Bruce, Robert, a claimant of the Scottish crown, 68. Bruce, Robert, Earl of Carrick (Robert I. of Scotland), 69, 73 Brunanburh, battle of, 16 ; song of, 30. Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, 142, 143, 150. Buckingham, Henry Stafford, Duke of, 104 — 107. Buonaparte, Napoleon, 215 — 218. Burghley, William Cecil, Baron, 132. Byng, Admiral, shot, 202. Cabal, the, 171. Cabul, retreat from, 238. Cade, Jack, 98. Caesar, Caius Julius, 2. Calais, 77, 78, 131. Calcutta, Black Hole of, 204. Caledonia, 1. Campbell, Sir Colin (Lord Clyde), 240. Camperdown, battle of, 215. Canada. 203, 211, 213, 219, 240. Canning, George, 225, 229, 230. Cape St. Vincent, battle of, 214. Caractacus, or Caradoc, 2 Caroline of Brandenburg-Anspach, Queen (wife of George II.), 199, 200. Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel, Queen (wife of George IV.), 229. Catesby, Robert, 141. Catholic Emancipation Act, 230. Cecil, Robert, Earl of Salisbury, 132, 139, 142. Cerdic and Cynric, 6. Charles I. King, his journey to Spain while Prince of Wales, 143 ; reign, 149 ; beheaded, 157. Charles II., King, 107, 157 ; defeated at Worcester, 159 ; escape, 160 ; de- claration from Breda, 165 ; restora- tion, 166 ; reign, 167 ; death, 173. Charles V., Emperor, 116, 121, 128. Charles IV., King of France, 74, 76. Charles V., King of France, 79. Charles VI., King of France, 93, 96. Charles VII., King of France, 94, 96, 97- Charles, King of Spain, death of, 188. Charles XII., King of Sweden, 197. Charles Edward Stuart (the Young Pretender), 198, 201, 202. Charters, 34, 45 ; Charter of Liberties granted by Henry I., 43 ; Charter, the Great, 58, 65, 172 ; Charter of the Forest, 65 ; Confirmation of the Charters, 70. Chartists, the, 237. Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of, 200, 203, 211, 212. Clarence, George, Duke of, 102, 104. Clarence, Lionel, Duke of, 80, 88. Clarence, Thomas, Duke of, 91, 94. Clarendon, Constitutions of, 50. Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 171, 181. Claudius, Emperor, 2.' Clive, Robert, Lord, 203. Cnut or Canute, King, 20 — 22, 27. Cobbett, William, 232. Cobden, Richard, 237. Cobham, Sir John Oldcastle, Lord, 92. Commission, the High, 133, 151, 152; the Eccleshstical, 176, 178. Commons, House of, first formed, 64. Cook, Captain, 221. Copenhagen, battle of, 215, 226; bom« barded, 217. Corn Laws, 236. Cornwallis, Earl, 212, 221. Corporation Act, 168, 231. Council of the Norih, 150, 152. Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop of Can* terbury, 116, 120, 126, 130. Crecy, battle of, 76, Crimean War, 239. INDEX. 245 Oomwell, Oliver, 154, 156; in Ireland, 159 : wins the battles of Dunbar and Worcester, ib ; turns out the Long Parliament, 161 ; becomes Lord Protector, 162 ; his death, 163 ; character, 164 ; insult to his corpse, 167. Cromwell, Richard, 164. Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex, 118 — 120. Culloden, battle of, 201. Cumberland, Frnest Augustus, Duke of (King of Hanover), 234. Cumberland, William. Duke of, 201. Cuthbert, St., Bishop of Lindisfarne, Danby, Earl of, 178, 179. Danegeld, 20. Danes, the, n, 27. David I., King of Scots, 47. David II., King of Scots (David Bruce), 77. David of Wales, 67. Davis, John, 136. Davy, Sir Humphry, 235. Dermot, King of Leinster, 52. Despenser, Sir Hugh le, 73, 74, Dettingen, battle of, 200. Devonshire, Earl of, 178, 179. Dissenters, 176, 189, 231. See als/, Nonconformists. Domesday, 37. Dover, Treaty of, 171. Drake, Francis, 136 — 138. Druids, 2, 3. Dudley, Edmund, 114, 115. Dunbar, battle of, 159. Dunstan, St., Archbishop of Canter- bury, 17—19. E. East India Company, 139, 169, 203, 234, 240. Eddystone Lighthouse, 205. Edgar, or Eadgar, King, 18. Edgar, the ./Etheling, 26, 37, 43. Edgehill, battle of, 153. Edmund, or Eadmund, St., King of the East- Angles, 12, 20. Edmund the Magnificent, King, 16. Edmund Ironside, King, 2c. Edmund, son of Henry III , 62. Edrtd, or Eadred King, 17. Edward, or Eadward, the Elder, King, »5- E'dward the Martyr, King, 19. Edward the Confessor, King, 23, 24, 28 ; his laws, 43. Edward I., King, 62 — 65 ; reign, 66 ; death, 69 ; Confirmation of the Charters obtained from, 70 ; expels the Jews, 71 ; story of his massacre of the bards, 68, 209. Edward II., King, 67, 69 ; reign, 71 ; deposition, 74 ; murder, 75. Edward III., King, 74; reign, 75; death, 80. Edward IV. King (Duke of York), 100 ; reign, 101 ; death, 104. Edward V., King, reign, 104; dis- appearance of, 106 ; supposed re- mains of, discovered, 107. Edward VI., King, 118, 121; reign, 122 ; death, 125 ; schools and hos- pitals, 126. Edward, Prince of Wales (the Black Prince), 77 — 80. Edward, Prince of Wales (son of Henry VI.), 100 — 103, no. Edwin, or Eadwine, King of the Northumbrians, 9. Edwy, or Eadwig, King, 17. Egbert, or Ecgberht, King, n. Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen (wife of Henry II.), 49, 51. Eleanor of Castile, Queen (wife of Edward I.), 67, 70. Eleanor of Provence, Queen (wife of Henry III.), 61, 63. Eliot, Sir John, 150. Elizabeth, Queen (daughter of Henry VIII. ), 118, 121, 127 — 129 ; reign, 131 ; death, 139 ; literary acquire- ments, 147. E izabeth Wydevile, Queen (wife of Edward IV.), 102, 105. Elzabeth cf York, Queen (wife of Henry VII.), 108, 111. Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia (daugh- ter of James '!.), 143, 190. Elizabeth (daughter of Charles I.), 157, 158. _ Empson, Richard, 114, 115. England, name of, 1, 5. English, the, origin of, 5 ; religion, 6 ; government, 7 ; converted to Chris- tianity, 8 ; manners and customs of, 26. English language, 85. Essex, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of, 138. Essex, Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of, 153. CS4- Evesham, battle of, 64. 246 INDEX. F. Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 154, 156. Falkland. Lucius Carey, Viscount, 154. Faukr-s, Guido or Guy, 142. Feudal or military tenures, 32 ; abo- lished, 33, 167. Fitz-Gerald, Maurice, 52. Fitz-Osborn, William, 36. Fitz-Stephen, Robert, 52. Flamsteed, John, 182. Flodden, battle of, 115. Folkland, or public land, 7, 33. Fontenoy, battle of, 200. Forests, 38, 46. Fox, Charles James, 213, 223. Fox, George, 164. Francis I., King of France, 115. Franklin, Sir John, 241. Frederick, Prince of Wales, 199, 204. Fro^isher, Martin, 136, 137. Fyrd, 7. G. Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Win- chester, 120, 125, 128. Gaunt, John of, see Lancaster, Duke of. Gaveslon, Piers, 71 — 73. Geoffrey, son of Henry II., 51. George I., King (Elector of Bruns- wick-Liineburg), 194 ; reign, 195); death, 198. George II., King, 198; reign, 199; death, 204. George III., King, 204; reign, 210; death, 219 ; displeased at his bro- thers' marriages, 220 ; opposed to the Roman Catholic claims, 230. George IV., King (Prince Regent), 213, 219: reign. 229; death, 231. George, Prince of Denmark, 177, 191. Gibraltar, 192, 194, 212. Gilds, 34. Ginkell, General (Earl of Athlone), 186. Glendower, Owen, 89, 90. Gloucester, Gilbert of Clare, Earl of, 64 Gloucester, Henry, Duke of, 157, 158. Gloucester, Humfrey, Duke of, 91, 97, 98. Gloucester, Richard, Duke of, see Richard III. Gloucester, Robert of Caen, Earl of, 47—49, 86. Gloucester, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of, 80, 83, 84. Godwin, Earl of the West Saxons, 23. Great Britain^. King of, 144 ; United Kingdom ot, 193. Gregory the Great, Pope, 8. Grey, Lady Jane, 125, 127, 128, 146. Gunpowder Plot, 141. Guthrum, Danish King of East-An- glia, 13, 14. H. Habeas Corpus Act, 172, 175. Hadrian, Emperor, 4. Hamilton, Duke of, 156, 158. Hampden, John, 151 — 153. Harold I., King, 22. Harold II., King, 24 — 26. Harold Hardrada, King of the Norwegians, 25. Harthacnut, King, 22. Harvey, William, 182. Hastings, battle of, 25, 27. Hastings, Lord, beheaded, 105. Hastings, Marquess of, 221. Hastings, Warren, 220 Havelock, General Henry, 239. Hawkins, John, 136, 137. Hengest and Horsa, legend of, 5. Henrietta Maria, Queen (wife of Charles I.), 149, 153. Henry I., King (son of William I.), grants of charters, 34, 43, 45 ; attacked by his brothers, 40 ; reign, 42 ; death, 45 ; confusion after his death, 46. Henry II., King, 33, 48; reign, 49; death, 52. Henry III., King, 60; reign, 61 ; death, 65 ; begins to rebuild West- minster, 24, 65. Henry IV., King (Duke of Hereford and Duke of Lancaster), banish- ment and return of, 84; made King, 85 ; reign, 88 ; death, 91. Henry V., King, story of his imprison- ment for contempt, when Prince of Wales, 90 ; present at the burning of Badbee, 91 ; reign, 92; death, 04 ; tomb, 95. Henry VI., King, 95; reign, 96; deposition, 100 ; flight and capture, 101 : restoration, 102 ; death, 103. Henry VII., K.ing( Earl of Richmond), 107, 108; reign, n 1; death, 114; his chapel at Westminster, 66, 107, 114. Henry VIII., King, 113; reign, 115; INDEX. 247 death, 121 : attends to naval matters, 122 ; his will, 121, 122, 133, 140. Henry, son of Henry II., 50, 51. Kenry Frederick, Prince of Wales (son of James I.), 141, 143. Henry VI., Emperor, 54. Herbert, Admiral (Earl of Torrington), 178, 185. Hereford, Henry of Bolingbroke, Duke of, see Henry IV. Hereford, Humfrey Bohun, Earl of, 70. Hereford, Earl of (son of the above), 73- Hereward, 37. Honorius, Emperor, 5. Hotspur (Sir Henry Percy), 89. Howard, Charles, Lord, of Effingham, 137- Howard, John, 222. Howe, Admiral Earl, 214. Hubert de Burgh, 61. Hudson, Henry, discovers Hudson's Bay, 145. Hundred Years' War, beginning of the, 76 ; renewed by Henry V., 93 ; end of, 97. Ida, King of the Northumbrians, 6. Independents, 133, 154, 155. Indulgence, Declarations of, 176, 177. India, 14, 139, 203, 217, 220, 234, 239. Ine, King of the West Saxons, 11, 14. Innocent III., Pope, 57 — 59. Ireland, 1 ; Danes in, 12 ; slave-trade with, 28 ; English conquest of, 52 ; Bruce in, 73; Simnel in, 111; Ireland raised to the rank of a kingdom, 122 ; Church of Ireland, 133 ; Ty- rone's rebellion, 138, 139 ; planta- tion of Ulster, 144 ; rebellion of 1641, 152 ; Cromwell in, 159 ; united with the English Commonweahh, 163 ; settlement of, 169 ; Tyrconnel in, 176 ; Irishry and Englishry, 184 ; war in, 185; Irish f rleitures, 1S8 ; obtains an independent Parliament, 220 ; rebellion n. ib. ; Union with Great Britain, ib. ; Catholic Asso- ciation, 231 ; Reform Bill passed for, 233 ; famine in, 237 ; recent legis- lation for, 241. Ireton, Heniy, 156, 159, 167. Isabel of France, Queen (wife of Ed- ward II.), 72, 74, 76. J- Jacobites, 184, 194, 197 ; conspiracy for the assassination of William III., 187 ; insurrection of 1715, 196 ; of 1745, 201. Jamaica, taken by the English, 163. James I., King of Scots, 94. James IV., King of Scots, 113, 115. James V., King of Scots, 120. James I. of England and VI. of Scot- land, King, 134, 139 ; reign, 140 ; death, 143. James II., King (Duke of York), 157, 168, 170, 172,173 ; reign, 174; abdi- cation, 180 ; lands in Ireland, 185 ; at the Boyne, 186; death, 188. James Francis Edward Stuart (the Old Pretender), 177 — 179, 188, 194, 197. Jane Seymour, Queen (wife of Henry VIII.), 118. Jeffreys, Lord Chancellor, 175, 176, 179. Jenner, Dr. Edward, 222. Jersey, French attack upon, 212. Jews, 70, 164, 241. Joan of Arc, 96. John, King (son of Henry II.), 34, 52, 54, 55 ; reign, 56; death, 60. John the Good, King of France, 78. Jutes, 5, 11. Juxon, Bishop of London, 157. K. Kalendar, reform of the, 204. Katharine of Aragon, Queen (wife of Henry VIIL), 113, 116. Katharine of Braganza, Queen (wife of Charles II. ), 169. Katharine of France, Queen (wife of Henry V.), 94, 95, 107. Katharine Howard, Queen (wife of Henry VIIL), ji8. Katharine Parr, Queen (wife of Henry VIII.), 118, 123. Kent, people of, 2 ; kingdom of, 5. Labourers, Statutes of, 78, 98. La Hogue, battle of, 186, 18S. Lambert, John, 165. Lancaster, Henry of Bolingbroke, Duke of, see Henry IV. Lancaster, John of Gaunt, Duke of, 79, 80, 84, 87. 248 INDEX. Lancaster, Thomas, Earl of, 72, 73. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, 37, 39- Langton, Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, 57 — 59- Latimer, Hugh, 123, 130. Laud, William, Archbishop of Canter- bury, 150 — 152, 155. Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of, ^S, i37> *3 8 - Leicester, Simon of Montfort, Earl of, 63—65, 70. Lewes, battle, and mise of, 63. Limerick, surrender of, 186. Lincoln, John de la Pole, Earl of, 108, in, 112. Literature, 28, 86, 109, 146, 181, 206, 223, 225, 242. Llywelyn of Wales, 61, 65, 67. Lollards, 8i, 82, 91, 92, 109. London, or Londinium, burned by Boadicea, 3 ; its first bishop, 9 ; beats off the Danes, 20 ; after the battle of Hastings, 26 ; description of, 28 ; privileges of, 34 ; the Barons admitted into, 58 ; its liberties secured, 59 ; Londoners in the Barons' War, 63, 65 ; the insurgent peasants in, 82 ; Cade in, 98 ; corpo- ration founds hospitals and schools, 126 ; in the Armada year, 137 ; the Plague in, 169 ; the Great Fire of, 170 ; after the flight of James, 179 ; Protestant riots in, 213 ; metropolitan police, 231 ; the Chartists in, 238. Londonderry, siege of, 185. Longchamp, William, Bishop of Ely, 54- Lords, House of, 8, 63, 156, 157, 162, 165, 168. Louis VII., King of France, 49 — Louis, son of Philip Augustus (after- wards Louis VIII. of France), 60, 61. Louis XL, King of France, 103, 104. Louis XIV., King of France, 169 — 171, 178, 180, 183, 185, 187, 188, 192 — 194. Lucknow, relief of, 240. M. Magna Carta, or the Great Charter, 58, 65, 172. Malcolm, King of Scots, 17. Malcolm III., King of Scots, 40. Malplaquet, battle of, 193. Mar, Earl of. 196. March, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of 80. March, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of (grandson of the above), 88, 89, 92. Margaret of Anjou, Queen (wife of Henry VI.), 97, 99 — 103. Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of, 179, 191— 194. Marlborough, Sarah, Duchess of, 179, 191, 194. Marston Moor, battle of, 154. Mary I., Queen (daughter of Henry VIII.), 116, 125, 126; reign, 127; death, 131. Mary II. , Queen (wife of William 1 1 1. ), 177, 180, 184, 1S8. Mary, Queen of Scots, 121, 123, 133 —135- Mary of Modena, Queen (wife of James II.), 177, 179. Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk, 115, 121, 125, 140, 141. Matilda, the Empress, 44 — 48. Matilda of Boulogne, Queen (wife of Stephen), 48. Matilda (Edith), Queen (wife of Henry I), 43, 44- Matilda of Flanders, Queen (wife of William I.). 35. Mercia, kingdom of, 6, 10 ; earldom of, 21. Methodists, 205. Monk, George, Duke of Albemarle, 160, 161, 163, 165, 169, 170. Monmouth, James, Duke of, 173 — 175, 182. Montague, Charles, 187. Moore, Sir John, 217. More, Sir Thomas, 117, 146. Mortimer, Sir Edmund, 89. Mortimer, Roger of, 74 — 76. Mortimer's Cross, battle of, 100. Mutiny Act, 189. N. Napier, Sir Charles, 239. Naseby, battle of, 155. National Debt, 187, 204, 219. Navarino, battle of, 230. Navarrete, battle of, 79. NTson, Horatio, Lord, 214 — 216. Nevill's Cross, battle of, 77. New Forest, the, 38, 41. INDEX. 249 Newton Butler, battle of, 185. Newton, Isaac, 182, 187, 206. Nile, battle of the, 215. Nithisdale, Earl of, 197. Nonconformists, 133, 168. Nonjurors, 184. Norfolk, John Howard, Duke of, 108. Norfolk, Roger Bigod, Earl of, 70. Norfolk, Thomas Howard, Duke of, 118, 120. Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray, Duke of, 84. Normans, 15, 23, 27, 30 ; build castles and churches, 31. Northampton, battle of, 99. Northumberland, kingdom of, 6, 9 ; Danes in, 14 ; earldom of, 21. Northumberland, Henry Percy, 1st Earl of, 85, 89, 90. Northumberland, Henry Percy, 4th Earl of, 108. Northumberland, John Dudley, Duke of, 124 — 127. Northumberland, Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of, 134. North-west passage, search for the, 136, 145, 241. O. Oates, Titus, 172. O'Connell, Daniel, 231. Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury, 18. Odo, Bishop • f Bayenx, 31, 36, 39. Offa, King of the Mercians, 11, 14. Ormond, Duke of, 194, 196- Ormond, James Butler, Marquess of, 159- Oswald, King of the Northumbrians, 10. Oudenarde, battle of, 193. Outram, Sir James, 240. Oxford, Provisions of, 62. Oxford, Robert Harley, Earl of, 194 — 196. P. Painting, 227. Papists, see Roman Catholics. Paris, Treaty of, 211. Parker, Matthew, Archbishop of Can- terbury, 132, 145. Parliament, 7, 33 ; brought by Earl Simon and Edward I. into its present form, 63, 70 ; Roman Catholics shut out from, 135, 172, 230 ; money not to be levied without grant of, 189, nor a standing army kept unless by its consent, 189; necessity oi fre- quent parliaments, 189 ; oath of abjuration imposed on members, 190 , one parliament for England and Scotland, 193, and for Ireland, 220 ; duration oi parliaments, 198 ; Roman Catholics admitted to, 231; parliamentary reform, 232-234, 237, 241 ; Jews admitted to House of Commons, 241 ; Parliament de- poses Edward II., 74; the Good Parliament, 79; Parliament of 1554 reconciled with Rome, 129; the Adtlled Parliament, 143; Parliament of 1628, 150 ; the Long Parliament, 152— 161, 164—167; the Little Parliament, 162; Parliaments of the Protectorate, 162, 163 ; Convention Parliament of 1660, 165, 167 ; Par- liament of 1661, 168 ; Parliament of 1685, 175, 176 ; Convention Parlia- ment of 1689, 180 ; first Reformed Parliament, 234. Paterson, 187. Patrick, St., converts the Irish, 12. Paulinus, Bishop, 9. Pedro or Peter the Cruel, King of Castile, 78. Peel, Sir Robert, 231, 233, 237. Pembroke, Richard Clare, Earl of •(Stron^bow), 52. Pembroke, William, Earl of, 61. Penda, King of the Mercians, 10. Peninsular War, 217. Percy, Sir Hemy, called Hotspur, 89. Philip, King oi Spain, 128 — 131, 135 _ — I 37- Philip Augustus, King of France, 5i, 53—57- Philip of Valois, King of France, 76. Philippa of Hainault, Queen (wife of Edward III.), 77, 79. Picts, 4, 5. Pilgrimage of Grace, 119. Pinkie, battle of, 123. Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 200, 203, 211, 212. Pitt, William, 213, 216, 230, 232. Plassy, battle of, 204. Poitiers, battle of, 78. Pole, Reginald, Cardinal, 119, 129, 131. Poor Laws reformed, 234. Popish Plot, 172, 206. Praemunire, Statute of, 85. Presbyterians, 154, 155, 165, 172. Press, censorship of, 189. 25° INDEX. Preston, battle of, 156 ; Jacobites de- feated at, 197. Pretender, the Old (James Francis Edward Stuart), 177 — 179, 188, 194, 197. Pretender, the Young (Charles Edward Stuart), 198, 201, 202. Printing, 108, 109. Protestants, 118 ; persecution of, 129 ; extreme Protestants called Puritans, 132 ; foreign Protestants succoured by Elizabeth, 13^, 135 ; by Cromwell, 163 ; French Pro- testants, 183 ; Protestants in Ireland, 185 ; Protestant succession settled, 190 ; Protestant riots, 213. Punjaub annexed, 239. Puritans, 132, 133, 135, 141, 144, 151, 153, 154, 161, 164, 166, 181. Purveyance and pre-emption, preroga- tive of, 59, 167. Pym, John, 152. Riot Act, iq6. Rivers, Anthony Wydevile, Earl, 105 109. Robert, Duke of Normandy (son of William I.), 38—41,43. Roderick, King of Connaught, 52. Rodney, Admiral Sir George, 212. Rolf, Rollo, or Rou, Duke'of the Nor- mans, is. Roman Catholics, 118, 132, 134, 137, 141, 142, 168, 172, 175, 186, 189, 230. Romans, r — 5. Romilly, Sir Samuel, 223. Roses, Wars of the, 99. Royal Marriage Act, 220. Royal Society founded, 182. Rupert, Prince, 153, 154, 170. Russell, Admiral, 178, i36. Russell. William, Lord, beheaded, 173. Rye-house Plot, 173. Ryswick, Peace of/187, 188. Quakers, or Friends, 164, 223. Quebec, taking'of, 203. R. Ralegh, Sir Walter, 136, 141—143, 147. Ralf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, 32, 40. R undies, battle of, 192. Reform Hill of 1832, 233 ; of 1867, 241. Renard, Simon, 128, 129. Revolution of 1688, 180. Richard I., King (son of Henry II.), 51 ; reign, 53 ; death, 55 ; le- gendary fame, ib. Richard II., King, reign, 81; depo- sition, 85 ; uncertain death, 88 ; burial, 88, 92. Richard III., King (Duke of Glou- cester), 103 — 105 ; reign, 106 ; killed at Bosworth, 108. Richard, King of the Romans (Earl of Cornwall), 60, 63. Richm >nd, Henry Tudor, Earl of, see Henry VII. Ridley, Niciioias, Bishop of London, 126, 130. Right, Declaration of, 180, 189, 206. Right, Petition of, 150. Rights, Bill of, 189. Sacheverel, Dr., 193. Saint Albans, battles of, 99, 100. Saint Paul's, cathedral church of, founded, 9 ; rebuilding begun by Bishop Maurice, 31 ; cloister pulled down, 124 ; burned and rebuilt, 170, 183 ; Thornhill's paintings in, 227. Salisbury, Margaret, Countess of, 120. Sancroft, William, Archbishop of Can- terbury, 177, 184. Sarsfield, Patrick, 186. Saxons, 5, n. Sees, 1. Scutage, 52, 58, 65. Sebastopol, taking of, 239. Sedgemoor, battle of, 174. Septennial Act, 198. Seringapatam, storming of, 215. Settlement, Act of, 190. Seven Bishops, the, 177, 184, 209. Seven Years' War, 202, 204. Severus, Emperor, 4. Seymour, Thomas, Lord, of Sudeley, 123. Shaftesbury, Earl of (Lord Ashley), 171, 182, 206. Ship money, 151, 152. Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, 193. Shrewsbury, battle of, 89. Shrewsbury, Earl and Duke of, 178, *95- Sidney, Algernon, beheaded, 173 INDEX. 251 Sidney, Sir Philip, 136, 147. Sikh wars, 239. Simnel, Lambert, 112. Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester, 63-65, 70. Sind, conquest of, 238. Siward, Earl, 27. Six Articles, Act of the, 120, 123. Slavery, 7 ; dies out, 33 ; cannot exist in England, 223; Act for bolition of, 234. Slave-trade, 28 ; negro-slave trade, 136 ; abolished, 223, 234. Smith, Sir Sidney, 215. Somerset, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of, 99. Somerset, Edward Seymour, Duke of (Earl of Hertford), 121 — 125. * Sophia, Princess, Electress of Han- over, 190, 194. South-sea .Scheme, 197. Spanish Succession, 188 ; War of the, 192, - rV -P hi. -^ v ^ V ^^X OO 1 \0 °/. ^ ^ %, - d? "* ■is' ^ V * V '^ ,#