UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS Gi I <& 3 I 3 I "7 L161 — H4I A STUDENT’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND WORKS SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER, D.C.L., LL.D. HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Accession of James I. to the Outbreak of the Civil War, 1603-1642. 10 vols. ciown 8vo. $! 20 . 00 . A HISTORY OF THE GREAT CIVIL WAR, 1642-1649. 4 vols. crown 8vo. $2.00 each. A HISTORY OF THE COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 1649-1656. 4 vols. crown 8vo S 2.00 each. THE LAST YEARS OF 1 HE PROTECTORATE, 1656-1658. By Charles Harding Firth, M.A., Reaius Profes.sor of Modtrn History in the University of Oxlord. With 3 Plans. 2 vois. bvo. $7.00 net. These Volumes aye intended to be a continuation of ihe ‘ History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate ’ which Dr. S. R. Ga> ainer left unfinished. OLIVER CROMWELL. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. ir.50 net. CROMWELL’S PLACE IN HISTORY. Crown 8vo. Si 20. A STUDENT’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. From the Earliest Timrs 10 the Death of King Edward VII. Vol. 1 . (b.c. 55-A D. i;09 ) With 173 Illustrations. 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THE FIRST TWO STUARTS AND THE PURITAN REVOL.UTlON, 1603-1660. 4 Maps. Fcp. 8vo. $1.00. THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR, 1618-1648. With a Map. Fcp. 8 VO. St. 00. AN EASY HISTORY OF ENGLAND. First Course; dealing more especially with Social History. With 49 Pictures, PUus. and Map'. Crown 8vo. S0.56. AN EASY HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Second Course ; dealing more (specially with Pol deal History. With 52 Piciures, Plans, and Maps. Crown 8vo. $0.56. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1789-1795. By Mrs. S. R. GasDiner. With 7 Maps. Fcp. 8vo. $1.00. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. Fourth Avenue and 30TH S treet. New York. A STUDENT’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE DEATH OF KING EDWARD VII BY SAMUEL R. GARDINER, D.CL, LL.D. LATE FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD ETC. NEW IMPRESSION REISSUE LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. FOURT 11 AVENUE and 30TH STREET, NEW YORK 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON BOMBAY. CALCUTTA AND MADRAS 1917 All rights r«served 'la .U-.biv; v-lDG ’Gw" "V. Cz ^ ^ ^ ni7 ^ 1 - PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION i I The present Work is intended for such students as have already an elementary knowledge of the main facts of English history, and aims at meeting their needs by the use of plain language on the one hand, and by the avoidance, on the other hand, of that multiplicity of details which is apt to overburden the memory. At the close of the book I have treated the last eleven years, 1874 to 1885, in a manner which precludes all expression of my own views, either on the characters of the actors or on the value of the work performed by them ; and something of the same reticence will be observed in the pages dealing with the years immediately preceding 1874. We have not the material before us for the formation of a final judgment on many points arising in the course of the narrative, and it is therefore better to abstain from the expression of decided opinion, except on matters so completely before the public as to leave no room for hesitation. Especially is this rule to be observed in a book addressed to those who are not yet at an age when independent investigation is possible. I hope it will be understood that in my mention of various authors I have had no intention of writing a history of litera- ture, however brief. My object has been throughout to exhibit PREFACE that side of literature which connects itself with the general political or intellectual movement of the country, and to leave unnoticed the purely literary or scientific qualities of the writers mentioned. This will explain, for instance, the total omission of the name of Roger Bacon, and the brief and, if regarded from a different point of view, the very unsatisfactory treatment of writers like Dickens and Thackeray. Those of my readers who have complained that no maps were to be found in the book may now be referred to a ‘ School Atlas of English History,’ recently edited by me for Messrs. Longmans & Go. To include an adequate number of maps in this volume would have increased its size beyond all fitting limits. In the spelling of Indian names I have not adopted the modern and improved system of transliteration. Admirable as it is when used by those who are able to give the right sound to each letter, it only leads to mispronunciation in the mouths of those who are, as most of the readers of this volume will be, entirely in the dark on this point. The old rough method of our fathers at least ensures a fair approximation to the true pronunciation. My warmest thanks are due to Mr. George Nutt, of Rugby, and to the Rev. W. Hunt. Mr. Nutt not only looked over the proof-sheets up to the death of Edward I. with ex- cellent results, but gave me most valuable advice as to the general arrangement of the book, founded on his own long experience of scholastic teaching. The Rev. W. Hunt looked over a considerable portion of the remaining proof-sheets, and called my attention to several errors and omissions which had ^.scaped my eye. The illustrations have been selected by Mr. W. H. St. John PREFACE vii Hope, Assistant-Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries. He wishes to acknowledge much valuable assistance given to him in the choice of portraits by George Scharf, Esq., C.B., F.SA., who is recognised as the highest authority on the subject. I am indebted to Her Majesty the Queen for permission to engrave two of the portraits appearing in the following pages — viz., those of Bishop Fisher, on p. 393, and the Duke of Norfolk, on p. 410 — the originals in both cases being at Windsor Castle. I have to thank Earl Spencer for permission to engrave the portrait on p. 362 ; the Earl of Essex for that on p. 476 ; the Earl of Warwick for that on p. 403 ; the Earl of Carlisle for that on p. 459 ; the Viscount Dillon, F.S.A., for that on p. 376 ; the Hon Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, K.C.B., for that on p. 365 ; Sir John Farnaby Lennard, Bart, for that on p. 463 ; Dr. Evans for those on pp. 2, 4, 6 ; Edward Huth, Esq., for that on p. 387 ; Mrs. Dent, of Sudeley, for that on p. 395 ; H. Hucks Gibbs, Esq., for that on p. 419 ; T. A. Hope, Esq., for that on p. 487 ; E B. Nicholson, Esq., for the portrait of Lord Burghley in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, engraved at p. 479 ; the authorities of the University of Cam- bridge for that on p. 477 ; of Jesus College, Cambridge, for that on p. 414 ; and of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, for that on p. 567 ; and the Treasurer of Christ’s Hospital, London, for the portrait of Charles II. on p. 579. I have also to thank Mr. John Murray for permission to engrave the figures on pp. 130, 150, 160, 166, 177, 188, 260 ; Messrs. Parker & Co., Oxford, for those on pp. 19, 51, 75, 91, 107, 128, 170, 192, 197, 230, 245, 246, 247, 253, 409, 451 ; Mr. W. Nives for those at pp. 381, 409, 451 ; Mr. J. G. Waller for those on pp. 219, 229, 292, 298, 515 ; Mr. Bruce for those on pp. 17, 18, 21 ; Messrs. Poulton & Sons, Lee, for those on pp, 7, Vlll PREFACE 132 ; Mr. G. A. Nichols, Stamford, for those on pp. 311, 316 , Mr. G. T. Clarke, for that on p. 74 ; Messrs. Carl Norman & Co., Tunbridge Wells, for that on p. 171 ; Mr. R. Keene, Derby, for that on p. 318 ; the Rev. H. H. Henson, Vicar of Barking, Essex, for the photograph of the monument of Sir Charles Montague on p. 507 ; the Science and Art Department for those on pp. 371, 440, 518, 612 ; Mr. W. H. Wheeler, of Oxford, for those on pp. 319, 384 ; Messrs. Valentine & Sons, Dundee, for those on pp. 109, 206, 213, 238, 244, 276, 355 , 378, 485, 662, 666, 668, 683, 907, 919, 937, 942 ; and Mr. R. Keene, Derby, for those on pp. 466, 467, 469, 471. CONTENTS PART I ENGLAND BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST CHAPTER 1 PREHISTORIC AND ROMAN BRITAIN PAGE 1. Palaeolithic Man of the River- Drift . . 2. Cave-dwelling Palaeolithic Man . . • • 3. Neolithic Man 4. Celts and Iberians 5. The Celts in Britain . 6. Goidels and Britons 7. Phoenicians and Greeks 8. Gauls and Belgians in Britain . . • • 9. Culture and War . 10. Religion of the Britons 11. The Romans in Gaul b.c. 55 12. Caesar’s First Invasion, b.c. iq. Caesar’s Second Invasion. B.c. 54 • „•..•.• 14. South-eastern Britain after Caesar’s Departure. B.c. 54 -A.D. 43 • : 15. The Roman Empire . 16. The Invasion of Aulus Plautius. A.D. 43 . J7. The Colony of Camulodunum 18. The Conquests of Ostorius Scapula .... 2 9 ; 10 1 10 i 1 11 i II 12 12 12 13 14 PAGE 19. Government of Suetonius Paullinus. 58 . . .14 20. Boadicea’s Insurrection. 61 15 21. The Vengeance of Suetonius 15 22. Agricola in Britain. 78-84 16 23. Agricola’s Conquests in the North . . . .16 24. The Roman Walls . . i7 25. The Roman Province of Bri- tain ^9 26. Extinction of Tribal Antago- nism . . . .21 27. Want of National Feeling . 22 28. Carausius and Allectus. 288 -296 . . • . • 29. Constantins and Constantine. 296-337 • 30. Christianity in Britain . . 23 31. Weakness of the Empire . 23 32. The Piets and Scots . . 23 33. The Saxons . . . .24 34. Origin of the Saxons . . 24 35. The Roman Defence . . 24 36. End of the Roman Govern- ment. 383-410 . .25 CONTENTS CHAPTER II THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS PAGE 1. Britain after the Departure of the Romans. 410-449 ? 26 2. The Groan- of the Britons . 26 3. The Conquest of Kent. 449? 27 4. The South Saxons. 477 . 27 5. The West Saxon? and the East Saxons . - .28 6. The Angl.ctn Settleihems . 28 7. Nature of the Conui’est . 28 8. The Cultivators of the Soil . 29 9. Eorls, Ceorls, Ge^iths . .29 10. The Gesiihs and the Vil- lagers . . . -30 11. English and Welsh . . 31 . PAGE 12. The Township and the Hun- dred. . . . .31 13. Weiegild . . . -32 14. Compurgation and Ordeal . 32 15. Punishments . . -32 16. The Folk-moot . . -33 17. 1 he Kingship . . -33 18. The Legend of Arthur . . 33 19. T he V\ est Fiaxon Advance . 34 20. Repulse of the West Saxons 35 21. The Advance of the Angles . 36 22. The Kymry . . . .36 23. Britain at the End of the Sixth Century . . .37 CHAPTER III THE STRIFE OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS I. England and the Continent . 37 2. vEthelberht’s Sup'^emacy 38 3- Gregory and the English 38 4- AugU'tine’s Mission. 597 . 39 5- Monastic Christia 'ity . 39 6. The Archbi-hopric of Can- terb ry . . . 40 7- Dedh of .^thelbe'ht. 616 . 41 8. The Three Kingdoms op- posed to the Wf-lsh . . 41 9- iEthelfri h and the Kymry . 41 10. .■Ethelf ith’s Victories . 42 II. The Great ess of Eadwine . 43 12. Eadwine s Supremacv 44 13- Chara.cter of ihe later Con- . quests . . . 44 14. Political Changes . 45 15* Ead wine’s Conversion and Fall. . . . 46 16. Oswald’s Victory at Heaven- field . .... 47 17. .Oswald and Aidan . . 47 18. Oswald’s Greatness and Overthrow . . *47 19. Penda’s Overthrow . . 48 20. The Three Kingdoms and the Welsh - . .. . 48 21. The English Missionaries . 49 22. Dispute between Wilfrid and Colman. 664 . . .49 23. Archbishop Theodore and the Penitential S' stem . 50 24. Ealdhelm and Caedmon . 51 25. Bede. 673-73^ • • - 52 26. Church Cou icils . . . .52 27. Struggle between Mercia and vA’essex ... .52 28. Mohammedatrism and the Carolingian Empire . . 54 29. Ecgberht's Rule. 802-839 . 54 CHAPTER IV THE ENGLISH KINGSHIP AND THE STRUGGLE WITH THE DANES 1. The West Saxon Supremacy 55 1 3. The English Coast Plun- 2. The Coming of the North- dered . . . .57 men 56 • 4. The Danes in the North . 57 CONTkNTS XI PAGE 5- .Alfred’s Struggle in Wessex. 871-878 . . 58 6. The Treaty of Chippenham, and its Results. 878 59 7- .^Elfred’s Military Work 60 8. His Laws and Scholarship . 60 9- Eadward the Elder. 899 - 925 62 10. Eladward s Conquests . 62 II. Eadward and the Scots PAGE • 63 12. ^Ethelstan. 925-940 . • 63 i 3 - Eadmund (9+0-946) and Eadred (94^55) • • 63 14. Danes and English . 64 15 - Eadwig. 955-959 . 64 16. Dunstan • 65 17 - Archbishop Oda . • 65 18. Eadwig’s Marriage • 67 CHAPTER V EADGAR’S ENGLAND 1. Eadgar and Dunstan. 959- 975 67 2. The Cession of Lothian . 68 3. Changes in English Institu- tions ► . . .69 4. Growth of the King’s Power 69 5. Conversion of the Freemen into Serfs . . . .69 6. The Hundred-moot and the Lord’s Court . . -72 7- The Towns .... 72 8. The Origin of the Shires 73 9- The Shire-moot . 73 10. The Ealdormen and the Witenagemot . 73 II. The Land . . . . 75 12. Domestic Life 75 13- Food and Drink . 73 CHAPTER VI ENGLAND AND NORMANDY 1. Eadward the Martyr. 975- 979 78 2. .^thelred’i Early Years. 979 -988 .... 79 3. The Return of the Danes. 984 . . . . .79 4. Th Norman Dukes. 912- 1002 . . .80 5. Political Contrast between Normandy and England . 81 6. Svend’s Conquest. 1002- 1013 . . . .81 7. .(Ethelred Restored. 10T4- 1016 82 8. Eadmund Ironside. 1016 . 83 9. Cnut and the Earldoms. 1016-1.35 • ■ -83 10. Cnut’s Empire . . .84 11. Cnut’s Government . 84 12. The Sons of Cnut. 1035- 1042 . . . . . 13. Eadward the Confessor and Ead Godwine. 1042-1051 8 14. The Banishment of Godwine. 1051 . . : . 87 15. Visit of Duke William. 1051 88 16. William and the Norman C hurch . . 88 17- The Return and Death of Godwine. 1052-1053 89 18. Harold’s ‘ Greatness. 1053- 1066 89 19. Harold .and Eadward. 1057 -"1065 ■ . 90 20. Death of Eadward. 1066 . 90 21. Harold and William. io66. 91 22. Stamford Bridge 1066 93 23- Tre Landing of William. 1066 . . . .96 24. The Battle of Senlac. io66. 96 25. William’s Coronation. 1066. 98 85 xii CONTENTS PART II THE NORMAN AND ANGEVIN KINGS CHAPTER VII WILLIAM I. 1066 1087 PAGE PAGE 1. The First Months of the 7- Ecclesiastical Organisation. 106 Conquest. 1066-1067 . lOJ 8. Pope Gregory VII. 107 2, The Conquest of the West 9- William and Gregory VII. . 108 and North. 1067-1069 . 102 10. The Rising of the Earls. 3. The Completion of the Con- 1075 .... no quest. 1070 . 103 11. The New Forest no 4. Hereward’s Revolt and the 12. Domesday Book. 1085- Homage of Malcolm. 1086 .... in 1070-1072 103 13- William's Great Councils . 112 5. How William kept down 14. The Gemot at Salisbury. the English . 104 1086 .... 1 13 6. How William kept down 15- William’s Death. 1087 114 the Normans . 105 CHAPTER VIII WILLIAM II. 1087 — 1 100 I. The Accession of the Red 8. William and Scotland. King. 1087 . 1 14 1093-1094 119 2. The Wickedness of the Red 9- Mowbray’s Rebellion. 1095. 120 King .... II5 10. The First Crusade. 1095- 3. Ranulf Flambard 1 16 1099 .... 120 4. Feudal Dues 1 16 11. Normandy in Pledge. 1096. 121 5. Archbishop Anselm . II7 12. The Last Years of the Red 6. The Council of Rockingham King .... 121 109s .... II8 13- The Death of the Red King. 7, William II. and his Bro- 1100 .... 122 . thers .... I18 CHAPTER IX HENRY I. AND STEPHEN HENRY I , lioo— 1135; STEPHEN, 1135—1154. I. The Accession of Henry I. 4- The Battle of Tinchebrai. 1100 .... 122 1106 .... 124 2, Invasion of Robert. . iioi , 124 5 - Henry and Anselm, iioo- 3. Revolt of Robert of Bell^me. 1107 .... 125 1102 . 124 6. Roger of Salisbury 126 CONTENTS xiii page page 7. Growth of Trade 127 IS- Anarchy. 1139 . 134 8. The Benedictines 128 16. The End of the War. 1 141- 9. The Cistercians . 129 1148 .... 135 10. The White Ship . 129 17- Henry, Duke of the Nor- II. The Last Years of Henry I. 131 mans. 1149 . 136 12. Stephen’s Accession. 1135 131 18. The Last Days of Stephen. 13. Civil War .... 14. Stephen’s Quarrel with the 133 1153-1154 137 Clergy. 1139 134 CHAPTER X HENRY II. 1154 — 1189 I. Henry’s Accession. 1154 . 138 IS- The Nobles and the Church 149 2. Pacification of England 138 16. The Coronation of Young 3. Henry and Feudality . 140 Henry. 1170. 149 4. The Great Council and the 17- The Return of Archbishop Curia Regis . 141 Thomas. 1170 149 5. Scutage .... 141 18. Murder of Archbishop 6. Archbishop Thomas. 1162 142 Thomas. 1170 149 7. Breach between Henry and 19. Popular Indignation. 1171 iSi Thomas .... 143 20. State of Ireland . iSi 8. The Constitutions of Claren- 21. Partial Conquest of Ireland. don. 1164 143 1166-1172 . . 152 9. The Persecution of Arch- 22. Young Henry’s Coronation bishop Thomas. 1164 . 145 and tJie Revolt of the 10. The Assize of Clarendon. Barons. 1172-1174 IS 3 1166 .... 146 23- The Assize of Arms. 1181 . IS 4 II. Recognitions 147 24. Henry II. and his Sons iSS 12. The Germ of the Jury. 147 2 S- The Fall of the Kingdom of 13. The Itinerant Justices Re- Jerusalem. 1187 . iS6 vived .... 148 26. The Last Years of Henry II. 14. The Inquisition of the 1188-1189 IS 7 Sheriffs. 1170 148 27- The Work of Henry II. 157 CHAPTER XI RICHARD I. 1189 — 1199 1. Richard in England. 1189 2. William of Longchamps. 1189-1191 3. The Third Crusade. 1189- 1192 .... 4. The Return of Richard. 1192-1194 5. Heavy Taxation . 0. The Administration of Hu- bert Walter. 1194-1198 159 159 161 161 162 163 7- Death of Richard. 1199 . 165 8. Church and State under the Angevin Kings 165 9- Growth of Learning . 167 10. The University of Oxford . 167 II. Country and Town 168 12. Condition of London . 169 13- Architectural Changes 170 CONTENTS xiv PART III THE GROWTH OF THE PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUTION 1 199-1399 CHAPTER XII JOHN. 1199—1216 I. The Accession of John. PAGE 10. John Excommunicated. PAGE 1199 .... 173 1209 . . . . 178 2. John’s First War with II. The Pope threatens John Philip II. 1199-1200 . 173 with Deposition. 1212- 3- John’s Misconduct in Poitou 1213 . . . 179 1200-1201 . 174 12. John’s Submission. 1213 . 180 4' The Loss of Normandy 13- The Resistance of the and Anjou. 1202-1204 • 174 Barons and Clergy. 1213 180 s- Causes of Philip’s Success . 176 14. The Battle of Bouvines. 6. The Election of Stephen 1214 ' . . . . 181 Langton to the Arch- 15- The Struggle between John bishopric of Canterbvuy. and the Barons. 1214- 1205 .... 176 1215 . . . . 181 7- Innocent III. and Stephen 16. Magna Carta. 1215 . 182 Langton. 1206 177 17- War between John and the 8. John’s Quarrel with the Barons. 1215-1216 184 Church. 1206-1208 178 18. Conflict between Louis and 9- England under an Inter- John. 1216 . . . 184 dict. 1208 178 CHAPTER XIII HENRY HI. 1. Henry III. and Louis. 1216-1217 . . . 185 2. The Renewal of the Great Charter 1216-1217 . 185 3. Administration of Hubert de Burgh. 12I9-1232 . 186 4. Administ'ation of Peter des Roches. 1232-1234 . 188 5. Francis of Assisi . . . 190 6. St Dominic . . . 190 7. The Coming of the Friars. 1220-1224 . . . 191 8. Monks and Friars . . 191 9. The King’s Marriage. 1236 192 1216 — 1272 10. The Early Career of Simon de Montfort 1231-1243 193 11. Papal Exactions. 1237- 1243 . . . . 194 12. A Weak Parliamentary Opposition. 1244 . . 194 13. Growing Discontent. 1244- 1254 . . . . 195 14. The Knights of the Shire in Parliament. 1254 . 196 15. Fresh Exactions. 1254- 1257 . . . .196 16. The Provisions of Oxford. 1258 . . . .198 CONTENTS. XV PAGE 17 - The Expulsion of the For- eigners. >258 . . 199 18. Edward and the Barons. 1239 . . . .199 19. The Breach amongst the Barons. 1259-1201 . 199 20. Royalist Reaction and Civil War. 1261 . . . 200 21. The Mise of Amiens. 1264 200 22. The Battle of Lewes. 1264 201 23. Earl Simon’s Government. 1264-1265 . . . 201 24. The Battle of Evesham. 1265 . . . .263 25. The Last Years of Henry ' III. 1265-1272 . . 204 26. General Progress of the Country. . . . 206 CHAPTER XIV EDWARD I. AND EDWARD II. EDWARD I., 1272— 1307. EDWARD II., 1307—1327 1. The First Years of Edward I. 1272-1279 . . 208 2. Edward I. and Wales. 1276-1284 . . . 210 3. Customs Duties. 1275 . 210 4. Edward’s Judicial Reforms. 1274-1290 . . . 212 5. Edward’s Legislation. 1279 -1290 .... 212 6. Edward as a National and as a Feudal Ruler . . 212 7. The Scottish Succession. 1285-1290 . . . 214 8. Death of Eleanor of Castile. 1290 .... 214 9. The Award of Norham. 1291-1292 . . . 215 10. Disputes with Scotland and France. 1293-1295 . 216 11. The Model Parliament. 1295 218 12. The First Conquest of Scotland. 1296 . . 219 13. The Resistance of Arch- bishop Winchelsey. 1296 -1297 .... 220 14. The ‘ Confirmatio Carta- rum.’ 1297 . . . 220 15. Wallace’s Rising. 1297- 1304* .• . . . 221 16. The Second Conquest of Scotland. 1298-1304 . 221 17. The Incorporation of Scot- land with England. 1305 222 1 8. Character of Edward’ s Deal- ings with Scotland . . 222 19. Robert Bruce. 1306 . . 223 20. Edward’s Third Conquest of Scotland and Death. 1306- 1307 . . . 224 21. Edward II. and Piers Gaves- ton. 1307-1312 . . 224 22. Success of Robert Bruce. 1307- 1314 . . . 226 23. Lancaster’s Government. 1314-1322 . . . 228 24. A Constitutional Settlement. 1322 .... 228 25. The Rule of the Despensers. • 1322-1326 . . . 228 26; The Deposition and Mur- der of Edward II. > • 1327 .. , . . 229 CHAPTER XV FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD III. TO THE TREATY OF BRETIGNI. 1327— 1360 1. Mortimer’s Government. 1327- 1330 . . . 231 2. The French Succession. 1328- 1331 . . . 232 3. Troubles in Scotland. 1331- 1336 . . . .232 4. Dispute with France. 1336- 1337 • . _ . 234 xvi CONTENTS PAGE t;. Edward’s Allies. 1337- 1338 . . . -235 6. Chivalry and War . . 235 7. Commerce and War . . 236 8. Attmks on the North of France. 1338-1340 . 237 9. Battle of Sluys. 1340 , 239 10. Attacks on the West of France. 1341-1345 . 240 11. The Campaign of Crepy. 1346 . . . .240 12. The Tactics of Crepy. 1346 241 13. The Battle of Crepy. Au- gust 26, 1346 . . . 242 14. Battle of Nevill’s Cross, and the Siege of Calais. 1346-1347 . . .242 15. Constitutional Progress. 1337-1347 ... 243 16. Edward's Triumph. 1347. 246 17. The Black Death. 1348 . 2^ 8 18. The Statute of Labourers. 1351 • • • -248 19. The Statute of Treasons. 1352 • . . . 250 20. The Black Prince in the South of France. 1355 . 251 21. The Battle of Poitiers. 1356 . . . .251 22. The Courtesy of the Black Prince .... 252 23. Misery of France. 1356- 1359 . . . .252 24. Edward’s Last Invasion. 1359-1360 . . .252 25. The Treaty of Bretigni. 1360 . . . -253 CHAPTER XVI REIGN OF EDWARD III. AFTER THE TREATY OF BRETIGNI 1360— 1377 1. The First Years of Peace. 1360-1364 . . .254 2. The Spanish Troubles. 1364-1368 . . .254 3. The Taxation of Aquitaine. 1368-1369 . . . 256 4. The Renewed War. 1369- 1375 • • • .256 5. Anti Papal Legislation. 1351-1366 . . .257 6. Predominance of the Eng- lish Language . . 258 7. Piers the Plowman. 1362 . 258 8. The Anti-Clerical Party. 1371 . ^ . .259 9. The Duke of Lancaster. 1374-1376 . . .26c 10. John Wycliffe. 1366-1376 261 11. Lancaster and the Black Prince. 1376 . . . 261 12. The Good Parliament. 1376. 262 13. The Last Year of Edward III. 1376-1377 . . 262 14. Ireland from the Reign of John to that of Edward II 264 15. The Statute of Kilkenny. 1367 . . . .265 16. Weakness of the English Colony. 1367-1377 . 265 CHAPTER XVII RICHARD II. AND THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION 1377— 1381 1. The First Years of Richard II. 1377-1378 2. Wycliffe and the Great Schism. 1378-1381 3. The Poll Taxes. 1379- 1381 .... 4. The Peasants’ Grievances . 5. The Peasants’ Revolt. 1381 266 266 267 268 268 6. The Suppression of the Re- volt .... 269 7. Results of the Peasants' Revolt .... 269 8. Chaucer’s ‘ Canterbury Tales' ... 270 9. The Prologue of the ' Can- terbury Tales ’ . . 270 CONTENTS xvii 10. Chaucer and the Clergy 11. Roads and Bridges . 12. Modes of Conveyance 13. Hospitality and Inns . PAGE 271 272 273 274 14. Alehouses . 15. W?,ndc:rers . 16. Rubbers and Criminals 17. Justices of the Peace . PAGE 27-J 274 275 277 CHAPTER XVIII RICHARD II. AND THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION 1382 — 1399 I. Progress of the War with 9- Richard’s Foreign Policy. France. 1382-1386 278 1389- '396 282 2. Richard’s Gro^^ing Unpopu- 10. Richard’s Coup d’Etat. 1397 282 larity. 1385-1386 278 II. The Parliament of Shrews- 3- The Impeachment of Suffolk bury. 1398 . 283 and the Commission of 12. The Banishment of Here- Regency. 1386 279 ford and Norfolk. 1398 . 283 4- The Lords Appellant and 13- Richard’s Despotism. 1398- the Merciless Parliament. 1399 .... 283 1387-1388 279 14. Henry of Lancaster in Eng- 5- Richard’s Restoration to land. 1399 . 284 Power. 1389. 280 15- The Deposition of Richard 6. Richard’s Constitutional and the Enthronement of Government. 1389-1396 280 Henry IV. 1399 .' 285 7- Livery and Maintenance. 16. Nature of the Claim of 1390 .... 281 Henry IV. . . . 286 8. Richard’s Domestic Policy. 1390-1391 281 PART IV LANCASTER, YORK, AND TUDOR, 1399—1509 CHAPTER XIX HENRY IV. AND HENRY V. HENRY IV., 1399— 1413. 1. Henry’s First Difficulties. 1399-1400 . . . 289 2. Death of Richard II. 1400 291 3. Henry IV. and the Church . 291 4. The Statute for the Burning of Heretics. 1401 . . 292 5. Henry IV. and Owen Glen- dower. 1400-1402 . 292 6. The Rebellion of the Percies. 1402-1404. . 293 HENRY V., 1413— 1422 7. The Commons and the Church. 1404 . . 294 8. The Capture of the Scottish Prince. 1405. . . 295 9. The Execution of Arch- bishop Scrope. 1405 . 296 10. France, Wales, and the North. 1405-1408 . 296 11. Henry, Prince of Wales, 1409-1410 . . . 297 xviil CONTENTS PAGE 12. The Last Years of Henry IV. 1411-1413 . . 298 13. Henry V. and the Lollards. 1413 -1414 ... 299 14. Henry’s Claim to the Throne of France. 1414 300 15. The Invasion of France. I i 15 301 16. The March to Agincourt. 1415 . . . .302 17. The Battle of Agincourt. October 25, 1415 . . 302 ( 18. Henry’s Diplomaqr. 1416- 1417 .... 19. Henry’s Conquest of Nor- mandy. 1417-1419 20. The Murder of the Duke of Burgundy and the Tieaty ot Troyes. 1419-1420 . 21. The Close of the Reign of Heiiry V. 1420-1422 . CHAPTER XX HENRY VI. AND THE LOSS OF FRANCE. I422— I45I 1. Bedford and Gloucester. 1422 . . . . 307 2 Bedford’s Success in France. I. .23-1424 . . .307 3. Gloucester’s Invasion of Hainault. 1424 . . 308 4. Gloucester and Beaufort. 1423-1428 . . . 308 5. The Siege of Orleans. 1428-1429 . . . 309 6. Jeanne I)arc and the Relief of Orleans. 1429 . . 310 7. The Co onation of Charles VII. and the Capture of the Maid. 1429-1430 . 311 8. The Martyrdom at Rouen. 1431 . . . .312 9. The Last Years of the Duke of Bedford. 1431-1435 . 312 10. The Defection of Burgundy. 1435 .... 11. The DuUcofYork in France. 1435-1437 12. The English Lose Ground. 1437-1443 . . 13. Continued Rivalry of Beaufort and Gloucester. 1439-1441 14. Beaufort and Somerset. 1442-1443 15. The AngeVin Marriage Treaty. 1444-1445 16. Deaths” of Gloucester and Beaufort. 1447 17. The Loss of the French Provinces. 1448-1449 . CHAPTER XXI THE LATER YEARS OF 1. The Growth of Inclosures . 320 2. Increa ing Power of the Nobility .... 321 3. Case of Lord Molynes and John Paston . . . 321 4. Suffolk’s Impeachment and Murder. 1450 . . 322 5. Jack Cade’s Rebellion. 1450 . . .322 6. Rivalry of York and Somer- set 1450-1433 . . 323 7. The First Protectorate of the Duke of York. 1453- 1454 .... 8. The First Battle of St. Al- bans and the Duke of HENRY VI. 1450—1461 York’s Second Protector- ate 9. Discomfiture of the York- ists. 1436-1439 10. The Battle of No'thampton and the Duke of York’s , Claim to the Throne. 1460 .... 11. The Battle of Wakefield. 1460 .... 12. The Battle of Mortimer’s Cross and the Second Battle of St. Alhans 1461 13. The Battle of Towton and the Coronation of Edward IV. 1461 PAGE 303 303 304 306 313 313 313 314 317 317 318 318 324 325 326 327 328 328 CONTENTS xix CHAPTER XXII THE YORKIST KINGS. 1461— 1485 PAGE 1. Edward IV. and the House of Commons. 1461 . 329 2. Loss of the Mediaeval Ideals 330 3. Fresh Efforts of the Lancas- trians. 1462-1465 . 331 4. Edward’s Marriage. 1464. 331 5. Estrangement of Warwick. 1465-1468 . . .332 6. Warwick’s Alliance with Clarence. 1469-1470 . 332 7. The Restoration of Henry VI. 1470 . . .333 G. Edward IV. recovers the Throne. 1471 . . 334 9. Edward IV. prepares for War with France. 1471- 1474 • • • -334 uo. The Invasion of France. 1475 • • • -336 PAGE 11. Fall and Death of Clarence. 1476-1478 . . .336 12. The Last Years of Edward IV. 1478-1483 . . 336 13. Edward V. and the Duke of Gloucester. 1483 . 337 14. Fall ofthe Queen’s Relations. 1483 . . . .338 15. Execution of Lord Hastings 338 16. Deposition of Edward V. 1483 . . . .340 17. Buckingham’s Rebellion. 1483 . . . . 341 18. Murder of the Princes. 1483 342 19. Richard’s Government. 1484-1485 . . .342 20. Richard Defeated and Slain at Bosworth. 1485 . 343 CHAPTER XXIII HENRY VII. 1485—1509 1. The First Measures of Henry VII. 1485-1486 . 343 2. Maintenance and Livery . 345 3. Level’s Rising, i486 . 346 4. Lancaster and York in Ire- land. 1399-1485 . . 346 5. Insurrection of Lambert Simnel. 1487 . . 347 6. The Court of Star Chamber. 1487 . . . .348 7. Henry VII. and Brittany. 1488-149 ' . . .348 G. Cardinal Morton’s Fork. 1491 . . . .349 9. The Invasion of France. 1492 349 10. Perkin Warbeck. 1491- 1494 . . . .350 £1. Poynings’ Acts. 1494 . 350 ;2. Perkin s First Attempt on England. 1495 • • 35i 3. The Intetcursus Magnus. 1496 . . . 14. Kildare Restored to the Deputyship. 1496 . . 352 15. Perkin’s Overthrow. 1496- 1497 • • • .352 16. European Changes. 1494- 1499 • • • -352 17. Execution of the Earl of Warwick. 1499 . . 354 18. Prince Arthur’s Marriage and Death. 1501 -1502 . 354 19. The Scottish Marriage. 1503 • • • -356 20. Maritime Enterprise . . 356 21. Growth of the Royal Power 356 22. Empson and Dudley . . 357 23. Henry and his Daughter-in- law. 1502-1505 . . 357 24. The Last Years of Henry VII. 1505-1-09 . . 357 25. Architectural Changes and the Printing Press . . 358 351 XX CONTENTS PART V THE RENASCENCE AND THE REFORMATION 1509—1603 CHAPTER XXIV HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY. 1509 — 1 527 PAGE 1. The New King. 1509 . 361 2. Continental Troubles. 1508-1511 . . .363 3. The Rise of Wolsey. 1512 363 4. The War with France. 1512-1513 . . .364 5. Peace with France. 1514 . 364 6. Wolsey’s Policy of Peace. 1514-1518 . . .364 7. Wolsey and the Renascence 366 8. The Renascence in Eng- land .... 367 9. The Oxford Reformers . 367 PAGE 10. ‘ The Utopia.’ 1515-1516. 367 11. More and Henry VIII. . 368 12. The Contest for the Empire. 1519 . . . .369 13. The Field of the Cloth of Gold. 1520 . . . 369 14. The Execution of the Duke of Buckingham. 1521 . 369 15. Another French War. 1522-1523 . . .369 16. The Amicable Loan. 1525 372 17. Closing Years of Wolsey’s Greatness. 1525-1527 . 372 CHAPTER XXV THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY. 1527— 1534 1. The Papacy and the Rena- scence .... 374 2. Wolsev and the Papacy . 375 3. Wolsey’s Legatine Powers . 375 4. Henry VIII. and the Clergy 377 5. German Lutht-ranism . . 377 6. Henry’s Controversy with Luther .... 379 7. Queen Catharine and Anne Boleyn .... 379 &. Henry’s Demand for a Divorce. 1527-1528 . 382 9. The Legatine Court. 1529 , 382 10. The Fall of Wolsey. 1529- 1530 • • • -383 11. The House of Commons and the Clergy, i ^29 . 385 12. The Universities Consulted. 1530 . • • -385 13. The Cler^ under a Prae- munire. 1530-1531 . 385 14. The King’s Supreme Head- ship acknowledged by the Clergy. 1531 . .386 15. The Submission of the Clergy. 1532. . . 386 16. Sir Thomas More and the Protestants. 1529-1532. 386 17. Resignation of Sir Thomas More. 1532 . . . 388 18. The First Act of Annates. tS32 . . . .388 19. The King’s Marriage and the Act of Appeals. 1533 388 20. Archbishop Cranmer and the Court at Dunstable. 1533 • . • • *389 21. Frith and Latimer. 1533 . 389 22. Completion of the Breach with Rome. 1533-1534 • 39° CONTENTS xxi CHAPTER XXVI THE ROYAL SUPREMACY. 1 534— I 547 1. The Act of Succession. 1534 . . . . 2. The Acts of Treason and Supremacy. 1534 . 3. The Monks of the Charter- house. 1534 . 4. Execution of Fisher and More. 1535 . 5. The Dissolut on of the Smaller Monasteries. 1536 .... 6. The Execution of Anne Boleyn. 1536 7. The Ten Articles. 1536 . 8. The Translation of the Bible authorised. 1536 . 9. The Pilgrimage of Grace. 1536-1537 10. Birth of a Prince. 1537 11. The Beginning of the At- tack on the Greater Monasteries. 1537-1538 12. Destruction of Relics and Images. 1538 13. The Trial of Lambert. 1538 . . . . PAGE 14. 392 15. 392 16. 393 17 - 394 18. 394 395 19. 395 20. 396 21. 396 22. 397 23- 24. 397 25 - 398 26. 399 The Marquis of Exeter and the Poles. 1538 The Six Articles. 1539 Completion of the Suppres- sion of the Monasteries. 1539-1540 Anne of Cleves and the Fall of Cromwell. 1539- 1540 .... Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr. 1540- 1543 Ireland. 1534 . The Geraldine Rebellion. 1534-1535 Lord Leonard Grey. 1536- 1539 .... Henry VIII. King of Ire- land. 1541 . Solway Moss. 1542 . War with Scotland and France. 1542-1546 The Litany and the Primer. 1544-1545 The Last Days of Henry VIII. 1545-1547 . CHAPTER XXVII EDWARD VI. AND MARY EDWARD VI., 1547—1553. MARY, 1553— 1558. 1. Somerset becomes Protec- tor. 1547 2. The Scotch War. 1547- 1548 .... 3. Cranmer’s Position in the Church of England. 1547 .... 4. Ecclesiastical Reforms. 1547-1548 5. The First Prayer Book of Edward VT. 1549 . 6. The Insurrection in the West. 1549 . 7. Ket’s Rebellion. 1549 8. The Fall of Somerset. 1549 .... 9. Warwick and the Ad- vanced Reformers. 1549 10. Latimer’s Sermons. 1548- 1550 . . . ■ 11. Warwick and Somerset. 1550-1552 12. The Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. 1552. 13. The Forty- two Articles. 1553 .... 14. Northumberland’s Conspi- racy. 1553 • 15. Lady Jane Grey. 1553 16. Mary restores the Mass. 1553 .... 17. Mary’s First Parliament. 1553 .... 18. Wyatt’s Refellion. 1554 . 19. The Queen’s Marriage 20. The Submission to Rome. 1554 • • 21. The Beginning of the Per- secution. 1555 22. Death of Cranmer. 1556 . 412 412 413 414 415 415 415 416 416 417 PAGE 399 399 400 400 401 401 402 402 404 404 405 409 410 417 418 419 421 421 422 422 423 423 424 424 425 XXII coi^tei^ts 23- Continuance of the Persecu- 25. War with France and the tion. 1556-1558 . 426 Loss of Calais. 1557- 24. The Queen’s Disappoint- 1558 . . . . 427 ment. 1555-1556 . 426 26. Death of Mary. 1558 427 CHAPTER XXVIII THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT IN CHURCH AND STATE 1558- -1570 I. Elizabeth’s Difficulties. 12. End of the Council of 1558 .... 428 Trent. 1563 . 436 2. The Act of Uniformity and 13. The Jesuits . . 436 Supremacy. 1559 . 429 14. The Danger from Scotland. 3- The new Bishops and the 1501-1565 437 Ceremonies. 1559-1564 429 15. The Darnley Marriage. 4- Calvinism .... 430 1565 .... 438 5 - Peace with France. 1559 . 431 16. The Murder of Rizzio. 1566 438 6. The Reformation in Scot- 17. The Murder of Darnley. land. 1559 . 432 1567 .... 439 7 - The Claims of Mary Stuart. 18. The Deposition and Flight 1559 .... 432 of Mary. 1567-1568 439 8. The Treaty of Edinburgh. 19. Mary’s Case before English 1560 .... 433 Commissioners. 1568- 9- Scottish Presbyterianism. 1569 .... 440 1561 . . 434 20. The Rising in the North. 10. Mary and Elizabeth. 1561 435 1569 .... 441 II. The French ‘ War. 1562- 21. The Papal Excommunica- 1564 .... 436 tion. 1570 . 441 CHAPTER XXIX ELIZABETk AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT. 1570- -1587 I. The Continental Powers. 12. The Growth of the Dutch 1566-1570 442 Republic. 1572-1578 . 449 2. The Anjou Marriage Treaty 13. Quiet Times in England. and the Ridolfi Plot. 1572-1577 450 157 -1571 • • • 443 14. Drake’s Voyage. 1577-- 3- Elizabeth and the Puritans. 444 1580 .... 450 4 - Elizabeth and Parliament. 15. Ireland and the Reformation. 1566 .... 444 1547 .... 451 5 - A Puritan Parliament. 1571 445 16. Ireland under Edward VI. 6. The Duke of Norfolk’s Plot and Mary. 1547-1558 . 451 and Execution. 1571- 17. Elizabeth and Ireland. 1572 .... 445 ^558-1578' . . . 45a 7- The Admonition to Parlia- 18. The Landing at Smerwick, ment. 1572 . 446 and the Desmond Rising. 8 . Mariners and Pirates . 446 1579-1583 452 9- Westward Ho ! . 447 19. The Jesuits in England. 10. Francis Drake’s Voyage to 1580 .... 453 Panama. 1572 448 20. The Recusancy Laws. 1581 454 II. The Seizure of Brill, and 21. Growing Danger of Eliza- the Massacre of St. Bar- beth. 1580-1584 . 454 tholomew. 1572 . 449 CONTENTS xxiii PAGE 22. The Association. 1584-’ 1585 . . .456 23. Growth of Philip’s Power. 1584-1585 . . .456 24. Babington's Plot, and the PAGE Trial of Mary Stuart. 1586 . . . .457 25. Execution of Mary Stuart. 1587 . . . .458 CHAPTER XXX ELIZABETH’S YEARS OF TRIUMPH. 1587— 1603 I. The Singeing of the King of Spain’s Beard. 1587. 458 2. The Approach of the Ar- mada. 1588 . 458 3- The Equipment of the Ar- mada. 1588 . 459 4- The Equipment of the English Fleet. 1588 460 5- The Defeat of the Armada. 1588 .... 462 6. The Destruction of the Ar- mada. 1588 . 462 7- Philip II. and France. 1588-1593 464 8. Maritime Enterprises. 1589- 1596 .... 464 9- Increasing Prosperity. 464 10. Buildings .... 465 II. Furniture .... 465 12. Growing Strength of the House of Commons 468 13- Archbishop Whitgift and the Court of High Corn- miss on. 1583 . . 468 14. The House oi Commons and Puritanism. 1584 . 470 15. The Separatists . . . 470 16. Whitgift and Hooker . -4/2 17. Spenser, Shakspere, and Bacon .... 473 18. Condition of the Catholics. 1586-1603 . . .475 19. Irish Difficulties. 1583- 1594 • • • -475 20. O’Neill and the Earl of Essex. 1595-1600. . 475 21. Essex’s Imprisonment and Execution. 1599-1601 . 476 22. Mountjoy’s Conquest of Ire- land. 1600-1603 . . 478 23. Parliament and the Mono- polies. 1601 . . . 478 24. The Last Days of Eliza- beth. 1601-1603 . . 479 PART VI THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 1603—1660 CHAPTER XXXI JAMES I. 1603 — 1625 1. The Peace with Spain. 1603-1604 . . .481 2. The Hampton Court Con- ference. 1604 . .481 3. James and the House of Commons . . . 482 4. Gunpowder Plot. 1604-1605 483 5. The Post -nati. 1606-1608. 483 6. Irish Difficulties. 1603- 1610 .... 483 7. Bate’s Ca.se and the New Impositions. i6o6-i6c8 . 484 '8. The Great Contract. 1610- 1611 .... 484 9. Bacon and Somerset. 1612- 1613 . . . • 486 10. The Addled Parliament. 1614 .... 486 11. The Spanish Alliance. 1614-1617 . . . 488 xxiv CONTENTS 12. The Rise of Buckingham. PAGE 20. The Monopolies Con- PAGE 1615-1618 488 demned. 1621 494 13. The Voyage and Execution 21. The Fall of Bacon. 1621 . 495 of Raleigh. 1617-1618 . 489 22. Digby’s Mission, and the 14. Colonisation of Virginia Dissolution of Parlia- and New England. 1607- ment. 1621 . 496 1620 .... 489 23 - The Loss of the Palatinate. 15. The Beginning of the 1622 .... 497 Thirty Years’ War. 1618- 24. Charles’ s J ourney to Madrid. 1620 .... 490 1623 .... 497 16. The Meeting of James’s 25- The Prince’s Return. 1623 498 Third Parliament. 1621 490 26. The Last Parliament of 17. The Royal Prerogative. Jan es I. 1624 500 1616-1621 492 27. The French Alliance . SOI 18. Financial Reform. 1619 . 492 28. Mansfeld s Expedition, and 19. Favouritism and Corrup- the Death of James I. tion . , 494 1624-1625 SOI CHAPTER XXXII THE GROWTH OF THE PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES I. 1625—1634 I. Charles I. and Bucking- 14. Religious Differences. 1625- ham. 1625 . 502 1628 .... Sii 2. Charles’s First Parliament. 15. The King’s Declaration. 1625 .... 502 1628 .... S12 3 - The Expedition to Cadiz. 16. The Second Session of the 1625 .... S03 Third Parliament of 4- Charles’s Second Parlia- Charles I. 1629 . 512 ment. 1626 . 503 17. Breach between the King 5- The Forced Loan. 1626 . 505 and the Commons. 1629 513 6 . The Expedition to R6. 18. The Constitutional Dispute. 1627 .... 506 1629 .... 513 7 - The Five Knights’ Case. 19. The Victory of Personal 1627 .... 506 Government. 1629-1632 514 8. Wentworth and Eliot in 20. Star Chamber Sentences. the Third Parliament of 1630-1633 S14 Charles I. 1628 . 508 21. Laud’s Intellectual Position. 9- The Petition of Right. 1628 508 1629-1633 515 10. Tonnage and Poundage. 22. Laud as the Upholder of 1628 .... 509 Uniformity . 516 11. Buckingham’s Murder. 1628 510 23. The Beginning of Laud’s 12. The Question ot Sovereignty. Archbishopric. 1633- 1628 .... Sio 1634 .... 517 13 - Protestnntism of the House 24. Laud and Prynne. 1633- of Commons. 1625-1628 511 1634 .... S19 CHAPTER XXXIII THE OVERTHROW OF THE PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES 1. 1634— 164I 1. The Metropolitical Visita- ! 3. Financial Pressure. 1635- tion. 16^4-1637 . . 520 ^ 1637 .... 521 2. Prynne, Bastwick, and Bur- I 4. Ship-money. 1634-1637 . 523 ton. 1637 . . . 521 I 5. Hampden’s Case. 1637-1638 523 CONTENTS )CXV PAGE 6. Scottish Episcopacy. 1572- 1612 .... 524 7. The Scottish Bishops and Clergy. 1612-1637 . 525 8. The Riot at Edinburgh and the Covenant. 1637-1638 525 9. The Assembly of Glasgow, and the Abolition of Episcopacy. 1638 . . 526 10. The First Bishops’ War. 1639 . . 526 11. Wentworth in Ireland. 1633-1639 . . .527 12. The Proposed Plantation of Connaught . . . 528 13. The Short Parliament. 1640 528 14. The Second Bishops’ War. 1640 . . . .529 15. The Meeting of the Long Parliament. 1 640 . . 529 16. The Impeachment of Straf- ford. 1641 . . . 530 17. Strafford’s Attainder and Execution . . . 530 18. Constitutional Reforms. 1641 . . . .531 CHAPTER XXXIV THE FORMATION OF PARLIAMENTARY PARTIES AND THE FIRST YEARS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1 64 1 — 1 644 1. The King’s Visit to Scot- land. 1641 . . . 532 2. Parties formed on Church Questions. 1641 . . 532 3. Irish Parties. 1641 . . 533 4. The Irish Insurrection. 1641- . . ■ -533 5. The Grand Remonstrance. 1641 . . . -534 6. The King’s Return. 1641 . 534 7. The Impeachment of the Bishops. 1641 . . 535 8. The Impeachment of the Five Members. 1642 . 535 9. The Attempt on the Five Members. 1642 . . 536 10. The Commons in the City. 1642 . . . .536 11. The Struggle for the Militia. 1642 .... 536 12. Edgehill and Tm-nham Green. 1642 . . . 537 13. The King’s Plan of Cam- paign. 1643 . . -537 14. Royalist Successes. 1643 . 538 15. The Siege of Gloucester. 1643 • • • -538 16. The First Battle of Newbury. 1643 • • • -539 17. The Eastern Association. 1643 • • • -539 18. Oliver Cromwell. 1642- 1643 • • -539 19. The Assembly of Divines, 1643 .... 540 20. The Solemn League and Covenant. 1643 . . 540 21. The Irish War. 1641-1643 541 22. Winceby and Arundel. 1643-1644 . . .542 23. The Committee of Both Kingdoms. 1644 . . 542 24. The Campaign of Marston Moor.. 1644 . . . 542 25. Presbyterians and Indepen- dents. 1644 . . .543 26. Essex’s Surrender at Lost- withiel. 1644 . . 544 27. The Second Battle of New- bury. 1644 . . *544 CHAPTER XXXV THE NEW MODEL ARMY, 1 644— 1 649 1. The Self-denying Ordinance and the New Model. 1645 • • • -545 2. Milton’s ‘ Areopagitica.’ 1644 . . .546 3. The Execution of Laud. 1645 . . . . 54& 4. Montrose and Argyle. 1644 546 5. Montrose and the High- lands. 1644-1645 . . 547 6. The New Model Army in the Field. 1645 . . 547 7. The Battle of Naseby. 1645 • . . -548 XKvi CONTENTS PAGE 8. The Results of Naseby. 1645 . . . .548 9. Charles’s Wanderings. 1645 549 10. Glamorgan in Ireland. 1045-1646 . . . 549 11. The King’s Flight to the Scots. 1646 . . . 550 12. Charles at Newcastle. 1646 551 13. The Removal of the King to Holmby. 1647 . . 553 14. Dispute bf'tween the Presby- terians and the Army. 1647 V •. •. -553 15. Cromwell and the Army. 1647 • • • -554 16. The Abduction of the King. 1647 . . . .554 17. The Exclusion of the Eleven Menibers. 1647 . . 555 18. The Heads of the Proposals. 1647 .... 555 19. The King’s Flight to the Isle of Wight. 1647 . 556 20. The Scottish Engagement, and the Vote of No Ad- dresses. 1647-1648 . 556 21. The Second Civil War. 1648, . ... 556 22. Pride’s Purge. 1648 . . 557 23. The High Court of Justice. 1649 • • • • 557 24. The King’s Trial and Exe- cution. 1649 . . . 559 25. Results of Charles’s Execu- tion. 1649 . . . 560 CHAPTER XXXVI THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE PRO'TECTORATE. 164Q— 1660 1. Establishment of the Com- monwealth. 1649 . . 561 2. Parties in Ireland. 1647- 1649 . . . .562 3. Cromwell in Ireland. 1649- 1650 . . . .* 562 4. Montrose and Charles II. in Scotland. 1650 . . 563 5. Dunbar and Worcester. 1650-1651 . . .563 6. The Navigation Act. 1651 564 7. The Dutch War. 1652- 1653 • • • -565 8. Unpopularity of the Parlia- ment, 1652-1653 . . 565 9. Vane’s. Reform Bill. 1653 . 566 10. Dissoluti(jn of the Long Parliament by Cromwell. 1653 .... 566 11. Th^ so-called Barebone’s Parliament. 1653 . . 566 12. The Protectorate, and the Instrument of Govern- ment. 1653 . . .568 13. Character of the Instrument of Government . . 568 14. Oliver’s Government. 1653- 1654 . . . .569 15. The First Protectorate Parliament. 1654-1655 . 570 16. The Major-Generals. 1655 570 17. Oliver’s Foreign Policy. 1654-1655 . . .571 18. The French Alliance. 1655 . . . .572 19. Oliver’s Second Parliament, and the Humble Petition and Advice. 1656 . . 572 20. The Dissolution of the Se- cond Protectorate Parlia- ment. 1658 . . . 573 21. Victory Abroad and Failure at Home. 1657-1658 . 573 22. Oliver’s Death. 1658 . . 574 23. Richard Cromwell. 1658- 1659 . . . .574 24. The Long Parliament Re- stored. 1659 . . .575 25. Military Government. 1659 575 26. Monk and the Kump, 1660 • 575 27. End of the Long Parliament. 1660 .... 576 28. The Declaration of Breda. 1660 .... 576 COMTMNTH xxru PART VII THE POLITICAL PE VOLITION. 1660—1689 CHAPTER XXXVII CHARLES II. AND CLARENDON. l66o— 1667 PAGE 1. Return of Charles II. 1660 578 2. King and Parliament. 1660 579 3. Formation of the Govern ment. 1660 . . . 580 4. The Political Ideas of the Convention Parliament. 1660 . . . . 580 5. Execution of the Political Articles of the Declara- tion of Breda. 1660 . 581 6. Ecclesiastical Debates. 1660 583 7. Venner’s Plot and its Results. 1661 .... 584 8. The Cavalier Parliament, and the Corporation Act. 1661 . . . .585 9. The Savoy Conference, and the Act of Uniformity. 1661-1662 . . . 585 10. The Dissenters. 1662 . 585 11. The Parliamentary Presby- terians. 1662 . . . 586 12. Profligacy of the Court. 1662 586 13. Marriage of Charles II. and Sale of Dunkirk. 1662 . 587 PAGE 14. The Question of Toleration Raised. 1662-1663 . 587 15. The Conventicle Act. 1664 588 16. The Repeal of the Triennial Act. 1664 . . . 588 17. Growing Hostility between England and the Dutch. 1660-1664 . . . 589 18. Outbreak of the First Dutch War of the Restoration. 1664- 1665 . . . 589 19. The Plague. 1665 . . 590 20. The Five Mile Act. 1665 . 590 21. Continued Struggle with the Dutch.* 1665-1666 . 590 22. The Fire of London. 1666 592 23. Designs of Louis XIV. 1665- 1667 . . . 592 24. The Dutch in the Medway, and the Peace of Breda. 1667 . . . .593 25. Clarendon and the House of Commons. 1667 . 593 26. The Fall of Clarendon. 1667 594 27. Scotland and Ireland. 1660 595 CHAPTER XXXVIII CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL. 1 667— 1 674 1. Milton and Bunyan . . 596 2. Butler and the Dramatists . 596 3. Reason and Science . . 598 4. Charles II. and Toleration. 1667 .... 598 5. Buckingham and Arlington, 1667-1669 . . 599 6. The Triple Alliance. 1668 599 7. Charles’s Negotiations with France. 1669-1670 . 600 8. The Treaty of Dover. 1670 600 9. The Cabal. 1670 . . 602 10. A-hley’s Policy . . . 602 11. Buckingham’s Sham Treaty. 1671 .... 603 12. The Stop of the Exchequer. 1672 .... 603 13. The Declaration of Indul- gence. 1672 . . . 604 14. The Second Dutch War of the Restoration. 1672 . 605 15. ‘ Delenda est Carthago.’ 1673 .... 606 16. Withdrawal of the Declara- tion of Indulgence, 1673 606 17. The Test Act, 1673 . . 606 18. Results of the Test Act. 1673 .... 607 19. Continuance of the Dutch War. 1673 . . . 607 20. The Duke of York’s Mar riage and Shaftesbury’s Dismissal. 1673 . . 608 21. Peace with the Dutch. 1674 608 kxviii COI^TEI^rS CHAPTER XXXIX danby’s administration and the three short PARLIAMENTS. 1 675— 1 68 1 I. Growing Influence of Danby. PAGE 12. The Meeting of the First PAGE 1675 .... 610 Short Parliament. 1679 616 2. Parliamentary Parties. 13 - The Exclusion Bill and the 167s .... 610 Habeas Corpus Act. 1679 617 3. The Non-Resistance Bill. 14. Shaftesbury and the King. 1675 .... 61I 1679 .... 617 4, Charles a Pensionary of IS- Shaftesbury and Halifax. France. 1675-1676 61I 1679 .... 618 5. Two Foreign Policies. 1677 612 16. The Divine Right of Kings. 6. The Marriage of the Prince 1679 .... 619 of Orange. 1677 . 613 17 - The Highland Host. 1677- 7. Danby’s Position. 1677 . 613 1678 .... 619 8. The Peace of Nymwegen, 18. Drumclog and Bothwell 1678 .... 614 Bridge. 1679 619 9. The Popish Plot. 1678 615 19. Petitioners and Abhorrers. 10. Growing Excitement. 1678 615 1680 .... 620 II. Danby’s Impeachment and 20. The Second Short Parlia- the Dissolution of the ment. 1680-1681 . 620 Cavalier Parliament. 21. The Third Short Parlia- 1678-1679 616 ment. 1681 . 621 CHAPTER XL THE LAST YEARS OF CHARLES II. 1681— 1685 I. Tory Reaction. 1681 622 : II, Execution of Algernon 2. ‘ Absolom and Achitophel.’ Sidney. 1683 626 1681 .... 623 12. Parties at Court. 1684 626 3. The Scottish Test Act and 13- Death of Charles II. 1685 627 the Duke of York’s Re- 14. Constitutional Progress. turn. 1681-1682 . 623 1660-1685 627 4. The City Elections. 1682 . 623 IS- Prosperity of the Country . 628 5. Flight and Death of Shaftes- 16. The Coffee Houses 630 bury. 1682-1683 , 624 17 - The Condition of London . 631 6. The Attack on the City. 18. Painting .... 631 1682-1683 624 19. Architecture . . 631 7. The Remodelling of the 20. Science .... 632 Corporations. 1683-1684 625 21. Difficulties of Communica- 8. The Rye House Plot. 1683 625 tion .... 632 9. The Whig Combination. 22. The Country Gentry and the 1683 .... 625 Country Clergy 633 10. Trial and Execution of Lord 23. Alliance between the Gentry Russell. 1683 , 625 and the Church . 633 CHAPTER XLI JAMES II. 1685 — 1689 X. The Accession of James II. 1 Monmouth’s Landing. 1685 637 1685 .... 634 5 - The Bloody Assizes. 1685 637 2. A Tory Parliament. 1685 . 636 1 6. The Violation .of the Test 3. Argyle’s Landing. 1685 636 Act. 1685 638 CONTENTS xxix PAGE 7. Breach between Parliament and King. 1685 . . 638 8. The Dispensing Power. 1686 638 9. The Ecclesiastical Commis- sion. 1686 . . . 639 10. Scotland and Ireland. 1686- 1687 . . .639 11. The Fall of the Hydes. 1686-1687 . . . 640 12. The Declaration of Indul- gence. 1687 . . . 640 13. The Expulsion of the Fel- lows of Magdalen. 1687 641 14. An Attempt to pack a Par- liament. 1687 . . 641 15. A Second Declaration of Indulgence. 1688 . . 642 PAGE 16. Resistance of the Clergy. 1688 .... 642 17. The Trial of the Seven Bishops. 1688 . . 643 18. Invitation to William of Orange. 1688 . . 643 19. Landing of William. 1688 644 20. William’s March upon London. 1688 . . 645 21. A Convention Parliament Summoned. 1688 . . 646 22. The Throne Declared Vacant. 1689 . . 646 23. William and Mary to be Joint Sovereigns. 1689 . 647 24. Character of the Revolution. 647 PART VIII THE RISE OF CABINET GOVERNMENT 1689-1754 CHAPTER XLII WILLIAM III. AND MARY II. WILLIAM III. 1689—1702. MARY II. 1689 — 1694. I. The new Government and I 12. Settlement of the Revenue. the Mutiny Act. 1689 . 649 1690 .... 656 2, The Toleration Act and the 13. The Conquest of Ireland. Nonjurors. 1689 . 650 1690-1691 656 3- Locke's Letters on Tolera- 14. War with France. 1689- tion. 1689 652 1690 .... 657 4 - Establishment of Presbyte- 15. Disgrace of Marlborough. rianism in Scotland. 1691-1692 . . . 657 1689 .... 652 16. La Hogue, Steinkirk, and S- Killiecrankie. 1689 . 652 Landen. 1692-1693 658 6. The Pacification of the 17. Beginning of the National Highlands. 1691-1692 . 653 Debt. 1692 . 658 7 The Massacre of Glencoe. 18. Disorder in the Government. 1692 .... 654 1693 .... 659 8. The Siege of Londonderry. 19. The Whig Junto. 1693- i6^g .... 654 1^94 659 9. The Irish Parliament. 1689 65s 20, The Junto the Beginning of 10. Schomberg sent to Ireland. the Modern Cabinet 660 1689 .... 65s 21. The Bank of England. 1694 660 II. The Bill of Rights and 22. The Place Bill. 1694 . 661 the Dissolution of the 23. The Second Triennial Act. Convention Parliament. 1694 .... 661 1689-1690 656 24. Death of Mary. 1694 661 XXX CONTENTS CHAPTER XLIII WILLIAM III. {alone). 1694—1702 PAGE 1. The Liberty of the Press. 1695 . . . .663 2. The Surrender of Namur. 1695 . . . .663 3. The Restoration of the Cur- rency and the Treason Trials Act. 1696 . . 664 4. Ministerial Corruption. 1695-1696 . . . 664 5. The Assassination Plot. 1696 .... 664 6. The Peace of Ryswick. 1697 667 7. Reduction of the Army. 1698-1699 . . . 667 8. Signature and Failure of the First Partition Treaty. 1698-1699 . . 667 9. Break-up of the Whig Junto. 1699 .... 669 10. The Irish Grants and the Fall 01 Somers. 1700 . 670 PAGE 11. The Darien Expedition. 1698-1700 . . . 671 12. The Second Partition Treaty. 1700 .... 671 13. Deaths of the Duke of Glou- cester and of the King of Spain. 1700 . . . 671 14. A Tory Ministry. 1700- 1701 . . . . 672 15. The Act of Settlement and the Succession 1701 . 672 16. The Act of Settlement and the Crown. 1701 . . 672 17. The Act of Settlement and the Ministers. 1701 . 673 18. The Tory Foreign Policy. 1701 .... 674 19. The Kentish Petition. 1701 674 20. The Grand Allia' ce. 1701 675 21. Death of James II. 1701 , 675 22. Death of William. 1702 . 676 CHAPTER XLIV ANNE. 1702 — 1714 1. Marlborough and the Tories. T702 . . . . 676 2. Louis XIV. and Marl- borough. 1702 . . 678 3. Marlborough’s First Cam- paign in the Netherlands. 1702-1703 . . . 678 4. The Occasional Conformity Bill. 1702-1703 . . 680 5. Progress of the War in Italy, Spain, and Germany. 1702-1703 . . . 680 6. Ministerial changes. 1703- 1704 . . . . 680 7. The Campaign of Blenheim. 1704 ., . . . 682 8. Operations in Spain. 1704- 1705 . . . . 682 9. A Whig Parliament. 1705- 1706 .... 684 10. The Campaign of 1706 in the Ne herlands and in Italy 1706 . . . 684 11. Campaign of 1706 in Spain. 1706 .... 684 12. The Union with Scotland. 1702-1707 . . . 685 13. The Irish Penal Laws . 686 14. Irish Commerce < rushed . 686 15. Gradual fo-mation of a Whig Ministry. 1705- 1708 .... 687 16. Progress of Cabinet Govern- ment. 1708 . . . 687 17. Progress of the War. 1707- 1708 .... 689 18. The Con^'erence at the Hague and the Battle of Malpla- quet. 1709 . . . 690 19. The Sacheverell Trial. 1710 690 20. The Fall of the Whigs. 1710 .... 691 21. A Tory Parliament and Ministry 1710 . . 691 22. Brihuega and \ ilia Viciosa. 1710. .... 692 23. Overtures to France. 1710- 1711 .... 692 24. I iterature and Politics. 1710 692 2^. Jonathan Swift . . . 693 CONTENTS XXXI PAGE 26. The Imperial Election. ^711 695 27. The Occasional Conformity Act and ihe Creation of Peers. 1711 . . . 695 28. The Armistice and the Treaty ot Utrechi. 1712- 1713 . ... 696 29. Terms of the Treaty of Utrecht. 1713 . . 696 30. Effect of the Treaty of TOWNSHEND, SUNDERLAND, 1. George I. and the Whigs. 17 T4 . . . . 702 2. The Whigs and the Nation. 1714 . . . .704 3. The Whigs and Parliament. 1715 . . . .704 4. Mar's Rising. 1715-1716. 705 5. The Septenninl Act. 1716 706 6. England and France. 1716 707 7. The Whig Schism. 1716- 1717 .... 708 8. The Quadruple Alliance. 1718-1720 . . . 709 9. The Relief of the Dissenters, and the Peerage Bill. 1719 710 10. The South Sea Bubble. 1720 71 1 11. The Bursting of the Bubble. 1720- 1721 . . . 712 12. Walpole cal'ed to the Rescue. 1721- 1722 . . ■ . 712 13. Corruption under Wa’pole . 713 14. Walpole and Corruption . 714 PAGE Utrecht on International relations .... 697 31. England as a sea-pow^r. 1713. .... 697 32. Position of the Tories. 1711- 1713 . . . .699 33. The Last Days and Death of Anne. 1714 . , 699 34. Politics and Art . . .701 ER XLV AND WALPOLE. 1 7 14 — 1737 15. ‘ Quieta nr n movere ’ . . 716 16. The Prime Ministership . 716 17. Walpole and Carteret. 1723 -1724 .... 718 18. Wood’s Halfpence. 1724 . 718 19. The Last Years of George I. 1724-1727 . . . 718 20. George II. and Walpole. 1727 .... 718 21. Breach between Walpole and Townshend. 1730 . . 720 22. Bolingbroke as Organiser of the Opposition. 1726- 1732 .... 720 23. The Excise Bill. 1733 . 722 24. The Defeat of the Excise Bill. 1733 . . .724 25. Disruption of the Opposi- tion. 1734-1735 • • 724 26. The Family Co • pact. 1773 724 27. Dissensions in the Royal Family. 1737 . . 725 CHAPTER XLVI WALPOLE, CARTERET, AND I. The Reign of Common Sense .... 726 2. Smuggling in the West Indies .... 726 3 - Walpole and Spain . 728 4 - William Pitt. 1738 . 728 5 - Impending War. 1738- 1739 .... 729 6 . The Spanish War and the Resignation of Walpole. 1739-1742 730 7 - The New Administration. 1742 .... 730 THE PELHAMS. I 737~ 1754 8. Carteret and Newcastle. 174,2 732 9. Beginning of the War of • the Austrian Succession. 1740-1742 . . . 732 10. Carteret’s Diplomacy. 1742- 1744 • • . -735 11. Carteret and the Family Compact. 1743-1744 . 737 12. Carteret’s Fall. 1744 , . 738 13. The Broad-bottomed Ad- . ministration. 1744 . 739 14. The Young Pretender in Scotland. 1745 . . 739 xxxii CONTENTS PAGE 15. The March to Derby. 1745 740 16. Falkirk and Culloden. 1746 740 17. The Pelhams and the King. 1745 • • • -743 PAGE 18. End of the War. 1746- 1748 . . . .743 19. End of Henry Pelham’s Ministry. . 1748-1754 . 743 PART IX THE FALL OF THE WHIGS AND THE RISE OF THE NEW TORYISM. 1754-1789 CHAPTER XLVII NEWCASTLE AND 1. Butler, Wesley, and White- field. 1736-1754 . . 745 2. Fielding and Hogarth . 746 3. Newcastle, Pitt, and Fox. 1754-175S ■ • -746 4. The French in America. 1754 • • • -747 5. Newcastle’s Blundering. 1754-1756 . . .748 6. The Loss of Minorca. 1756 749 7. Beginning of the Seven Years’ War. 1756 . . 749 8. Ministry of Devonshire and Pitt. 1756-1757 • • 749 9. Pitt’s Dismissal. 1757 . 750 10. Nature of Pitt’s Popularity. ■ 1757 . . . .750 11. Coalition between Pitt and Newcastle. 1757 . . 751 12. Military Disasters. 1757 . 752 13. Pitt and Frederick the Great. 1757-1758 . . .752 14. Fighting in France and America. 1757-1758 . 753 15. The Campaign in Canada. 1759 . • ‘ .753 PITT. 1754— 1760 16. The Conquest of Canada. 1759-1760 . . .755 17. The War in Europe ; Naval Successes. 1759 . . 756 18. Progress of the War in Germany. 1759 . . 756 • 19. The East India Company. 1600-1698 . . . 758 20. Break-up of the Empire of the Great Mogul. 1658- 1707 . . . .758 21. The Mahratta Confederacy. 1707-1744 . . .759 22. Le Bourdonnais and Du- pleix. 1744-1750 . . 760 23. Dupleix and Clive. 1751- 1754 . . . .761 24. The Black Hole of Calcutta. 1756 . . . .762 25. The Battle of Plassey. 1757 762 26. The Battle of Wandewash and the capture of Pondi- cherry. 1760-1761 . 764 27. Death of George II. 1760 . 764 CHAPTER XLVIII THE BREAK-UP OF THE WHIG PARTY. I760— 1770 1. Character of George III. 1760 .... 765 2. The Fall of Pitt. 1761 . 766 2. Resignation of Newcastle and the Peace of Paris. 1762-1763 . . . 766 4. The King and the Tories. 1762-1763 . . . 767 CONTENTS xxxiii PAGE 5. The King’s Friends . . 767 6. The Three Whig Parties. 1763 .... 768 7. Grenville and Wilkes. 1763- 1764 . . . .769 8. Geo ge III. and Grenville. 1703-1764 . . .770 9. The Stamp Act. 1765 . 770 10. The Rockingham Ministry 1765 . . . .771 11. The Rockingham Ministry and ti.e Repeal of the Stamp Act. 1766 . . 771 PAGE 12. Pitt and Burke. 1766 . 7^2 13. The Chatham Ministry. 1766-1767 . . .773 14. American Import Duties. 1767 . . . .773 15. The Middlesex Election. 1768-1769 . . .774 16. ‘Wilkes and Liberty.' 1769 . . . .774 17. Lord .North Prime Minister. 1770 .... 776 CHAPTER XLIX THE STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. I770— 1783 1. North and the Opposition. 1770 . . . .777 2. North and the Tea Duty. 1770 . . . .778 3. The Freedom of Reporting. 1771 . . . . 779 4*. Continued Resistance in America. 1770-1772 . 780 5. The Boston Tea Ships. 1773 780 6. Repressive Measures. 1774 780 7. The Congress of Philadelphia and the British Parlia- ment. 1774 . . . 782 8. Lexington and Bunker’s Hill. 1775 . . . 782 9. Conciliatory Efforts. 1775 783 10. George Washington in Com- mand. 1775 • • -783 11. Progress of the War. 1775- 1776 . . . .784 12. The Declaration of Indepen- dence and the Struggle in New Jersey. 1776-1777 784 113. FrenchAssistance toAmerica. 1776-1777 . . .786 14. Brandywine and Saratoga. 1777 • ■ . 786 15. The French Alliance with America and the Death of Chatham. 1778 . 786 16. Valley Forge. 1777-1778 787 17. George III. and Lord North. 1779 . . . .787 18. The French in the Channel. 1779 . . . .788 19. English Successes in America 1779-1780 . . .' 788 19A. Economical Reform. 1779- 1780 .... 789 20. Parliamentary Reform and the Gordon Riots . . 789 21. The Gordon Riots. 1780 . 790 22. The Armed Neutrality. 1780 .... 792 23. The Capitulation of York- town. 1781 . . . 792 24. American Success. 1781 . 794 25. The Last Days of North’s Ministry. 1781-1782 . 794 26. The Rockingham Ministry. 1782 . . . .795 27. Irish Religion and Com- merce. 1778 . . . 795 28. The Irish Volunteers. 1778- 1781 .... 796 29. Irish Legislative Indepen- dence. 1782 . . . 796 30. The Shelburne Ministry and the Peace of Paris. 1782- 1783 . . . .796 31. Terms of the Treaty of Paris. 1783 • . . 798 CHAPTER L PITT AND FOX. 1 782— 1 789 1. The Younger Pitt. 1782- I 1783 . . . . 799 ! 2. Resignation of Shelburne. 1783 . . .799 3. The Coalition Ministry. 1783 .... 800 4. The Eng ish in Bengal. 1757-1772 . . . 801 b XXXIV CONTENTS PAGE Page S’ Warren Hastings, Governor 18. French Commercial Treaty. of Bengal. 1772-1774 . 802 1786 .... 810 6. The Regulating Act and its 19. Trial of Warren Hastings. Results. 1773-1774 802 1786-1795 8ir 7- Hastings and Nuncomar. 20. The Regency Bill. 1788- 1775 .... 803 1789 .... 811 8. War with the Mahrattas and 21. Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s. Hyder Ali. 1777-1779 • 803 1789 .... 812 9 - Cheyt Singh and the Begums 22. Growth of Population. 1700- of Oude. 1781-1782 803 1801 .... 813 10. Restoration of Peace. 1781- 23- Improvements in Agriculture 813 1782 .... 805 24. Cattle-breeding . 813 II. Hastings as a Statesman. 25- The Bridgewater Canal. 1783 .... 805 1761 .... 813 12. The India Bill of the Coali- 26. Cotton-spinning. 1738 814 tion. 1783 806 27. Hargreaves’ Spinning-jenny. 13- The Fall of the Coalition. 1767 .... 815 1783 .... 806 28. Arkwright and Crompton. 14. Pitt’s Struggle with the Co- 1769-1779 815 alition. 1783-1784 807 29. Cartwright’s Power-loom. IS- Pitt’s Budget and India Bill. 1785 .... 816 1784 .... 808 3 °’ Watt’s Steam-engine. 1785 816 16. Pitt’s Reform Bill. 1785 . 808 31- General Results of the 17- Failure of Pitt’s Scheme for Growth of Manufactures . 817 a Commercial Union with Ireland. 1785 810 PART X THE CONFLICT WITH DEMOCRACY, 1789— 1827 CHAPTER LI ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1 789— 1 795 1. Prospects of Pitt’s Ministry. 1789 .... 819 2. Material Antecedents of the French Revidution . . 820 3. Intellectual Antecedents of the French Revolution . 820 4. Louis XVI. 1772-1789 . 821 5. The National Assembly. 1789 .... 821 6. England and France. 1789- 1790 .... 822 7. Fox, Burke, and Pitt. 1789- 1790 .... 822 8. Clarkson and the Slave Trade. 1783-1788 . 823 9. Pitt and the Slave Trade. 1788-1792 . . . 823 10. Rise of a Warlike Feeling in France. 1791-1792 . 824 11. The French Republic. 1792 .... 824 12. Breakdown of Pitt’s Policy of Peace. 1792-1793 . 825 13. French Defeats and the Reign of Terror. 1793 . 826 14. French Successes. 1793 . 826 15. Progress of the Reign of Terror. 1793-1794 • 827 16. Reaction in England. 1792- 1793 . . . .827 CONTENTS JcxxV PAGE 17. End of the Reign of Terror. 1794 .... 828 18. Coalition between Pitt and the majority of the Whigs. 1794 .... 828 PAGE 19. The Treaties of Basel. 1795 829 20. The Establishment of the Directory in France. 1795 829 21. The Treason Act and the Sedition Act. 1795 . 830 CHAPTER LII THE UNION WITH IRELAND AND THE PE.A.CE OF AMIENS. 1795—1804 1. The Irish Government and Parliament. 1785-1791 . 831 2. The United Irishmen and Parliamentary Reform. 1791-1794 . . .832 3. The Mission of Lord Fitz- william. 1794-1795 832 4. Impending Revolution. ‘ 1795-1796 • . -833 5. Bonaparte in Italy. 1796- 1797 . . . .834 6. Pitt’s First Negotiation with the Directory. 1796 . 834 7. Suspension of Cash Pay- ments. 1797 . . .835 8. Battle of St. Vincent. 1797 835 g. Mutiny at Spithead. 1797 . 836 10. Mutiny at the Nore. 1797 . 836 11. Pitt’s second Negotiation with the Directory. 1797 836 12. Bonaparte’s Expedition to Egypt. 1798 . . .837 13. The Battle of the Nile. 1798 838 14. Bonaparte in Syria. 1799 . 838 15. Foundation of the Consulate. 1799-1800 . . . 838 16. An Overture for Peace. 1799 840 17. The Campaign of Marengo and the Peace of Lun^ville 18C0-1801 . . . 840 18. The Irish Rebellion. 1798 840 19. An Irish Reign of Terror. 1798-1799 . . . 841 20. The Irish Union. 1800 . 842 21. Pitt’s Resignation. 1801 . 842 22. The Addington Ministry. 1801 . . . . 843 23. Malta and Egypt. 1800 . 843 24. The Northern Confederacy and the Battle of Copen- hagen. 1801 . . . 844 25. The Treaty of Amiens. 1802 .... 846 26. Rupture of the Treaty of Amiens. 1803 . . 846 27. The last Months of the Ad- dington Ministry. 1803- 1804 .... 848 CHAPTER LIII THE ASCENDENCY OF NAPOLEON. 1804 — 1 807 1. The Napoleonic Empire. 1804 .... 849 2. A Threatened Invasion. 1804-18(5 . . .851 3. The Trafalgar Campaign. 1805 .... 851 4. The Battle of Trafalgar. 1805 854 5. The Campaign of Austerlitz. 1805 .... 854 6. Pitt’s Death. 1806 . . 854 7. The Ministry of All the Talents. 1806 . . 855 8. The Overthrow of Prussia. 1806 .... 856 9. The End of the Ministry of All the Talents. 1807 . 857 10. The Treaty of Tilsit. 1807. 858 11. The Colonies. 1804-1807 . 858 12. The Overthrow of the Mah- rattas. 1802-1806 . 859 13. Wellesley’s Recall. 1805 . 859 14. The Continental System. 1806-1807 • • • 859 15. Effects of the Continental System. 1807 . . 860 16. The Bombardment of Co- penhagen. 1807 . . 860 xxxvi CONTENTS CHAPTER LIV THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON. 1807— 1814 I. Napoleon and Spain. 1807- PAGE II. Wellington’s Resources. PAGE 1808 .... 862 1811 . . . . 868 2. The Dethronement of 12. Wellington’s Advance. 1811 Charles IV. 1808 863 -j 8 i 2 . . 869 3- The Capitulation at Baylen. 13- The Battle of Salamanca. 1808 863 1812 .... 869 4 - Battle of Vimeiro and Con- 14. Napoleon in Russia. 1812. 870 vention of Cintra. 1808. 863 15- Napoleon driven out of Ger- 5- Sir John Moore’s Expedi- many and Spain. 1813 . 871 tion and the Battle of 16. The Restoration of Louis Corunna. 1808-1809 864 XVIII. 1814 871 6. Aspern and Wagram. 1809. 86s 17. Position of England. 1814 872 7- Walcheren and Talavera. 18. War with America. 1812- 1809 .... 86s 1814 .... 872 8. Torres Vedras, 1810-1811 . 867 19. The Congress of Vienna. 9- The Regency and the As- 1814-181S . 873 sassination of Perceval. 20. The Hundred Days. 1813. 874 1811-1812 867 21. The Waterloo Campaign . 874 10. Napoleon at the Height of 22. The Second Restoration of Power. i8ii . 868 Louis XVIII. 875 CHAPTER LV ENGLAND AFTER . WATERLOO. 1815—1827 I. The Corn-Law and the Abo- 12. The Southern Revolutions. lition of the Property Tax. 1820-1823 882 1815-1816 875 13- Castlereagh and Canning. 2. Manufacturing Distress. 1822-1826 . . 882 1816 .... 876 14. National Uprising in 3. The Factory-System. i8ic;- Greece. 1821-1826 . 884 1816 . . . , 876 IS- Peel as Home Secretary. 4. The Radicals. 1816-1817. 877 1821-1827 884 5. Suspension of the Habeas 16. Criminal Law Reform. Corpus Act. 1817-1818 . 877 1823 .... 885 6. A Time of Prosperity. 1818- 17- Huskisson and the Combi- 1819 .... 879 nation Laws. 1824- 7. Renewal of Distress. 1819. 879 1825 .... 885 8. The ‘ M anchester Massacre. ’ 18. Robinson’s Budgets. 1823- 1819 . . . . 879 182s .... 886 9. The Six Acts. 1819 . 880 19. The end of the Liverpool 10. Death of George III. and Ministry. 1826-1827 887 the Cato-Street Conspi- 20. Burns, Byron, and Shelley . 887 racy. 1820 . 880 21. Scott and Wordsworth 889 II. Queen Caroline. 1820- 22. Bentham . . 890 1821 .... 881 CONTENTS xxxvii PART XI THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY CHAPTER LVI CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION AND PARLIAMENTARY REFORM 1827—1832 Questions at Issue. 1827 . PAGE 891 12. William IV. and the Second PAGE Canning Prime Minister. French Revolution. 1830 898 1827 .... 892 13- The End of the Wellington The Battle of Navarino and Ministry. 1830 900 the Goderich Ministry. 14. Lord Grey’s Ministry, 1830 901 1827 , . . . 892 IS- The Reform Bill. 1831 902 Formation of the Welling- 16. The Bill Withdrawn, 1831 902 ton Ministry. 1828 893 17- The Reform Bill Re-intro- Lord John Russell and Par- duced. 1831 . 903 liamentaryReform. 1819- 18. Public Agitation. 1831 903 1828 .... 894 19. The Reform Bill becomes Repeal of the Test and Cor- Law. 1831-1832 . 905 poration Acts. 1828 894 20. Character of the Reform Resignation of the Canning- Act. 1832 905 iies. 1828 89s 21. Roads and Coaches. 1802- The Catholic Association. 1820 .... 905 1823-1828 895 22. Steam Vessels and Loco- O’Connell’s Election. 1828 896 motives. 1811-1825 906 Catholic Emancipation. 23 - The Liverpool and Man- 1829 .... 896 chester Railway. 1825- Death of George IV, 1830 898 1829 .... 907 CHAPTER LVI I THE REFORMERS IN POWER. 1832— 184I 1. Liberals and Conservatives. 1832 . . . .909 2. Irish Tithes. 1831-1833 . 909 3. Abolition of Slavery. 1833 910 4. The First Factory Act. 1833 . . . .911 5. The New Poor Law. 1834 91 1 6. Break-up of the Ministry. 1834 . . . .912 7. Foreign Policy of the Re- formers. 1830-1834 . 912 8. Peel’s First Ministry. 1834- 1835 .... 913 9. Beginning of Melbourne s Second Ministry. 1835- 1837 . . . -913 10. Accession of Queen Victoria. 1837 . . . .914 11. Canada. 1837-1841 . . 914 12. Ireland. 1835-1841 . . 916 13. The Bedchamber Question. 1^39 • • . .918 14. Post Office Reform. 1839. 918 15. Education. 1833-1839 . 920 16. The Queen’s Marriage. 1840 .... 920 17. Palmerston and Spain. T 833-1 839 . . .920 18. Palmerston and the Eastern Question. 1831-1839 . 921 19. Threatened Breach with France. 1839-1841 . ^22 xxxviii CONTENTS PAGE 20. Condition of the Poor. 1837-1841 . . . 922 21. The People’s Charter. 1837-1840 . . .923 PAGE 22. The Anti-Corn-Law League. 1838-1840 . . . 924 23. The Fall of the Melbourne Ministry. 1841 . . 925 CHAPTER LVIII FREE TRADE. 184I — 1852 1. Peel’s New Ministry. 1841 926 15- Irish Emigration. 1847 933 2, Peel’s First Free-trade 16. Landlord and Tenant in Budget. 1842 926 Ireland. 1847 933 3- Returning Prosperity. 1843- 17- The Encumbered Estates 1P44 .... 926 Act. 1848 . . 933 4- Mines and Factories. 1842- 18. European Revolution. 1848 934 1847 . . 927 19. Renewed Trouble in Ireland. S- Aberdeen’s Foreign Policy. 1848 .... 935 1841-1846 927 20. The Chartists on Ken- 6. Peel and O’Connell. 1843 928 nington Common. 1848 935 7- Peel’s Irish Policy. 1843- 21. European Reaction. 1848- 1845 .... 928 1849 .... 936 8. Peel’s Second Free-trade 22. The Decline of the Russell Budget. 1845 929 Ministry. 1848-1851 936 9- Peel and Disraeli. 1845 . 929 23- The Great Exhibition. 10. Spread of the Anti-Corn- 1851 . . . . 937 Law League. 1845 930 24. The End of the Russell II. The Irish Famine. 1845 . 931 Ministry. 1851-1852 938 12. The Abolition of the Corn 25- The First Derby Ministry. Law. 1845-1846 . 931 1852 .... 938 13- The Close of Peel’s Ministry. 26. The Burial of Protection. 1846 .... 931 1852 .... 938 14. The Russell Ministry. 1846- 1847 .... 932 CHAPTER LIX THE CRIMEAN WAR AND THE INDIAN MUTINY. 1852 — 1 858 I. Expectation of Peace. 1852 939 2. Church Movements. 1827- 1853 .... 940 3 - Growth of Science. 1830- 1859 .... 940 4 - Dickens, Thackeray, and Macaulay. 1837-1848 . 940 5 - Grote, Mill, and Carlyle. 1833-1856 941 6. Tennyson. 1849 943 7- Turner. 1775-1851 . 943 8 . The Beginning of the Aber- deen Ministry. 1852- 1854 .... 943 9 - The Eastern Question. 1850-1853 943 TO. War between Russia and Turkey. 1853—1854 . 944 11. Resolution of the Allies. 1854 . . . . 12. Alma and Sebastopol. 1854 13. Balaclava and Inkerman. 1854 .... 14. Winter in the Crimea. 1854- 1855 .... 15. The Hospital at Scutari. 1855 . . . . 16. The Palmerston Ministry. 1855 .... 17. The Fall of Sebastopol and the End of the War. 1855-1856 18. India after Wellesley’s Recall. 1806-1823 19. The North-Western Fron- tier. 1806-1835 . ' . 944 945 946 946 947 947 947 948 948 CONTENTS xxxix PAGE 20. Russia and Afghanistan 1835-1838 . . . '949 21. The Invasion of Afghanistan. 1839-1842 . . . 949 22. The Retreat from Cabul. 1842 . . . .950 23. Pollock’s March to Cabul. 1842 .... 950 24. Conquest of Sindh. 1842 , 950 25. The First Sikh War. 1845- 1846 . ... 951 26. The Second Sikh War. 1848-1849 . . . 951 PAGE 27. Lord Dalhousie’s Adminis- tration. 1848-1856 . 951 28. The Sepoy Army. i8=;6- 1857 ' . . . 952 29. The Outbreak of the Mutiny. 1857 • • . -953 30. Cawnpore. 1857 . . 953 31. The Recovery of Delhi and the Relief of Lucknow. 1857 . . . .953 32. The End of the Mutiny. 1857-1858 . . .954 CHAPTER LX ANTECEDENTS AND RESULTS OF THE SECOND REFORM ACT. 1857— 1874 1. Fall of the First Palmerston Ministry. 1857-1858 . 955 2. The Second Derby Ministry and the Beginning ot the Second Palmerston Minis- try. 1858-1859 . . 956 3. Italian War of Liberation. 1859 • • • -956 4. The Kingdom of Italy. 1859-1861 . . . 957 5. The Volunteers. 1859-1860 957 6. The Commercial Treaty with France, i860 . 957 7. The Presidential Election in America, i860 . . 958 8. England and the American Civil V^ ar. 1861-1862 . 958 9. The ‘ Alabama.’ 1862 . 959 10. The Cotton k amine. 1861- 1864 . . . .959 11. End of the American Civil War. 1864 . . . 960 12. The Last Days of Lord Pal- merston. 1865 . . 960 13. The Ministry of Earl Rus- sell. 1865-1866 . . 960 14. The Third Derby Ministry and the Second Reform Act. 1866-1868 961 IS- Irish Troubles. 1867 962 16. The Gladstone Ministry and the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. 1868- 1869 .... 962 17 - The Irish Land Act. 1870 . 962 18. The k ducation Act. 1870 . 963 19. The War between Prussia and Austria. 1866 963 20. War between France and Germany. 1870-1871 . 963 21. Abolition of Army-Pur- chase. 1871 . . . 965 22. The Ballot Act. 1872 . 965 23 - Foreign Policy of the Minis- try. 1871-1872 965 24. Fall of the First Gladstone Ministry; 1873-1874 966 25 - Colonial Expansion. 1815- 1901 .... 966 26. The North- American Colo- nies. . . . . 967 27. Australasia. 967 28. South Africa 968 xl CONTENTS CHAPTER LXI THE LAST YEARS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1874-1901 PAGE PAGE I. The Disraeli (Beaconsfield) 6. Fourth Gladstone Ministry 974 Ministry. 1874-1880 969 7. Third Salisbury viinistry . 974 2. The Second Gladstone Minis- 8. The Reconquest of th6 try. 1880-1885 970 Soudan .... 97 S 3 - ' he Firs' Salisbury Ministry 972 9. Venezuela .... 975 4 - The Third Gladstone Minis- 10. Ch na . • 976 try 972 II. Sout't A'”' ica and the Trans- 5- Toe Second Salisbury Minis- vaal War .... 976 try 973 CHAPTER LXII THE NINE YEARS OF KING EDWARD VII.’S REIGN. 190I-I9IO I. Accession of Fdward VII . 979 2 . End of the Boer War ; Peace of Vereeniging 980 3- Ch f measures of Balfour’s Ministry . 981 4- Gener 1 Review of Foreign Policv. First Period 983 5 - Russo-Japanese War. 1904-5 .... 984 6. Forei n Policy, Second Period .... 985 7- Foreign Countries 986 8 Tariff Reform 987 9- Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith Ministries . 988 10. Army an^ Navy Reform . 988 11. Coloni- s. I he Atlantic Fisheries Dispute . . 989 12. India 990 13 Revolution in Turkey . 990 14. S dal Reform. Labour Party and Socialists , 991 15. Electoral Reform . . 993 16. Finance Bill 1909 and Dis- solution . . . . 994 17. Death of K ng Edward VII 996 18. ^ otors and Aeroplanes . 996 19. Science .... 996 INDEX . • 999 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIG- « PAGE 1. Palaeolithic flint scraper from Tcklingham, Suffolk . . .2 2. Palaeolithic flint implement from Hoxne, Suffolk . . .2 {From Evans's ‘ Ancient Stone Implements ’) 3. Engraved bone from Cresswell Crags, Derbyshire . . .3 {From the original in the British Museum) 4. Neolithic flint arrow-head from Rudstone, Yorks . . .3 5. Neolithic celt or cutting instrument from Guernsey . . .3 6. Neolithic axe from Winterbourn Steepleton, Dorset . . 4 {From Evans's ‘ Ancient Stone Implements ’) 7. Example of eai ly British pottery ..... 4 8. 9. Examples of early British pottery ..... 5 {From GreenwelV s ‘ Briti h Barrows ’) 10. Bronze celt from the Isle of Harty, Kent . . . . 6 11. Bronze lance-head found in Ireland . . . , .6 12. Bronze caldron found in Ireland ..... 6 {From Evans's ‘ Ancient Bronze Implements') 13. View of Stonehenge ....... 7 {From a photograph) 14. Part of a British gold corselet found at Mold, now in the British Museum ........ 9 {From the ‘ Archseologia ’) 15. Bust of Julius Caesar . ...... 10 {From the original in the British Museum) 16. Commemorative tablet of the Second Legion found at Halton Chesters on the Roman Wall . . . . • 17 17. View of part of the Roman Wall . . . . .18 18. Ruins of a raile-castle on the Roman Wall . . . ,18 {From Bruce's ‘ Handbook to the Roman Wall,' and edition) 19. Part of the Roman Wall at Leicester . . . .19 {From Rickman! s ’ Gothic Architecture,' 6th edition, by J. H. Parker) 20. Pediment of a Roman Temple found at Bath . . .20 {Reduced fro 7 n the ‘ Archaeologia ’) 21. Roman altar from Rutchester . . . . .21 {From Bruce's ‘ Handbook to the Roman Wall,' and edition) 22. Plan of the city of Old Sarum . . -34 {From the Ordnance Survey Plan) xlii ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. PAGE 23. View of Old Sarum ....... 35 {Reduced from Sir R. C. Hoare's ‘ History of Modern Wiltshire. Old and New Sarum ’) 24. Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts . . . >51 {From Rickman's ‘ Gothic Architecture,’ 6th edition, by J. H, Parker) 25. Saxon horsemen . . . . . ^ -53 26. Group of Saxon warriors . . . . . -53 {From Harl. MS. 603) 27. Remains of a viking ship from Gokstad . . . -56 (From a photograph of the original at Christiana) 28. Gold ring of .^Ethelwulf . . . , . -57 29. Gold jewel of Alfred found at Athelney . , . -59 {From ‘ Archaeological Journal ’) 30. An English vessel . . . . , , .60 31. A Saxon house ....... 61 {Prom Harl. MS. 603) 32. A monk driven out of the King’s presence . . . .66 {From a drawing belonging to the Society of A ntiquaries') 33. Rural life in the eleventh century. January . to June , *70 34. Rural life in the eleventh century. July to December . • 71 {From Cott. MS. Julius A. vi.) 35. Plan and section of a burh of the eleventh century at Laughton-en- le-Morthen, Yorks ....... 74 {From G. T. Clark's ‘ Mediaeval Military Architecture ’) 37. Glass tumbler . . . . . . . • 7^ 38. Drinking-glass ....... 76 39. Comb and case of Scandinavian type found at York . . 77 {From the originals in the British M useuni) 40. Martyrdom of St. Edmund by the Danes . . . .82 {From a drawing belonging to the Society of Antiquaries') 41. First Great Seal of Eadward the Confessor (obverse) . . 86 {From an original impression) 42. Hunting. (From the Bayeux Tapestry) . . . -87 {Reduced from ‘ Vetusta Monumenta,’ vol, vi.) 43. Tower in the earlier style, church at Earl’s Barton . . -91 44. Tower in the earlier style, St. Benet’s church, Cambridge . . 91 {Fro 7 n Rickman's ‘ Gothic Architecture,’ 6th edition, by J. H. Parker) 45. Building a church in the later style . . . . -92 {From a drawing belonging to the Society of A ntiquaries) 46. Normans feasting ; with Odo, bishop of Bayeux, saying grace. (From the Bayeux Tapestry) . . . . -93 47. Harold swearing upon the relics. (From the Bayeux Tapestry) . 94 48. A Norman ship. (From the Bayeux Tapestry) . . -95 49. Norman soldiers mounted. (From the Bayeux Tapestry) . -95 50. Group of archers on foot. (From the Bayeux Tapestry) . . 96 51. Men fighting with axes. (From the Bayeux Tapestry) . . 97 52. Death of Harold. (From the Bayeux Tapestry) . . -98 {Reduced froin ‘ Vetusta Monumenta,’ vol. vi.) 53. Coronation of a king, temp. William the Conqueror . . 99 {From a d^-a-finz belonging to the Society of Antiouaries) c;4. Silver penny of William the Conqueror, struck at Romney . . lot {From ctn original specifnen) ILLUSTRATIONS xliii FIG. !■ 55. East end of Darenth church, Kent . . . {From Rickman's ‘ Gothic Architecture,’ 6th edition, by J. H. Parker) 56. Part of the nave 01 St. Alban's abbey church {Frotfi a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dundee') 57. Facsimile of a part of Domesday Book relating to Berkshire {From the original ,MS. in the Ptiblic Record Office) 58. Henry I. and his queen MaJlda ..... {From Hollis’s ‘ Monumental Effigies’) 59. Seal of Milo of Gloucester, showing mounted armed figure in the reign of Henry I. ...... . {From an original impression) 60. Monument of Roger, bishop of Salisbury, died 1139 {From Stothard's ‘ Monumental Efiigies ’) 61. Porchester church, Hampshire, built about 1135 {From Rickman's ‘ Gothic Architecture,’ 7th edition, by J. H. Parker) 62. Part of the nave of Durham cathedral, built about 1130 {From Scott's ‘ Mediaeval Architecture,’ London, J. Murray) 63. Keep of Rochester castle, built between 1126 and 1139 {From a photograph by Poulton Sons, Lee) 64. Keep of Castle Rising, built about 1140-1150 {From a photograph) 65. Tower of Castor church, Northamptonshire, built about 1145 {From Britton's ‘ Architectural Antiquities ’) 66. Effigies of Henry II. and queen Eleanor . . , , {From Stothard's ‘ Monumental Effigies ’) 67. Ecclesiastical costume in the twelfth century {From Cott. MS. bJero C. iv. f. 37) 68. A bishop ordaining a priest ...... 69. Small ship of the latter part of the twelfth century . {From ‘ Hailey Roll,’ Y. 6) 70. Part of the choir of Canterbury cathedral, in building 1175-1184 {From Scott's ‘Mediaeval Architecture,’ London, J. Murray) 71. Mitre of Archbishop Thomas of C anterbury, preserved at Sens {From Shaw's ‘ Dresses and Decorations ’) 72. Military and civil costume of the latter part of the twelfth century . {From ‘ Harley Roll,’ Y. 6) 73. Royal arms of England from Richard I. to Edward III. {From the wall arcade, south aisle oj nave, Westminster A bbey) 74. The Galilee or Lady chapel, Durham cathedral, built by bishop Hugh of Puiset, between 1180 and 1197 .... {From Scott s.’’ Mediaeval Architecture,’ London, J. Murray) 75. Effigy of a knight in the Temple church, London, showing armour of the end of the tv elfth century ..... {From Hollis's ‘ Monumental Effigies ’) 76. Effigies of Richard I. and queen Berengaria {From Stothard's * Monumental Effigies’) 77. Part of the choir of Ripon cathedral, built during the last quarter of the twelfth century ....... {From Scott's ‘ Mediaeval Architecture,’ London, J. Murray) 78. Lay costumes in the twelfth century ..... 79. Costume of shepherds in the twelfth century {From Cott. MS. Nero C. iv. ff. ii and 16) 80. Hall of Oakham castle, Rutland, built about 1185 . {From H udson 7 urner's ‘ Domestic Architecture ’) ’AGE 107 109 112 123 125 127 128 130 132 133 136 139 142 144 146 ISO 153 154 159 160 162 164 166 i68 168 170 xliv ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. PAGE 81. Norman house at Lincoln, called the Jews’ House . . . 171 {From a photograph by Carl Norman, Tunbridge Wells) 82. Effigies of king John and queen Isabella .... 175 {From Stothard’s ‘ Monumental Effigies ’) 83. Effigy of bishop Marshall of Exeter, died 1206 . . . 177 {From Murray's ‘ Handbook to the Southern Cathedrals’) 84. Parsonage house of early thirteenth-century date at West Dean, Sussex ....... 179 {From Hudson Turner's * Domestic Architecture ’) 85. Effigy of a knight in the Temple church, London, showing armour worn between iiqo and 1225 ..... 182 {From Stothard’s ' Monumental Effigies’) 86. Silver penny of John, struck at Dublin . . . .184 {From an original example) 87. Effigy of Henry III. (From his tomb at Westminster) . . 186 88. Effigy of William Longespde, earl of Salisbury, died 1227, frotn his tomb at Salisbury, showing armour worn from about 1225 to 1250 . 187 {From Stothard's ‘ Monumental Effigies’) 89. Effigy of Simon, bishop of Exeter, died 1223 . . . 188 {From Murray's ‘ Handbook to the Southern Cathedrals ’) 90. Beverlt-y Minster, Yorkshire, the south transept ; built about 1220- 1230 . . . ... . . . 189 {From Britton’s ‘Architectural Antiquities’) 91. Longthorpe manor-house, Northamptonshire, built about 1235 . 192 {From Hudson T urner’s ‘ Dom Stic Architecture ’) 92. A ship in the reign of Henry III. ..... 193 93. A bed in the reign of Henry III. ..... 196 {From Cott. MS. Nero D. i. ff. 21 and 22 b) 94. Barn of thirteenth-century date at Raunds, Northamptonshire . 197 {From Hudson Turner's ‘ Domestic Architecture’) 95. A fight between armed and mounted knights of the time of Henry III. ......... 201 {From Cott. MS. Nero D. i. f. 4) 96. Seal of Robert Fitzwalter, showing a mounted knight in complete mail armour ; date about 1265 . . . . . 202 {From an original impression) 97. Effigy of a knight at Gosperton, showing armour worn from about 1250 to 1300 ; date about 1270 . . . . . 203 {From Stothard's ‘ Monumental Effigies ’) 98. Building operations in the reign of Henry III., with the king giving directions to the architect . ..... 204 {From Cott. MS. Nero D. i. f 23 b) 99. East end of Westminster abbey church ; begun by Henry III. in 1245 ......... 205 {Ff'om a photograpK) 100. Nave of Salisbury cathedral church, looking west ; date, between 1240 and 1250 ....... 206 {From a photograph by Valentine 6 ^ Sons, Dundee) 101. A king and labourers in the reign of Henry III. . . . 207 {From Cott. MS. Nero D. i. f. 21 b) 102. Great Seal of Edward I. (slightly reduced) .... 209 {From an original impression) 103. Group of armed knights and a king in ordinary dress ; date, letup. Edward I. . . . , . . . . 211 {From Arundel MS. 83, f. 132) ILLUSTRATIONS xlv PIG. PAGE 104. Nave of Lichfield cathedral church, looking east ^ built about 1280 . 213 {From a photograph by Valentine dr* . onsy Dundee) 105. Effigy of Eleanor of Castile, queen of Edward I. , in Westminster abbey . .• . • . . . • 215 {From StotharcFs ‘ Monumental Effigies’) 106. Cross erected near Northampton by Edward I. in memory of queen Ehanor ........ 217 {From a photograph) 107. Sir John d’Abernoun, died 1277, from his brass at Stoke Dabernon ; showing armour worn from about 1250 to 1300 . . , 219 {From Waller's ‘ Monumental Brasses^) 108. Edward II. from his monument in Gloucester cathedral . . 225 (From htotharcCi ‘ Monumental Effigie^ ’) 109. Lincoln cathedral, the central tower ; built about 1310 . . 227 {From Britton’s ‘ Architectural Antiquities ’) no. Sir John de Cre»«e, from his brass at Westley Waterless, Cambridge- shire ; showing armour worn between 1300 and 1335 or 1340 ; date, about 1325 ....... 229 {From Wallers ‘ Monumental Brasses ’) 111. Howden church Yorkshire, the west front .... 230 {From A ickman's ‘ Gothic Architecture,’ 7th edition, by J. H. Parker) 1 12. Effigies of Edward III. and queen Phiiippa, from their tombs in Westminster abbey ....... 233 {From B lore’s ‘ Monumental Remains ’) 1 13. A knight— Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, who died 1345 — receiving his helm and pennon from his wife ; another lady holds his shield . . 236 {From the Luttrell Psaltery ‘ Vetusta Monumenta ’) 114. William of Hatfield, second son of Edward III., from his tomb in York Mmsier ....... 237 {hrom Stoihard’s ‘ Monumental Effigies ’) 115. York Minster, the nave, locking west . . . . 238 {From a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dundee) 116. Royal arms of hdward III., from his tomb .... 239 {From a photograph) 117. Shooting at the butts with the long bow .... 241 1 18. Contemporary view of a fourteenth-century walled town . . 243 {hrom the Luttrell Psalter, ‘Vetusta Monume'ita’) 1 19. Gloucester cathedral church, the choir, looking east . . 2^4 {From a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dundee) 120. The lord’s upper chamber or solai at Sutton Courtenay manor-house date, about 1350 . . . . . . *245 121. Interior of the hall at Penshurst, Kent ; built about 1340 . . 246 122. A small house or cottage at Meare, Somerset ; built about 1350 . 247 123. Norborough Hall, Northaraptons'-ire ; built about 1350 . . 247 {From Hudson Turner's ‘ Domesiic Architecture ’) 124. Ploughing ........ 248 125. H arrowing ; and a boy slinging stones at the birds . . 248 126. Breaking the clods with mallets ..... 249 127. Cutting weeds ....... 249 128. Reaping ........ 249 129. Stacking corn ........ 250 130. Threshing corn with a flail ...... 250 {From the Luttrell Psalter, ‘ Vetusta Monumenta ’) xlvi ILL USTRA TIONS FIG. ‘ page 131. West front of Edington church, Wilts ; built about 1360 . . 253 {From Rickman’s ‘ Gothic Architecture,’ 7th edition, by J. H. Parker) 132. Gold noble of Edward III. ...... 255 {Frmn an original exainple) 133. Effigy of Edward the Black Prince ; from his tomb at Canterbury . 256 {From Stothard’s ‘ Monumental Effigies’) 134. William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, 1367-1404 ; from his tomb at Winchester ...... 260 {From Murray’s ‘ Handbook to the Southern Cathedrals ’) 135. Tomb of -Edward III. in Westminster abbey . 263 {From Blore’s ‘ Monumental Retnains ’) 136. Figures of Edward the Black Prince and Lionel duke of Clarence ; from the tomb of Edward III. . . . . . 264 {From Hollis’s ‘ M onumental Effigies ’) 137. Richard II. and his first queen, Anne of Bohemia ; from their tomb in Westminster abbey . _ . . . . . 267 {From Hollis’s ‘ Monumental Effigies ’) 138. Portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer . . . . . 270 {From Harl. MS. 4866) 139. A gentleman riding out with his hawk , , . 271 140. Carrying corn, a cart going uphill .... 272 141. State carriage of the fourteenth century .... 273 142. Bear-baiting ........ 275 {From the Ltittrell Psalter, ‘ Vetusta Monumenta ’) 143. West end of the nave of Winchester cathedral church . . 276 {From a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dundee) 144. Meeting of Henry of Lancaster and Richard II. at Flint . . 284 145. Henry of Lancaster claiming the throne .... 285 {From Harl. MS. 1319) 146. Effigy of a knight at Clehonger, showing development of plate armour ; date about 1400 ...... 287 {From Hollis’s ‘ Monumental Effigies ’) 147. Henry IV. and his queen Joan of Navarre ; from their tomb in Canterbury cathedral church ..... 290 {From Stothard’s ‘ Monumental Effigies ’) 148. Royal arms as borne from about 1408 to 1603 . . . 291 {From a fifteenth-century seal) 149. Thomas Cranley, archbishop of Dublin ; from his brass at New College, Oxford, showing the archiepiscopal costume . . 292 {From Waller’s ‘ Monumental Brasses ’) 150. The Battle of Shrewsbury ...... 294 151. Fight in the lists with poleaxes ..... 297 {From Cott. MS. Julius E. iv. ff. 4 and 7) 152. Costume of a judge about 1400 ; from a brass at Deerhurst . . 298 {From Waller’s ‘ Monumental Brasses ’) 153. Henry V. 300 {From an original portrait belonging to the Society of Antiquaries) 154. Effigy of William Phelip, lord Bardolph ; from his tomb at Ben- nington, Suffolk . . . . . , . 304 {From StotharcCs ‘ Monumental Effigies ’) 155. Marriage of Henry V. and Catherine of France , . . 305 {From Cott. MS. Julius E. iv. f. 22) 156. Henry VI. ........ 308 {From an original Picture in the National Portrait Gallery) ILLUSTRATIONS xlvii IfIG. 1 157, Fotheringay church, Northamptonshire ; begun in 1434 (From a photograph by G. A. Nichols^ Stamford') 158 and 159. Front and back views of the gilt-latten effigy of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, died 1439 ; from his tomb at War- wick ....... 314, (From Stothard’s ‘ Monumental Effigies ’) 160. Tattershall castle, Lincolnshire ; built between 1433 and 1455 (From a photograph by G. A. Nichols, Stamford) 161. Part of Winfield manor-house, Derbyshire ; built about 1440 (From a photograph by R. Keene, Derby) 162. The Divinity School, Oxford ; built between 1445 1454 (Frojn a photograph by IV. H. Wheeler, Oxford) 163. A sea-fight . . . . . . (Frotn Cott. MS. Julius E. iv. f. 18 i 5 ) 164. Effigy of Sir Robert Harcourt, K.G., showing armour worn from about 1445 to 1480 (From 6 tothard's ' Monumental Effigies ’) 165. Edward IV. . (From an original portrait belonging to the Society of Antiquaries) 166. A fifteenth-century ship ...... (From Had. MS. 2278, f. 16) 167. Large ship and boat of the fifteenth century . , (From Cott. MS. Julius E. iv. f. 5) 168. Richard III. ........ (From an original portrait belonging to the Society of Antiquaries) 169. Henry VII. ........ 170. Elizabeth of York, queen of Henry VII. .... (From original pictures in the National Portrait Gallery) 171. Tudor Rose ; from the chapel of Henry VII., Westminster 172. ' Tower of St. Mary’s church, Taunton; built about 1500 (From Britton's ‘ Architectural Antiquities ’) 173. King’s College Chapel, Cambridge ; interior, looking east . (From a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dundee) 174. Henry VIII. (From a paifiting by Holbein about 1536, belonging to Earl Spencer) 175. Cardinal Wolsey ....... (From an original picture belonging to the Hon. SirSpencerPonsonby- Fane,K.CB.) 176. The embarkation of Henry VIII. from Dover, 15^20 . (From the Society of Antiquaries' engraving of the original picture at Hampton Court) 177. Silver-gilt cup and cover, made at London in 1523 ; at Barber Surgeons’ Hall, London ...... (From Cripps's ‘ College and Corporation Plate ’) % 178. Part of Hampton Court ; built by Cardinal Wolsey ; finished in 1526 (From a photograph) 179. Portrait of William Warhain, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1503-1532, showing the ordinary episcopal dress, with the mitre and archi- episcopal cross ....... (From a painting by Holbein, belonging to Viscount Dillon, F.S.A., dated 1527) 180. Tower of Fountains Abbey church ; built by Abbot Huby, 1494- 1526 . ... (From a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dundee) 181. Catharine of Aragon . . . (From a painting in the National Portrait Gallery) >AGE 311 315 316 318 319 325 326 330 333 339 341 344 345 346 353 355 362 365 370 371 373 376 378 380 xlviii ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 192. 193- 194. 195 - 196. 197. 198. 199. 200. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205. PAGE The gatehouse of Coughton Court, Warwickshire ; built about 1530 381 {From Niven's ‘ Illustrations of Old Warwickshire Houses’) Hall of Christchurch, Oxford ; built by Cardinal Wolsey ; finished in 1529 . . . . . . . . 384 {From a photograph by IV. H. Wheeler, Oxford) Sir Thomas More, wearing the collar of SS. . . . . 387 {From an original portrait painted by Holbein in 1527, belonging to Edward Huth, Esqi) John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, 1504-1535 . . -393 {From a drawing by Hoi ein in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle) Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, brother of Jane Seymour, after- wards Duke of Somerset, known as ‘ the Protector,’ at the age of 28, 1507-1552 . . . . . . -395 {From a painting at Sudeley Castle) Henry Vni. . . . . ... . 403 {From a painting by Holbein, belonging to the Earl of Warwick) Angel of Henry VIII., 1543 ...... 405 {From an original example) Part of the encampment at Marquison, 1544, showing military equipment in the time of Henry VIII. .... 406 191. Part of the siege of Boulogne by Henry VIII. , 1544, showing military operations . . . . . . 407, 408 {From the Society of Antiovaries' engravings, by Vertue, of the now destroyed paintings formerly at Cowdray House, Sussex) Armour as worn in the reign of Henry VIII. ; from the brass of John Lymsey, 1545, in Hackney church ..... 409 Margaret, wife of John Lymsey ; from her brass in Hackney church, showing the ''ostuaie of a lady circa 1545 .... 409 {From Haines's ‘ Manual of Monumental Brasses’) Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, 1473 (?)-i554 . • 410 {From a painting by Holbein at Winttsor Castle) Thomas Cranmer. Archbishop of Canterbury, 1533-1556 . . 414 {From a painting by H olbein dated 1547, at Jesus Coliege, Cambridge) Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, 1550-1553 , . . 417 {From the National Portrait Gallery) King Edward VI. ....... 419 {From a picture belonging to H. Hucks Gibbs, Esq.) Queen Mary Tudor ....... 422 {From a painting by Lucas de Heere, dated 1554, belonging to the Society of Antiquaries) Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, 1535-1539, burnt 1555 . 425 {From the National Portrait Gallery) A milled half-sovereign of Elizabeth, 1562-1568 . . . 435 {from an original example) Silver^ilt standing cup made in London in 1569-70, and given to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by Archbishop Parker . 440 {From Cripps's ‘ College and Corporation Plate ’) Sir Francis Drake in his forty-third year .... 448 {From the engraving by Elstracke) Armour as worn during the reign of Flizabeth ; from the brass of Francis Clopton, 1577, at Long Melford, Suffolk . . . 451 {From Haines's ‘ Manual of Monumental Brasses ') Hall of Burghley House, Northamptonshire, built about 1580 , 455 {From Drummonds ‘ Histories of Noble British Families’) Sir Martin Frobisher, died 1594 ..... 459 {From a picture belonging to the Earl of Carlisle) ILL USTRA TIONS xlix PIG. PAGE 206. The Spanish Armada. Fight between the English and Spanish fleets oft' the Isle of Wight, July 25, 1588 .... 461 (From Fine's engravings 0/ the tapestry formerly in the House 0/ Lords) 207. Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), and his eldest son Walter at the age of eight ........ 463 (From a picture dated 1602, belonging to Sir J. F. Lennard, Bart.) 208. A mounted soldier at the end of the sixteenth century . . 465 (From a broadside printed in 1596, in the Society of Antiquaries' collection) 209. Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire ; built by Thorpe for Sir Francis Willoughby, about 1580-1588 ..... 466 (From a photograph by R. Keene ^ Derby) 210. Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire ; built by Elizabeth, Countess of Shrews- bury, about 15^,7 . . .. . . . . 467 (From a photograph by R. Keene, Derby) 21 1. E-shaped house at Beaudesert, Staffordshire ; built by Thomas, Lord Paget, about 1601 ....... 469 (From a photograph by R. Keene, Derby) 212. Ingesire Hall, Staffordshire ; built about 1601 . . . 471 (Fro 7 H a photograpn by R. Keene, Derby) 213. Coaches in the reign of Elizabeth ..... 473 (From ‘ Archaeologia,’, vol. xx..pl. xviii.) 214. William Shakspere . . , . . . 474 (front the bust on his totnb at Stratford-ou-Avon) 215. Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex K.G., 1567-1601 . . 476 (From apainting by Van Somer, dated 1 599, belonging to theEarl ofE ssex) 216. Queen Elizabeth, 1558-1603 ...... 477 (From a painting belonging to the University of Cambridge) William Cecil, Lord Burghl y, K.G. , 1520-1591 . . . 479 (From a paint'ng in the Bodleian Library, Oxford) 218. Royal arms borne by James I. and succeeding Stuart sovereigns . 4S2 (From Bou ell's ‘ English Hvsraldry ’) 219. North-west view of Hatfield House, Herts ; built for Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury, betweefn 1605 and 1611 . . . 485 (Frojti a photograp / by Valentine 6 r=‘ Sotis, Dun lee) 220. Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk ..... 487 (From a painting belonging to T. A. Hope, Esq.) 221. King James I. . . . . . . . . 491 ‘ (From a painting by P. Van Somer, dated 1621, in the National Portrait Gallery) 222. Civil costume, about 1620 . . . . . . 492 (From a contemporary broadside in the collection of the Society of A ntiquaries) 223. The banqueting-hall of the Palace of Whitehall (from the north- east) ; built from the designs of Inigo Jones, 1619-1621 . . 493 (From a photograph) 224. Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban, Lord Chancellor . . 495 (From a painting by P. Van Somer in the National Portrait Gallery) 225. Costume of a lawyer ....... 497 (From a bi'oadside dated 1623, in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries) 226. The Upper House of Convocation . . . - . 498 227. The Lower House of Convocation . . . 499 (Froin a broadside dated 1623, in the collection of the Society of A ntiquaries) 1 ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. PAGE 228. King Charles I. , 504 {From a painting by Van Dyck) 229. Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I. . . . 505 {From a painting by Van Dyck) 230. Tents and military equipment in the early part of the reign of Charles I. . . . . . . . . 507 {From the monument of Sir Charles Montagtte {died in 1625), in the church of Barking, Essex) 231. George Villiers, first duke of Buckingham, 1592-1628 . . 509 {From the painting by Gerard Honthorst in the National Portrait Gallery) 232. Sir Edward and Lady Filmer ; from their brass at East Sutton, Kent, showing armour and dress worn about 1630 . . . 515 {From Wallers ‘ Monumental Brasses’) 233. Archbishop Laud . . . . . . . 517 {From a copy in the National Portrait Gallery by Henry Stone, from the Van Dyck at Lambeth) 234. Silver-gilt tankard made at London in 1634-5 ; now belonging to the Corporation of Bristol . . . . . .518 {From Cripps's ‘ College and Corporation Plate ’) 235. The ‘ Sovereign of the Seas,’ built for the Royal Navy in 1637 . 522 {From a contemporary engraving by John Payne) 236. Soldier armed with a pike ...... 527 237. Soldier with musket and crutch . . . . . 527 {From a broadside printed about 1630, in the collection of the Society of A ntiquaries) 238-243. Ordinary civil costume, temp. Charles I., viz. ; — A gentleman and a gentlewoman . . . . 550 A citizen and a citizen’s wife ..... 551 A countryman and a countrywoman .... 552 {From Speed's map of ‘ The Kingdom of England,’ 1646) 244. View of the west side of the Banqueting-House, Whitehall, dated 1713, showing the window through which Charles I. is said to have passed to the scaffold . . . . . . 558 {From an engraving by Terasson) 245. Execution of King Charles I. , January 30, 1649 . . . 559 {From a broadside in the collection of the late Richard Fisher Esq., F.S.A.) 246. A coach in the middle of the seventeenth century . . . 564 {Fro 7 n an engraving by John Dunstall) 247. Oliver Cromwell ....... 567 {Frofn the painting by Samuel Cooper, at Sidney Sussex College, Cam- bridge) 248. Charles II. ....... . 579 {From the portrait by Sir Peter Lely in Christ's Hospital, London) 249. Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon, 1608-1674 . . . 581 {From an engraving by Loggan) 250. A mounted nobleman and his squire .... 582 {From Ogilby's ‘ Coronation Procession of Charles II.’) 251. Dress of the Horseguards at the Restoration . . . . 583 {From Ogilby's ‘ Coronation Procession of Charles II. ) 252. Yeoman of the Guard . . . . . . . 583 {From Ogilby's ‘ Coronation Procession of Charles II.’) 253. Shipping in the Thames, circa 1660 . . . . . 584 {From Pricke's ‘ South Prospect of London ’) ILL USTRA TIONS FIG. 254. Old St. Paul’s, from the east, showing its condition just before the Great Fire ........ {From an engraving by H ollar) 255. John Milton in 1669 ....... {From the engraving by Faithorne) 256. Temple Bar, London, built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1670 {From a photograph) 257. Anthony Ashley-Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury, 1621-1683 {hrom the painting by John Greenhill in the National Portrait Gallery) 258. Ordinary dress of gentlemen in 1675 ..... {From Loggans ‘ Oxonia Illustrata ’) 259. Cup presented, 1676, by King Charles II. to the Barber Surgeons’ Company ........ {Prom Cripps’s ‘ College and Corporation Plate ’ ) 260. Steeple of the church of St. Mary-le-Bow, London, built by Sir Christopher Wren between 1671 and 1680 .... {Frotn a photograph) 261. Dress of ladies of quality ...... {From Sandford's ‘Coronation Procession of James II.’) 262. Ordinary attire of women of the lower classes {From Sandfora's ‘Coronation Procession of James II.’) 263. Coach of the latter half of the seventeenth century . {From Loggans ‘ Oxonia Illustrata ’) 264. Waggon of the second half of the seventeenth century {From Loggans ‘ Oxonia Illustrata ’) 265. Reaping and harvesting in the second half of the seventeenth cen- tury ......... {From Loggan's ‘ Cantabrigia Illustrata ’) 266. Costume of a gentleman ...... {Frotn Sandford's ‘ Coronation Procession of James II.’) 267. James II. ....... . {From the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller in 1684-5 tb.e National P'ortrait Gallery) 268. Yeomen of the Guard ....... {From Sand fords ‘ Coronation Procession of James II.’) 269. Dress of a bishop in the second half of the seventeenth century {Frotn Sandford's ‘ Coronation Procession of J ames II.) 270. William III. ........ 271. Mary II. . . . . . ' . {From engravings after portraits by J. H. Brandon) 272. Royal arms as borne by William III. .... 273. I, Bayonet as made in 1686 ...... 2, Bayonet of the time of William and Mary {From ‘ Archaeologia,’ vol. xxxviii.) 274. Part of Greenwich Hospital. Built after the design of Sir Christo- pher Wren ........ {From a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dundee) 275. Front of Hampton Court Palace ; built by Sir Christopher Wren for William III. ....... {From a photograph) 276. Part of Hampton Court ; built for William III. by Sir Christopher Wren ........ {From a photograph by Valentine Sotis, Dundee) 277. West front of St. Paul’s Cathedral Church ; built by Sir Christopher Wren ........ {From a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dundee) PAGE 59 f 597 601 604 611 612 614 628 628 629 629 630 632 63s 636 642 650 651 652 653 653 662 66s 666 668 lii ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. 278. Queen Anne ; from a portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller {From an engraving after Sir Godfrey K^ieller) 279. The first Kddystone Lighthouse, erected in 1697; destroyed in 1703 . {From an engraving by Sturt) 280. Steeple of St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, London ; built by Sir Christopher Wren, 1701-1703 ....... {From an original engraving) 281. Part of Blenheim ; built by Vanbrugh in 1704 {From a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dundee) 282. Royal arms, as borne by Anne . . . 283. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough ; from a portrait by Sir G. Kneller, belonging to Earl Spencer, K.G. . ... . 284. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough ; from a portrait belonging to Earl Spencer, K.G. . {Both from Dibdins ‘.lEdes Althorpianae ’) 285. Jonathan Swift, D.D. , Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin {Fr 07 H a painting by C. fervas in the National Portrait Gallery) 286. Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke; from an engraving after a picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller ..... {From Lodge’s ‘ British Portraits’) 287. The Choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral Church, looking west, as finished by Sir Christopher Wren ...... {From an engraving by Trevit, about 1710) 288. George I. ....... . {From an engraving by Veritte) 289. A coach of the early part of the eighteenth century . {From an engraving by Kip) 290. An early form of steam -pump for mines .... {From an etigraving dated 1717) 291. Group showing costumes and sedan-chair about 1720 292. View of the Game of Pall-Mall ..... {Both from Kip's ‘ Prospect of the City of London, Westminster, and St. James’s Park ’) 293. The interior of St. Martin’ s-in-the-Fields, London ; built by James Gibbs, 1722-1726 . . . . . . . {From a contetnporary engraving) 294. Ploughing with oxen in the eighteenth .century 295. Mowing grass in the eighteenth century .... {Both from Hearne' s ‘ Ectypa Varia,’ 1737) 296. Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, London ; finished in 1727 from the designs of Nicholas Hawksmoor ..... {From a photograph) 297. Sir Robert Walpole . . . {Frotn the picture by Van Loo in the National Portrait Gallery) 298. Vessels unloading at the Custom House, at the beginning of the eighteenth century ....... {From an original etigraving) 299. George II. ....... . {From the portrait by Thomas Hudson in the National Portrait Gallerj) 300. Coach built for William Herrick, of Beaumanor, in 1740 {From a lithograph) 301. A sitting in the House of Commons in 1741-42 {From an engraving by Pine) 302. Election Scenes — The Canvass PAGE 677 679 681 683 68s 688 689 694 698 700 703 706 708 71 1 712 715 716 717 719 721 723 727 729 731 733 ILLUSTRATIONS liii FIG. 303. Election Scenes — The Poll . • . 304. Election Scenes — The Chairing of the Member 305. Election Scenes — The Election Dinner .... {.From engravings after the pichires by Hogarth) 306. Grenadier of the First Regiment of Footguards, 1745 307. Uniform of the Footguards, 1745 ..... {Both from Sir S. Scott’s ‘ History of the British Army’) 308 The March to Finchley, 1745 ..... {Fro 7 u the engraving by Luke Sullivan after the painting by Hogarth) 309. The Right Hon. William Pitt, Paymaster of the Forces, afterwards Earl of Chatham ....... {Fro'n the mezzotint by Houston after a painting by Hoare) 310. A view of Cape Diamond, Plains t f Abraham, and part of the town of Quebec and the river St. Lawrence ; drawn by Lieutenant Fisher ........ {From an engraving in the British M tiseum) 311. Wolfe ......... {From the painting by Schaak in the National Portrait Gallery) 312. A naval engagement ; defeat of the French off Cape Lagos, August 1759 ......... {From a picture by R. Patoti) 313. Officer with fusil and gorget . . {Fro 7 H Sir S. Scott's ‘ History of the British Army’) 314. Uniform of Militia, 1759 ...... {Frojn Raikes's ‘ First Regiment of Militia’) 315. Uniform of a Light Dragoon, about 1760 .... {From Grose’s ‘ Military Antiquities ’) 316. The third Eddystone Lighthouse ; built by Smeaton in 1759 {From ‘ European Magazine,’ vol. xix.) 317. Silver coffee-pot belonging to the Salters’ Company, 1764 . {Frojn Cripps’s ‘ College and Corporation Flate ’) 318. Edmund Burke ....... {From a painting by Reynolds in the National Portrait Gallery) 319. George III. in 1767 ....... {Froma painting by Allan Ravtsayin the National Portrait Gallery) 320. Lord North ........ {From the engraving by Burke after a painting by Dance) 321. Distribution of His Majesty’s Maundy .. .. {From the engraving by Basire, 1773) 322. Part of Somerset House ; built by Sir William Chambers, 1776-80 . {From a photograpP) 323. Charles James Fox as a young man . . {From Watson’s mezzotint after a painting by Reynolds) 324. The Gordon Riots, 1780 .... {From an ene,raving by Heath after the picture by Wheatley) 325. Newgate Prison ; rebuilt in 1782 after the Gordon Riot {From a photograph) 326. The Siege of Gi raltar, 1781 . . • . . {From ‘ European Magazine,’ vol. ii.) 327. Cos'umes of persons of quality, about 1783 .... {From ‘ European Magazine,’ vol. v.) 328. Costumes of gentlefolk, about 1784 . . {From ‘ European Magazine,’ vol. v.) 329. Society at Vauxhall . ... {From an aquatint after T, Rowlandson, 1785) FACE 734 735 736 738 738 741 742 754 755 757 758 759 760 763 769 772 775 778 781 785 790 791 793 797 800 807 809 liv ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. PAGE 330. Regulation musket, 1786, popularly known as Brown Bess . .811 {_From Sir S. Scott's ‘ History of the British Army ’) 331. Pitt speaking in the House of Commons .... 812 (From Hickel's painting in the National Portrait Gallery) 332. Lock on a Canal ....... 814 (From Elmes’s ‘ Metropolitan Improvements,’ 1827) 333. James Brindley . . . . . . .815 (From the portrait by Parsons engraved in Taylors ‘National Biography ) 334. Arkwright . . .816 (From a painting by JVright of Derby in the National Portrait Gallery) 335. Crompton . . . . . . . .817 (From a painting by Allingham engraved in Taylors ‘ National Biography ’) 336. Uniform of sailors about 1790 ..... 829 (From a caricature by K owlandson, and a broadside of 1790) 337. Head-dress of a lady (Mrs. Abington) about 1778 . . 839 (From ‘ European Magazine,’ vol. xxxiii.) 338. The Union Jack in use since 1801 ..... 842 (From Boutelts ‘ English Heraldry’) 339. William Pitt ........ 843 (From the bust by Nollekens in the National Portrait Gallery) 340. Royal arms as borne from 1714 to 1801 .... 844 341. Royal arms as borne from 1801 to 1816 .... 844 342. Royal arms as borne from 1816 to 1837 .... 844 343. Greathead’s lifeboat, 1803 . . . . . 845 (From ‘ European Magazine,’ vol. xliii.) 344. The Old East India House in 1803 ..... 846 (From ‘ European Magazine, vol. xliii.) 34.5. The old Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, 1803 . 847 (From a contemtorary engrai ing) 346. The King in the House of Lords, 1804 .... 850 (From ‘ Modern London ’) 347. Napoleon’s medal struck to commemorate the invasion of England 851 (From a cast in the British Museum) 348. Hyde Park on a Sunday, 1804 ..... 852 (From ‘ Modem London ’) 349. Lord Nelson . . . . . ... . 853 (From the picture by L. F. Abbott in the National Portrait Gallery) 350. Fox ......... 856 (From his bust by Nollekens in the National Portrait Gallery) 351. The taking of Curasao in 1807 . . . . .861 (From an engraving of 1809) 352. The Court of King’s B-nch in 1810 ..... 866 (From Pennant's ‘ Some Account of London ’) 353. Grenadier in the time of the Peninsular War . . 870 (From Raikes's ‘ First Regiment of Militia ’) 354. Waterloo Bridge ; opened June 18, 1817, built by Rennie . 878 (From Elmes's ‘ Metropolitan Improvements ’) 355. George lit. in old age ...... 881 (From C. Turner's mezzotint) 356. George IV. ...... . 883 (Fro?n an unfinished portrait by Lawrence in the National Portrait Gallery) ILLOSTRATIONS Iv FIG. 357 - 358. 359 - 360. 361. 362. 363- 364. 365- 366. 367- 368. 369- 370. 371 - 372. 373 - 374 - 375 - 376. 377 - 378. 379 - 380. 381. PAGE Lord Byron ........ 886 {From an engraving after a painting by Sanders') Sir Walter ScoU ....... 888 {From a photograph of a painting by Colvin Smith in Scott Memorials) Wordsworth at the age of 28 . . . . . . 889 {From a drawing by R. Hancock in the National Portrait Gallery) Canning ; from St' ward-on’s portrait .... 892 (From Taylor s ‘ Nation d Biography ’) Apsley House, the residence of the Duke of Wellington, in 1829 {From Elmes's ‘ Metropolitan Improvements ’) William IV. ; from a porirait by Dawe .... {From Taylors ‘ National Portrait Gallery ’) The Duke of vVellington ...... {From ft bust by J. F-rancis in the National Portrait Gallery) Earl Grey ........ Viscount Melbourne ....... Lord Palmerston ....... {All from Hayter's picture of ^ The Meeting of the First Reformed Parliament, Feb. 5, 1833,’ in the National Portrait Gallery) An early steamboat ....... {From t‘ie ' Instructor ’ of 1833) Engine employed at the Killingworth Colliery, familiarly known as ‘ Puffing Billy ’ . . . . . ... {From a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dundee) No. I Engine of the Stockton and Darlington Rail a ay (From a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dundee, of the original at Gccteshead) St. Luke’s, Chelsea, designed by Savage, and built in 1824 {From Elmes's ‘ Metropolitan Improvtm nts ’) Banner of the Royal arms as borne since 1837 {F^ 07 H Boutell's ‘ English Heraldry ’) Queen Victoria : after a por rait by Lane .... {From the engraving by Thompson) Lord John Russell ....... {From a painting by Sir F. Grant) 897 899 900 901 902 904 906 907 907 908 914 915 917 The New Houses of Parliament ..... 919 {From a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dttndee) Sir Robert Peel . ...... 932 (From the bust by Noble in the National Portrait Gallery) The Britannia Tubular Railway Bridge, opened in 1850 . . 937 (From a photograph by Valentine Sons, D^mdee) St. Georg ’s Hall, Liverpool completed in 1859 . . . 942 {From a photograph by Valentine Sons, Dundee) The ^’ictoria Cross, instituted in 1856 .... 947 {From Route IPs ‘ English Heraldry’) King Edward VII. ....... 980 {Ffom u pm Ugraph by IV. p=y‘ D. Downey, 57 Ebury Street, London) Lord Salisbury ....... 982 {hrom a f'hoto^raph by Russtll Sons, 17 Baket Street, London) King George V. ...... . 995 {Prom a photograph by Russell Sons 17 Baker Street, London) Iviii GENEALOGICAL TABLES II GENEALOGY OF THE NORMAN DUKES AND OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND FROM THE CONQUEST TO HENRY Vi I. Hrolf 912 -927 (?) William Longsword 927 (?)-943 Richard I., the Fearlesa 943-996 Richard II., the Good 996-1026 Richard III. Robert 1026-1028 1028-1035 William I. 1035-1087 King of England 1066-1087 Emma=(i) ^thelred the Unready Eahward the Confessor Robert Duke of Normandy 1087-1106 William II. Henry I. 1087-1100 1100-1135 Henry V. = Matilda=Geofirey Emperor I Count of Anjou Adela= Stephen G >unt of Blois Stephen ”35-1154 Henry II. 1x54-1x89 GENEALOGICAL TABLES II Henry II. {continued) Henry I Geoffrey Richard I. 1189-1199 John 1199-1216 Edward I. 1272-1307 Edward II. 1307-1327 Edward III. 1327-1377 Henry III 1216-1272 Edward the Black Prince Richard II. 1377-^399 Lionel Duke of Clarence .1 John of Gaunt Duke of Lan aster Philippa= Edmund I Mortimer Earl of March Roger, Earl of March Henry V. 1413-1422 Henry VI. 1422-1461 Edmund Earl of March Anne - Richard I Earl of Cambridge Richard, Duke of York Edward IV. 1461-1483 Richard III. 1483-1485 Edward V. 1483 !th= Henry VII. 1485-1509 (Descended from John of Gaunt by Catherine Swynford) lx GENEALOGICAL TABLES III GENEALOGY OF THE KINGS OF SCOTLAND FROM DUNCAN /. TO JAMES IV. Duncan I. 1057) Margaret = Mai.colm III, si'terof Canni Edgar 1057-1093 iEiheling Edgar Alexander I. 1098-1107 1107-1124 David I. 1124-1153 I - Henry Dundan II. 1094-1095 Donald Bane 1093- 094, restored 1095-1098 I I Mai COLM IV. Wii.liam 1153-1165 the Lion 1165-1214 I Alexander II. 1214-1249 Alexander III. 1249-1285 David -Earl of Huntingdon Margaret Devo guilla= John Balliol I Margaret = Eric, I King of Norway Margaret (the Maid of Norway) John Balliol 1292-1296 Edward Balliol . Isabella Robert Bruce Robert Bruce Robert Bruce 1306-1329 David II. 1329-1370 Margai et = Walter j Stewart Robert II., Stewart or Stuart 1370-1390 Robert III. 1390-1406 James I. 1406-1437 James II. 1437-1460 James III. 1460-1488 James IV. 1488-1513 GENEALOGICAL TABLES 1X1 IV E/NGS AND QUEENS OF ENGLAND (AFTER 1541 OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND) FROM HtNRY VI I. TO ELIZABETH. Henry VII. = Elizaheth 1485-1509 I of York Arthur = Catharine = Henry VIII. = (2) Anne Boleyn = (3) Jane Seymour Prince of of Aragon I 1509-1547 I I Wales r I 1 Mary I. Elizabeth Edward VI. 1553-1559 1558-1603 1547-1553 V KINGS OF SCOTLAND FROM JAMES IV. TO JAMES VI. Henry VII., king -of I England James IV. = Margaret= Archibald, Earl ot Angus James V. = Mary of Guise Margaret Douglas = Matthew Stuart 1513-1542 I 1 Earl of Lennox (i) Francis II. = Mary=(2) Henry Stuart king of France 1542-1567 | (Lord Darnley) James VI. 1567-1625 king of Great Britain as James I. 1603-1625 Ixii GENEALOGICAL TABLES VI EEVGS OF GEE AT BRITAIN AND IRELAND FROM JAMES I. TO GEORGE I. James I. = Anne of Denmark 1603-1625 Henry Prince of Wales Charles I. = Henrietta 1625-1649 Charles II =Catharine Mary = William II. (nominally) of Prince of 1649-1660 Braganza Orange (actually) 1660-1685 Elizabeth = Frederick V. Elector Palatine (i) Anne Hyde= James II. = (2) Mary 1685-1689 of Modena William III. Prince of Orange, king of Great Britain and Ireland 1689-1702 = Mary II. 1689-1694 Anne James (The 1702-1714 Old Pre- tender) Charles Edward (The Young Pre tender) Charles Lewis Prince Rupert Elector Palatine Sophia George I. 1714-1727 GENEALOGICAL TABLES Ixiu VII KINGS AND QUEENS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND FROM GEORGE I. TO GEORGE V. George I. 1714-1727 George II. 1727-1760 Frederick William Duke of Cumberland Prince of Wales George III. 1760-1820 George IV. Frederick 1820-1830 Duke of York Princess Charlotte William IV. 1830-1837 Edward Duke of Kent Victoria 1837-1901 Edward VII. 19-^1-1910 George V. 1910 ixiv GENEALOGICAL TABLES VIII GENEALOGY OF THE KINGS OF FRANCE FROM HUGH CAPET TO LOUIS XII. Hugh the Great (died 956) Hugh Capet 987-996 Robert 996-1031 Henry L 1031-1060 Philip I. 1060-1108 Louis VI. 1108-1137 I Louis VII. 1137-1180 Loths X. Philip V. 1314-1316 ■ 1316-1322 r Jeanne I Two John daughters (died seven days old) I Charles VI. 1380-1422 Philip II. 1180-1223 Louis VIII. 1223-1226 (St.) Louis IX. 1226-1270 Philip III. 1270-1285 I I . Philip IV. 1283-1314 I Charles IV. 1322-1328 Charles V. 1364-1380 Louis Duke of Orleans Charles of Valois Isabella 7 n . Edward II. I Edward III. I Philip VI. 1328-1350 John 1350-1364 D tikes of Burgundy Philip John Philip Charles VII. 1422-1461 Loins XL 1461-1483 Charles Duke o! Orleans I Louis XII. 1498-1519 Charles Charles VIII. 1483-1498 GENEALOGICAL TABLES Ixv IX. GENEALOGY OF THE KINGS OF FRANCE FROM LOUIS XII. TO LOUIS XIV., SHOWING THEIR DESCENT FROM LOUIS IX. (St.) Louis IX. 1226-1270 Philip III. Robert of Clermont 1270-1285 j Philip IV. Charles 1283-1314 of Valois (For descen* Philip VI. dams of 1328-1350 Philip IV. I .see Table VIII.) John 1350-1364 Charles V. 1364-1380 I Charles VI. 1380-1422 Charles VII. 1422-1461 Louis XI. 1461-1483 Charles VIII. 1483-1498 Louis Duke of Orleans I Charles Duke of Orleans Louis XII. 1498-1515 Louis I. Duke of Bourbon John Count of Angouleme Charles Francis I. 1515-1547 Henry II. Antony=Jeanne d’Albret, 1547-1559 I queen of I Navarre Francis II. Charles IX. i Francis Henry III. Henry IV. 1559-^560 1560-1574 Duke of Alen^on 1574-1589 1589 1610 Louis XIII. 1610-1643 Louis* XIV. 1643-1715 d Ixvi GENEALOGICAL TABLES KINGS OF FRANCE FROM HENRY IV. TO LOUIS PHILIPPE Louis XllI 1610-1643 Louis XIV. 1643-1715 I. Louis the Dauphin Louis Duke of Biu'gundy Louis XV. 1715-1774 Louis the Dauphin Henry IV. 1589-1610 Henrietta = Charles L Maria 1 king of England (2) Elizabeth = Philip = (i) Henrietta d. of Charles Lewis, Elector Palatine Louis XVI. i774-j792' Louis (imprisoned till his death in 1795 ; called Louis XVII.) Louis XVIII. 1814-1824 Duke of Orleans Philip Duke of Orleans, Regent Louis Duke of Orleans Louis Philippe Duke of Orleans Charles X. 1824-1830 Louis Duke of Angouleme Charles Duke of Berri Henry Count of Chambord Philip Duke of Orleans (Egalit6) Louis Philippe king of the French 1830-1848 “ Louis Philippe - Count of Paris XI THE BONAPARTE FAMILY Charles Buonaparte I II Napoleon I. =(i) Josephine Lucien Louis Emperor m. (i) General king of 1804-1814-15 Beauhamais Holland Joseph (2) Maria Bonaparte Louisa king of Spain Napoleon Duke of Reichstadt (called Napoleon II.) Eugene Viceroy of Italy Jerome king of West- phalia I Hortense m. Louis king of Holland Napoleon III. 1852-1870 Republic 1792-1799, nominally to 1804. Republic 1848-1851, nominally to 1852. GENEALOGICAL TABLES Ixvii XII GENEALOGY OF THE KINGS OF SPAIN FROM FERDINAND AND ISABELLA TO CHARLES II. Maximilian I Emperor Ferdinand = Isabella king of Aragon queen of 1479-1516 Castile 1474-1504 Philip I. = Juana Archduke of Austria, king of Castile 1504-1506 Catharine=(i) Arthur, Prince_ of Wales (2) Henry VIII. king of England Charles I. Ferdinand I. (the Emperor Charles V.) Emperor king of Castile, 1506-1556, king of Aragon, 1516-1556 Philip II. 1556-1598 Philip III. 159S-1621 Philip IV. ; 62 1-1065 Charles II. 1665-1700 Ixviii GENEALOGICAL TABLES XIII N/NGS OF SPAIN FROM PHILIP V. Philip V. 1700-1724 (abdicates) (resumes the crown) 1725-1746 I Luis Ferdinand VI. Charles III. 1724-1725 1746-1759 i759yi788 Charles IV. 1788-1808 Ferdinand VII. 1814-1833 Isabella 1833-1868 ‘ Alfonso XII • 1874-1885 Alfonso XIII. 1886- XIV GENEALOGY OF THE GERMAN BRANCH OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA FROM FERDINAND I. TO LEOPOLD /. (The dates given are those during which an archduke was emperor.) Rudolph II. 1576-1612 Ferdinand I. I556yi564 1 Maximilian II. i5"4yi576 Matthias 1612-1619 Charles Duke of Styria I'ERDINAND II. 1619-1635 Ferdinand III. 1635-1658 Leopold I. 1658-1705 * Provisional Government 1868 Regency of Marshal Serrano 1869 King Amadeo 1870-73 Republic . 1873-74 GENEALOGICAL TABLES Ixix XV THE GERMAN BRANCH OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA FROM LEOPOLD /. (The dates given are those during which an archduke was emperor.) Francis II. 1792-1806 (The Empire dissolved in 1806) Emperor of Austria 1804-1835 Ferdinand T. Francis Charles Leopold I. 1658-1705 (2) Cunigunda = Max Emanuel = (i) Mary Sobieski Elector of Elector of Bavaria Joseph I. 1705-1711 Charles VI. 1711-1740 Charles VII. 1742-1745 Joseph Ferdinand Electoral Prince of Bavaria Francis I. = Maria Theresa 1745-1765 I died 1780 Joseph II. 1765-1790 Leopold II. 1790-1792 Marie = Louis XVI. Antoinette king of France Emperor of Austria 1835- 1848 Franc: oseph, Emperoi Austria, King of Hungary S’c 1848- ' GENEALOGICAL TABLES XVI /^/NGS OF PRUSSIA AND GERMAN EMPERORS Frederick I. king of Prussia 1700-1713 Frederick William I. king of Prussia 1713-1740 Frederick II. Augustus William king of Prussia I 1740-1786 Frederick William II. king of Prussia 1786-1797 i Frederick William IV. king of Prussia 1840-1861 Frederick William III. king of Prussia 1797-1840 William I. king of Prussia 1861-1888 German Emperor 1870-1888 Frederick III. king of Prussia and German Emperor 1888 William 11 king of Prussia and German Emperor 1888- GENEALOGICAL TABLES Ixxi XVII N/NGS OF ITALY Charles Albert king of Sardinia 1831-1849 Victor Emmanuel king of Sardinia 1849-1861 king of Italy 1861-1878 Humbert king of Italy 1878-1900 Victor Emmanuel III. 1900 XVIII THE TZARS OR EMPERORS OF RUSSIA FROM ALEXIS Theodore Ivan V. 1676-1682 1682-1689 Catharine Anne I 1730-1740 Anne Ivan VI. 1740-1741 Alexis 1645-1676 Eudocia= Peter I. (The Great) = Catharine I. 1689-1725 I 1725-1727 Elizabeth 1741-1762 Peter II. Peter III. = Catharine II. 1725-1730 1762 I 1762-1796 Paul 1796-1801 Alexander L 1801-1826 Constantine N icholas 1825-1855 Alexander II.- 1855-1881 Alexander IIT 1881-1894 Nicholas II. 189,4 Ixxii GBkEALOGICAb TABLES XIX GENEALOGY OF THE PRINCES OF ORANGE FROM WILLIAM I. TO WILLIAM IIL William I. - (The Silent) i558ji584 Philip William Maurice Frederick Henry 1584-1618 1618-1625 1625-1647 William II, 1647-1650 William III. 1650-1702 SHORTER AND SOMETIMES MORE DETAILED GENEALOGIES will be found in the following pages. PAGE Genealogy of the principal Northumbrian kings ... ... 41 ,, Eng li.'.h kings from Ecgberht to Eadgar . . . .56 ,, Ei.glish kings from Eadgar to Eadgar the ^Etheling ... 78 ,, ,, Danish kings . .. . 83 Genealogical connection between the Houses of England and Normandy . . 84 Genealogy of the Mercian Earls 85 ,, ,, family of Godwine 89 ,, ,, Conqueror’s sons and children 131 ,, ,, sons and grandchildren of Henry n. . . . . . . 156 ,, ,, John’s sons and grandsons . . 208 ,, ,, claimants of the Scottish throne 216 ,, ,, more important sons of Edward III 265 ,, ,, claimants of the throne in 1399 286 ,, ,, kings of Scotland from Robert Bruce to James I. . . . . 295 „ ,, Nevills 324 ,, ,, Houses of Lancaster and York . . . . . . . 327 ,, ,, Beauforts and Tudors 335 „ ,, House of York 337 ,, ,, Wood villes and Greys 338 Abbreviated genealogy of Henry VII. and his competitors 344 Genealogy of the Houses of Spain and Burgundy 349 „ ,, Poles . 399 ,, ,, children of Henry VIII . . . . 411 „ ,, Greys . .421 „ ,, last Valois kings of France . . 433 „ ,, Guises 435 ,, of Mary and Darnley 438 ,, of, the descendants of Charles I 609 „ claimants oi the Spanish monarchy 669 ,, ,, first three Hanoverian kings 702 ,, ,, family of Louis XIV 707 „ „ principal descendants of Queen Victoria . . . . 925 HISTORY OF ENGLAND PART I ENGLAND BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST CHAPTER I PREHISTORIC AND ROMAN BRITAIN LEADING DATES Caesar’s first invasion b.c. 55 Invasion of Aulus Plautius a.d. 43 Recall of Agricola 84 Severus in Britain 208 End of the Roman Government 410 I. Palaeolithic Man of the River-Drift. — Countless ages ago, there was a period of time to which geologists have given the name of the Pleistocene Age. The part of the earth’s surface afterwards called Britain was then attached to the Continent, so that animals could pass over on dry land. The climate was much colder than it is now, and it is known from the bones which have been dug up that the country was inhabited by wolves, bears, mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, and other creatures now extinct. No human remains have been found amongst these bones, but there is no doubt that men existed contemporaneously with their deposit, because, in the river drift, or gravel washed down by rivers, there have been discovered flints sharpened by chipping, which can only have been produced by the hand of man. The men who used them are known as Palaeolithic, or the men of ancient stone, because these stone im- plements are rougher and therefore older than others which have S PREHISTORIC BRITAIN Palaeolithic flint scraper from Icklingham, Suffolk. (Evans.) been discovered. These Palaeolithic men of the river drift were a race of stunted savages who did not cultivate the ground, but lived on the animals which they killed, and must have had great difficulty in procuring food, as they did not know how to make handles for their sharpened flints, and must therefore have had to hold them in their hands. 2. Cave-dwelling Palaeolithic Man. — This race was succeeded by another which dwelt in caves. They, as well as their prede- cessors, are known as Palaeolithic men, as their weapons were still very rude. As, however, they had learnt to make handles for them, they could construct arrows, harpoons, and javelins. They also made awls and needles of stone ; and, what is more re- markable, they possessed a decided artistic power, which enabled them to indicate by a few vigorous scratches the forms of horses, mammoths, rein- deer, and other animals. Vast heaps of rubbish still exist in various parts of Europe, which are found to consist of the bones, shells, and other refuse thrown out by these later Palaeolithic men, who had no reverence for the dead, casting out the bodies of their relations to decay with as little thought as they threw away oyster-shells or Palaeolithic flint implement from Hoxne, Suffolk. THE STONE AGE 3 reindeer-bones. Traces of Palaeolithic men of this type have been found as far north as Derbyshire. Their descendants are no longer to be met with in these islands. The Eskimos of the extreme north Engraved bone from Cresswell Crags, Derbyshire, now in the British Museum (full size). of America, however, have the same artistic faculty and the same disregard for the dead, and it has therefore been supposed that the cave-dwelling men were of the race to which the modern Eskimos belong. 3. Neolithic Man. — Ages passed away during which the climate became more temperate, and the earth’s surface in these regions sank to a lower level. The seas afterwards known as the N orth Sea and the English Channel flowed over the depression ; and an island was thus formed out of land which had once been part of the con- tinent. After this process had taken place, a third race appeared, which must have crossed the sea in rafts or canoes, and which took the place of the Palaeolithic men. They are known as Neo Neolithic celt or cutting in- Neolithic flint arrow-head from Rud- strunient from Guernsey, stone, Yorks. (Evans.) (Evans.) lithic, or men of the new stone age, because their stone implements were of a newer kind, being polished and more efficient than those of their predecessors. They had, therefore, the advantage of supe- 4 PREHISTORIC BRITAIN rior weapons, and perhaps of superior strength, and were able to overpower those whom they found in the island. With their stone axes they made clearings in the woods in which to place their settlements. They brought with them do- mestic animals, sheep and goats, dogs and pigs. They spun thread with spindle and distaff, and wove it into cloth upon a loom. They grew com and manufactured a rude kind of pottery. Each tribe lived in a state of war with its neighbours. A tribe when attacked in force took shelter on the hills in places of refuge, which were surrounded by lofty mounds and ditches. Many of these places of refuge are still to be seen, as, for instance, the one which bears the name of Maiden Castle, near Dorchester. On the open hills, too, are still to be found the Early British Pottery. long barrows which the Neolithic men raised over the dead. There is little doubt that these men, whose way of life was so superior to that of their Eskimo-like predecessors, were of the race now known N eolithic axe from Winterbourn Steepleton, Dorset. (Evans.) SUCCESSIVE EACES s as Iberian, which at one time inhabited a great part of Western Europe, but which has since mingled with other races. The Basques of the Pyrenees are the only Iberians who still preserve anything like purity of descent, though even the Basques have in them blood the origin of which is not Iberian. 4. Celts and Iberi- ans. — The Iberians were followed by a swarm of new-comers called Celts. The Celts belong to a group of races sometimes known as the Aryan group, to which also belong Teutons, Slav- onians, Italians, Greeks, and the chief ancient races of Persia and In- dia. The Celts were the first to arrive in the West, where they seized upon lands in Spain, in Gaul, and in Britain, which the Iberians had occupied before them. They did not, however, destroy the Iberians altogether. However careful a conquering tribe maybe to preserve the purity of its blood, it rarely succeeds in doing so. The con- Early British Pottery 6 PREHISTORIC BRITAIH querors are sure to preserve some of the men of the conquered race as slaves, and a still larger number of young and comely women who become the mothers of their children. In time the slaves and the children learn to speak the language of their masters or fathers. Thus every European population is derived from many races. 5. The Celts in Britain. — The Celts were fair-haired and taller than the Iberians, whom they conquered or displaced. They had the advantage of being possessed of weapons of bronze, for which even the polished stone weapons of the Iberians were no match. They burned instead of burying their dead, and raised over the ashes those round barrows which are still to be found intermingled with the long barrows of the Iberians. 6. Goidels and Britons. — The earliest known name given to this island was Albion. It is un- certain whether the word is of Celtic or of Iberian origin. The later name Britain is derived from a second swarm of Celts called Brythons or Britons, who after a long interval followed the first Celtic immigration. The descendants of these first immigrants are distinguished from the new-comers by the name of Goidels, and it is probable that they were at one time settled in Britain as well as in Ireland, and that they were pushed across the sea into Ireland by the stronger and more civilised Britons. At all events, when history begins Goidels were only to be found in Ireland, though at a Bronze cell from the Isle of Harty, Kent (i). Bronze caldron found in Ireland. SUCCESSIVE RACES 7 later time they colonised a part of what is now known as Scotland, and sent some offshoots into Wales. At present the languages derived from that of the Goidels are the Gaelic of the Highlands, the Manx of the Isle of Man, and the Erse of Ireland. The only language now spoken in the British Isles which is derived from that of the Britons is the Welsh ; but the old Cornish language, which was spoken nearly up to the close of the eighteenth century, came from the same stock. It is therefore likely that the Britons pushed the Goidels northward and westward, as the Goidels had View of Stonehenge. (From a photograph.) formerly pushed the Iberian-s in the same directions. It was most likely that the Britons erected the huge stone circle of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, though it is not possible to speak with cer- tainty. That of Avebury is of an earlier date and uncertain origin. Both were probably intended to serve as monuments of the dead, though it is sometimes supposed that they were also used as temples. 7. PhcEnicians and Greeks. — The most civilised nations of the ancient world were those which dwelt round the Mediterranean Sea. It was long supposed that the Phoenicians came to Britain PREHISTORIC BRITAIN’ B-C. 330-55 from the coast of Syria, or from their colonies at Carthage and in the south of Spain, for the tin which they needed for the manu- facture of bronze. The peninsula of Devon and Cornwall is the only part of the island which produces tin, and it has therefore been thought that the Cassiterides, or tin islands, which the Phoenicians visited, were to be found in that region. It has, how- ever, been recently shown that the Cassiterides were most probably off the coast of Galicia, in Spain, and the belief that Phoenicians visited Britain for tin must therefore be considered to be very doubtful. The first educated visitor who reached Britain was Pytheas, a Greek, who was sent by the merchants of the Greek colony of Massalia {Marseilles) about 330 B.c. to make discoveries which might lead to the opening across Gaul of a trade-route between Britain and their city. It was probably in consequence of the information which he carried to Massalia on his return that there sprang up a trade in British tin. Another Greek, Posidonius, who came to Britain about two centuries after Pytheas, found this trade in full working order. The tin was brought by land from the present Devon or Cornwall to an island called Ictis, which was only accessible on foot after the tide had ebbed. This island was probably Thanet, which was in those days cut off from the mainland by an arm of the sea which could be crossed on foot at low water. From Thanet the tin was carried into Gaul across the straits, and was then conveyed in waggons to the Rhone to be floated down to the Mediterranean. 8. Gauls and Belgians in Britain. — During the time when this trade was being carried on, tribes of Gauls and Belgians landed in Britain. The Gauls were certainly, and the Belgians probably, of the same Celtic race as that which already occupied the island. The Gauls settled on the east coast as far as the Fens and the Wash, whilst the Belgians occupied the south coast, and pushed northwards towards the Somerset Avon. Nothing is known of the relations between the new-comers and the older Celtic inhabitants. Most likely those who arrived last contented them- selves with mastering those whom they defeated, without attempt- ing to exterminate them. At all events, states of some extent were formed by the conquerors. Thus the Cantii occupied the open ground to the north of the great forest which then filled the valley between the chalk ranges of the North and South Downs ; the Trinobantes dwelt between the Lea and the Essex Stour ; the Iceni occupied the peninsula between the Fens and the sea which was afterwards known as East Anglia {^Norfolk and C^SAJ^ IN' GAUL AND BRITAIN 9 ft.c. 5S Suffolk) ; and the Catuvellauni dwelt to the west of the Trino- bantes, spreading over the modern Hertfordshire and the neigh- bouring districts. 9. Culture and War. — Though there were other states in Britain, the tribes which have been named had the advantage of being situated on the south-eastern part of the island, and therefore of being in commercial communication with the continental Gauls of their own race and language. Trade increased, and brought with it the introduction of some things which the Britons would not have invented for themselves. F or instance, the inhabitants of the south- east of Britain began to use gold coins and decorations in imita- tion of those which were then common in Gaul. Yet, in spite of these improvements, even the most civilised Britons were still in a rude and barbarous condition. They had no towns, but dwelt in scattered huts. When they were hard pressed by an enemy they took refuge in an open space cleared in the woods, and surrounded by a high earthwork crowned by a palisade and guarded by felled trees. When they went out to battle they dyed their faces in order to terrify their enemies. Their warriors made use of chariots, dashing in them along the front of the enemy’s line till they espied an opening in his ranks. They then leapt down and charged on foot into the gap. Their charioteers in the lo ROMAN BRITAIN b.c. 55 meanwhile drove off the horses to a safe distance, so as to be ready to take up their comrades if the battle went against them. 10. Religion of the Britons. — The Celtic races worshipped many gods. In Gaul, the Druids, who were the ministers of reli- gion, taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and even gave moral instruction to the young. In Ireland, and perhaps in Britain, they were conjurers and wizards. Both in Gaul and Britain they kept up the traditional belief which had once been prevalent in all parts of the world, that the gods could only be appeased by human sacrifices. It was supposed that they needed either to drink human blood or to be supplied with human slaves, and that the only way to give them what they wanted was to de- spatch as many human beings as possible into the other world. The favourite way of doing this was to construct a huge wicker basket in the shape of a man, to cram it with men and women, and to set it on fire. At other times a Druid would cut open a single human victim, and would imagine that he could foretell the future by inspecting the size and ap- pearance of the entrails. II. The Romans in Gaul. B.c. 55 In the year 55 B.C. the Celts of south-eastern Britain first came in contact with a Roman army. The Ro- mans were a civilised people, and had been en- gaged for some centuries in conquering the peoples living round the Medi- Julius Caesar. (From a bust in the British Museum.) terranean. They pos- sessed disciplined armies, and a regular government. By the beginning of the year the Roman general. Gains Julius Caesar, had made himself master of Gaul. Then, after driving back with enormous slaughter two German tribes which had invaded Gaul, he crossed the Rhine, not because he wished to conquer Germany, but because he wished to strike B.C. 55-54 Cy^SAR IN BRITAIN II terror into the Germans in order to render them unwilling to renew their attack. This march into Germany seems to have suggested to Caesar the idea of invading Britain. It is most unlikely that he thought of conquering the island, as he had quite enough to do in Gaul. What he really wanted was to prevent the Britons from coming to the help of their kindred whom he had just subdued, and he would accomplish this object best by landing on their shores and showing them how formidable a Roman army was. 12. Caesar’s First Invasion. B.c. 55. — Accordingly, towards the end of August, Caesar crossed the straits with about 10,000 men. There is some uncertainty about the place of his landing, but he probably first appeared off the spot at which Dover now stands, and then, being alarmed at the number of the Britons who had crowded to defend the coast, made his way by sea to the site of the modern Deal. There, too, his landing was opposed, but he managed to reach the shore with his army. He soon found, how- ever, that the season was too advanced to enable him to accom- plish anything. A storm having damaged his shipping and driven off the transports on which was embarked his cavalry, he returned to Gaul. 13. Caesar’s Second Invasion. B.C. 54 — Caesar had hitherto failed to strike terror into the Britons. In the following year he started in July, so as to have many weeks of fine weather before him, taking with him as many as 25,000 foot and 2,000 horse. After effecting a landing he pushed inland to the Kentish Stour, where he defeated the natives and captured one of their stockades. Good soldiers as the Romans were, they were never quite at home on the sea, and Cassar was recalled to the coast by the news that the waves had dashed to pieces a large number of his ships. As soon as he had repaired the damage he resumed his march. His principal opponent was Cassivelaunus, the chief of the tribe of the Catuvellauni, who had subdued many of the neighbouring tribes, and whose stronghold was a stockade near the modern St. Albans. This chief and his followers harassed the march of the Romans with the rush of their chariots. If Cassivelaunus could have counted upon the continued support of all his warriors, he might perhaps have succeeded in forcing Caesar to retreat, as the country was covered with wood and difficult to penetrate. Many of the tribes, however, which now served under him longed to free themselves from his rule. First, the Trinobantes and then four other tribes broke away from him and sought the protection of Caesar. Caesar, thus encouraged, dashed at his stockade and t2 kOMAN BRITAIN B.c. 54— A.fi. 43 carried it by storm. Cassivelaunus abandoned the struggle, gave hostages to Caesar, and promised to pay a yearly tribute. On this Caesar returned to Gaul. Though the tribute was never paid, he had gained his object. He had sufficiently frightened the British tribes to make it unlikely that they would give him any annoyance in Gaul. 14. South-eastern Britain after Caesar’s Departure, u.c. 54 — A.D. 43. — For nearly a century after Caesar’s departure Britain was left to itself. The Catuvellauni recovered the predominance which they had lost. Their chieftain, Cunobelin, the original of Shakspere’s Cymbeline, is thought to have been a grandson of Cassivelaunus. He established his power over the Trinobantes as well as over his own people, and made Camulodunum, the modern Colchester, his headquarters. Other tribes submitted to him as they had submitted to his grandfather. The prosperity of the inhabitants of south-eastern Britain increased more rapidly than the prosperity of their ancestors had increased before Caesar’s invasion. Traders continued to flock over from Gaul, bringing with them a knowledge of the arts and refinements of civilised life, and those arts and refinements were far greater now that Gaul was under Roman rule than they had been when its Celtic tribes were still independent. Yet, in spite of the growth of trade, Britain was still a rude and barbarous country. Its exports were but cattle and hides, corn, slaves, and hunting dogs, together with a few dusky pearls. 15. The Roman Empire. — The Roman state was now a mon- archy. The Emperor was the head of the army, as well as the head of the state. Though he was often a cruel oppressor of the wealthy personages who lived in Rome itself, and whose rivalry he feared, he, for the most part, sought to establish his power by giving justice to the provinces which had once been conquered by Rome, but were now admitted to share in the advantages of good govern- ment which the Empire had to give. One consequence of the con- quest of nations by Rome was that there was now an end to cruel wars between hostile tribes. An army was stationed on the frontier of the Empire to defend it against barbarian attacks. In the in- terior the Roman peace, as it was called, prevailed, and there was hardly any need of soldiers to keep order and to maintain obedience. 16. The Invasion of Aulus Plautius. a.d. 43. — One question which each Emperor had to ask himself was whether he would at- tempt to enlarge the limits of the Empire or not. For a time each Emperor had resolved to be content with the frontier which Caesar 43-51 THE ROMAN CONQUEST 13 had left. There had consequently for many years been no thought of again invading Britain. At last the Emperor Claudius reversed this policy. There is reason to suppose that some of the British chiefs had made an attack upon the coasts of Gaul. However this may have been, Claudius in 43 sent Aulus Plautius against Togidumnus and Caratacus, the sons of Cunobelin, who were now ruling in their father’s stead. Where one tribe has gained supremacy over others, it is always easy for a civilised power to gain allies amongst the tribes which have been subdued. Caesar had overpowered Cassivelaunus by enlisting on his side the revolted Trinobantes, and Aulus Plautius now enlisted on his side the Regni, who dwelt in the pre- sent Sussex, and the Iceni, who dwelt in the present Norfolk and Suffolk. With their aid, Aulus Plautius, at the head of 40,000 men, defeated the sons of Cunobelin. Togidumnus was slain, and Cara- tacus driven into exile. The Romans then took possession of their lands, and, stepping into their place, established over the tribes chieftains who were now dependent on the Emperor instead of on Togidumnus and Caratacus. Claudius himself came for a brief visit to receive the congratulations of the army on the victory which his lieutenant had won. Aulus Plautius remained in Britain till 47. Before he left it the whole of the country to the south of a line drawn from the Wash to some point on the Severn had been sub- jugated. The mines of the Mendips and of the western peninsula were too tempting to be left unconquered, and it is probably their attraction which explains the extension of Roman power at so early a date over the hilly country in the west. 17. The Colony of Camulodunum.— In 47 Aulus Plautius was succeeded by Ostorius Scapula. He disarmed the tribes dwelling to the west of the Trent, whilst he attempted to establish the Roman authority more firmly over those whose territory lay to the east of that river. Amongst these later were the Iceni, who had been hitherto allowed to preserve their native govern- ment in dependence on the Roman power. The consequence was that they rose in arms. Ostorius overpowered them, and then sought to strengthen his hold upon the south-east of Britain by founding (51) a Roman colony at Camulodunum, which had formerly been the headquarters of Cunobelin. Roman settlers — for the most part discharged soldiers — established themselves in the new city, bringing with them all that be- longed to Roman life with all its conveniences and luxuries. Roman temples, theatres, and baths quickly rose, and Ostorius might fairly expect that in Britain, as in Gaul, the native chiefs ROMAN BRITAIN 14 51-61 would learn to copy the easy life of the new citizens, and would settle their quarrels in Roman courts of law instead of taking arms on their own behalf. 18. The Conquests of Ostorius Scapula.— Ostorius, however, was soon involved in fresh troubles. N othing is more difficult for a civilised power than to guard a frontier against barbarous tribes. Such tribes are accustomed to plunder one another, and they are quick to perceive that the order and peace which a civilised power establishes offers them a richer booty than is to be found elsewhere. The tribes beyond the line which Ostorius held were constantly breaking through to plunder the Roman territory, and he soon found that he must either allow the lands of Roman subjects to be plundered, or must carry war amongst the hostile tribes. He naturally chose the latter alternative, and the last years of his government were spent in wars with the Ordovices of Central Wales, and with the Silures of Southern Wales. The Silures were not only a most warlike people, but they were led by Caratacus, who had taken refuge with them after his defeat by Aulus Plautius in the east. The mountainous region which these two tribes de- fended made it difficult to subdue them, and though Caratacus was defeated (50), and ultimately captured and sent as a prisoner to Rome, Ostorius did not succeed in effectually mastering his hardy followers. The proof of his comparative failure lies in the fact that he established strong garrison towns along the frontier of the hilly region, which he would not have done unless he had considered it necessary to have a large number of soldiers ready to check any possible rising. At the northern end of the line was Deva {Chester), at the southern was Isca Silurum {Caerleon upon Usk), and in each of which was placed a whole legion, about 5,000 men. Between them was the smaller post of Uriconium, or more properly Viriconium {Wroxeter), the city of the Wrekin. 19. Government of Suetonius Paullinus. 58. — When Suetonius Paullinus arrived to take up the government, he resolved to com- plete the conquest of the west by an attack on Mona {Anglesey). In Mona was a sacred place of the Druids, who gave encourage- ment to the still independent Britons by their murderous sacrifices and their soothsayings. When Suetonius attempted to land (61), a rabble of women, waving torches and shrieking defiance, rushed to meet him on the shore. Behind them the Druids stood calling down on the intruders the vengeance of the gods. At first the soldiers were terrified and shrunk back. Then they recovered courage, and put to the sword or thrust into the flames the priests 6i THE ROMAN CONQUEST 5 and their female rout. The Romans were tolerant of the religion of the peoples whom they subdued, but they could not put up with the continuance of a cruel superstition whose upholders preached resistance to the Roman government. 20. Boadicea’s Insurrection. 6i. — At the very moment of success Suetonius was recalled hurriedly to the east. Roman officers and traders had misused the power which had been given them by the valour of Roman soldiers. Might had been taken for right, and the natives were stripped of their lands and property at the caprice of the conquerors. Those of the natives to whom anything was left were called upon to pay a taxation far too heavy for their means. When money was not to be found to satisfy the tax- gatherer, a Roman usurer was always at hand to proffer the required sum at enormous interest, after which the unhappy borrower who accepted the proposal soon found himself unable to pay the debt, and was stripped of all that he possessed to satisfy the cravings of the lender. Those who resisted this oppression were treated as the meanest criminals. Boadicea, the widow of Prasutagus, who had been the chief of the Iceni, was publicly [logged, and her two daughters were subjected to the vilest out- rage. She called upon the whole Celtic population of the east and south to rise against the foreign tyrants. Thousands answered to her call, and the angry host rushed to take vengeance upon the colonists of Camulodunum. The colonists had neglected to fortify their city, and the insurgents, bursting in, slew by the sword or by torture men and women alike. The massacre spread wherever Romans were to be found. A Roman legion hastening to the rescue was routed, and the small force of cavalry attached to it alone succeeded in making its escape. Every one of the foot soldiers was slaughtered on the spot It is said that 70,000 Romans perished in the course of a few days. 21. The Vengeance of Suetonius. — Suetonius was no mean general, and he hastened back to the scene of destruction. He called on the commander of the legion at I sea Silurum to come to his help. Cowardice was rare in a Roman army, but this officer was so unnerved by terror that he refused to obey the orders of his general, and Suetonius had to march without him. He won a decisive victory at some unknown spot, probably not far from Camulodunum, and 80,000 Britons are reported to have been slain by the triumphant soldiery. Boadicea committed suicide by poison. The commander of the legion at I sea Silurum also put an end to his own life, in order to escape the punishment which he deserved. i6 ROMAN BRITAIN 61-84 Suetonius had restored the Roman authority in Britain, but it was to his failure to control his subordinates that the insurrection had been due, and he was therefore promptly recalled by the Emperor Nero. From that time no more is heard of the injustice of the Roman government. 22. Agricola in Britain. 78—84. — Agricola, who arrived as governor in 78, took care to deal fairly with all sorts of men, and to make the natives thoroughly satisfied with his rule. He com- pleted the conquest of the country afterwards known as Wales, and thereby pushed the western frontier of Roman Britain to the sea. Yet from the fact that he found it necessary still to leave garrisons at Deva and I sea Silurum, it may be gathered that the tribes occu- pying the hill country were not so thoroughly subdued as to cease to be dangerous. Although the idea entertained by Ostorius of making a frontier on land towards the west had thus been aban- doned, it was still necessary to provide a frontier towards the north. Even before Agricola arrived it had been shown to be impossible to stop at the line between the Mersey and the Humber. Beyond that line was the territory of the Brigantes, who had for some time occupied the position which in the first years of the Roman conquest had been occupied by the Iceni — that is to say, they were in friendly dependence upon Rome, without being actually controlled by Roman authority. Before Agricola’s coming disputes had arisen with them, and Roman soldiers had occupied their territory. Agricola finished the work of conquest. He now governed the whole of the country as far north as to the Solway and the Tyne, and he made Ebora- cum, the name of which changed in course of time into York, the centre of Roman power in the northern districts. A garrison was established there to watch for any danger which might come from the extreme north, as the garrisons of Deva and I sea Silurum watched for dangers which might come from the west. 23. Agricola’s Conquests in the North.— Agricola thought that there would be no real peace unless the whole island was subdued. For seven years he carried on warfare with this object before him. He had comparatively little difficulty in reducing to obedi- ence the country south of the narrow isthmus which separates the estuary of the Clyde from the estuary of the Forth. Before proceed- ing further he drew a line of forts across that isthmus to guard the conquered country from attack during his absence. He then made his way to the Tay, but he had not marched far up the valley of that river before he reached the edge of the High- lands. The Caledonians, as the Romans then called the 84-119 ^GRICOLA AND NAD/? /AN 17 inhabitants of those northern regions, were a savage race, and the mountains in the recesses of which they dwelt were rugged and inaccessible, offering but little means of support to a Roman army. In 84 the Caledonians, who, like all barbarians when they first come in contact with a civilised people, were ignorant of the strength of a disciplined army, came down from their for- tresses in the mountains into the lower ground. A battle was fought near the Graupian Hill, which seems to have been situated at the junction of the Isla and the Tay. Agricola gained a complete victory, but he was unable to follow the fugitives into their narrow glens, and he contented himself with sending his fleet to circum- navigate the northern shores of the island, so as to mark out the limits of the land which he still hoped to conquer. Before the fleet returned, however, he was recalled by the Emperor Domitian. It has often been said that Domitian was jealous of his success ; but it is possible that the Emperor really thought that the advantage to be gained by the conquest of rugged mountains would be more than counterbalanced by the losses which would certainly be incurred in consequence of the enormous difficulty of the task. 24. The Roman Walls.— Agricola, in addition to his line of forts between the Forth and the Clyde, had erected detached forts at the mouth of the valleys which issue from the Highlands, in order to hinder the Caledonians from plundering the lower country. In 119 the Emperor Hadrian visited Britain. He was more disposed to defend the Em- pire than to extend it, and though he did not abandon Agricola’s forts, he also built further south a continuous stone wall between the Solway and the Tyne. This wall, which, together with an earthwork of earlier date> Commemorative tablet of the Second Legion found at formed a far Halton Chesters on the Roman Vv all. Stronger line of defence than the more northern forts, was intended to serve as a second barrier to keep out the wild Cale- donians if they succeeded in breaking through ’the first. At a later time a lieutenant of the Emperor, Antoninus Pius, who after- i8 ROMAN BRITAIN 119 View of part of the Roman Wall. Ruins of a Turret on the Roman W.»ll. 208-288 THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT :9 wards became Emperor himself, connected Agricola’s forts between the Forth and Clyde by a continuous earthwork. In 208 the Emperor Severus arrived in Britain, and after strengthening still further the earthwork between the Forth and Clyde, he attempted to carry out the plans of Agricola by conquering the land of the Caledonians. Severus, however, failed as completely as Agricola had failed before him, and he died soon after his return to Eboracum. 25. The Roman Province of Britain. — Very little is known of the history of the Roman province of Britain, except that it made considerable progress in civilisation. The Romans were great road-makers, and though their first object was to enable their Part of the Roman Wall at Leicester. soldiers to march easily from one part of the country to another, they thereby encouraged commercial intercourse. Forests were to some extent cleared away by the sides of the new roads, and fresh ground was thrown open to tillage. Mines were worked and country houses built, the remains of which are in some places still to be seen, and bear testimony to the increased well-being of a population which, excepting in the south-eastern part of the island, had at the arrival of the Romans been little removed from savagery. Cities sprang up in great numbers. Some of them were at first garrison towns, like Eboracum, Deva, and I sea Silurum. Others, like Verulamium, near the present St. Albans, occupied the sites of the old stockades once used as places of refuge by the Celts, 20 ROMAN BRITAIN 208-288 or, like Lindum, on the top of the hill on which Lincoln Cathedral now stands, were placed in strongly defensible positions. Aquae Sulis, the modern Bath, owes its existence to its warm medicinal springs. The chief port of commerce was Londinium, the modem London. Attempts which have been made to explain its name by the Celtic language have failed, and it is therefore possible that an inhabited post existed there even before the Celts arrived. Its im- portance was, however, owing to its position, and that importance was not of a kind to tell before a settled system of commercial inter- Pediment of a Roman temple found at Bath. course sprang up. London was situated on the hill on which St. Paul’s now stands. There first, after the Thames narrowed into a river, the merchant found close to the stream hard ground on which he could land his goods. The valley for some distance above and below it was then filled with a wide marsh or an expanse of water. An old track raised above the marsh crossed the river by a ford at Lambeth, but, as London grew in importance, a ferry was esta- blished where London Bridge now stands, and the Romans, in course of time, superseded the ferry by a bridge. It is, therefore, 2o»-28S THR ROM art COVERR’MRRTT 21 no wonder that the Roman roads both from the north and from the south converged upon London. Just as Eboracum was a fitting centre for military operations directed to the defence of the northern frontier, London was the fitting centre of a trade carried on with the Continent, and the place would increase in importance in proportion to the increase of that trade. 26. Extinction of Tribal Antagonism. — The improvement of communications and the growth of trade and industry could not fail to influence the mind of the population. Wars between tribes, which before the coming of the Romans had been the main em- ployment of the young and hardy, were now things of the past. The mutual hatred which had grown out of them had died away, and even the very names of Trinobantes and Brigantes were almost forgotten. Men who lived in the valley of the Severn came to look upon themselves as belonging to the same people as men who lived in the valleys of the Trent or the Thames. The active and enter- prising young men were attracted to the cities, at first by the novelty of the luxurious habits in which they were taught to indulge, but after- wards because they were allowed to take part in the management of local business. In the time of the Emperor Caracalla, the son of Se- verus, every freeman born in the Empire was declared to be a Roman citizen, and long before that a large number of natives had been ad- mitted to citizenship. In each dis- trict a council was formed of the wealthier and more prominent in- habitants, and this council had to provide for the building of temples, the holding of festivals, the erection of fortifications, and the laying out of streets. Justice was done between man and man according to the Roman law, which was the best law that the world had seen, and the higher Roman officials, who were appointed by the Emperor, took care that justice was done between city and city. No one Roman altar from Rutchester. kOMAM BRITAIN 11 2S8-325 therefore, wished to oppose the Roman government or to bring back the old times of barbarism. 27. Want of National Feeling.— Great as was the progress made, there was something still wanting. A people is never at its best unless those who compose it have some object for which they can sacrifice themselves, and for which, if necessary, they will die. The Briton had ceased to be called upon to die for his tribe, and he was not expected to die for Britain. Britain had become a more comfortable country to live in, but it was not the business of its own inhabitants to guard it. It was a mere part of the vast Roman Empire, and it was the duty of the Emperors to see that the frontier was safely kept. They were so much afraid lest any particular province should wish to set up for itself and to break away from the Empire, that they took care not to employ soldiers born in that province for its protection. They sent British recruits to guard the Danube or the Euphrates, and Gauls, Spaniards, or Africans to guard the wall between the Solway and the Tyne, and the entrenchment between the Forth and the Clyde. Britons, therefore, looked on their own defence as something to be done for them by the Emperors, not as something to be done by themselves. They lived on friendly terms with one another, but they had nothing of what we now call patriotism. 28. Carausius and Allectus. 288 — 296. — In 288 Carausius, with the help of some pirates, seized on the government of Britain and thre^v off the authority of the Emperor. He was succeeded by Allectus, yet neither Carausius nor Allectus thought of making himself the head of a British nation. They called themselves Emperors and ruled over Britain alone, merely because they could not get more to rule over. 29. Constantius and Constantine. 296 — 337. — Allectus was over- thrown and slain by Constantius, who, however, did not rule, as Ca- rausius and Allectus had done, by mere right of military superiority. The Emperor Diocletian (285 — 305) discovered that the whole Em- pire, stretching from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, was too extensive for one man to govern, and he therefore decreed 'that there should in future be four governors, two principal ones named Emperors {Augusti)^ and two subordinate ones named Caesars. Constan- tius was first a Caesar and afterwards an Emperor. He was set to govern Spain, Gaul, and Britain, but he afterwards became Emperor himself, and for some time established himself at Eboracum ( York). Upon his death (306), his son Constantine, after much fighting, made himself sole Emperor (325), overthrowing the system of Dio- 314 - 3^3 DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE n cletian. Yet in one respect he kept up Diocletian’s arrangements. He placed Spain, Gaul, and Britain together under a great officer called a Vicar, who received orders from himself and who gave orders to the officers who governed each of the three countries. Under the new system, as under the old, Britain was not treated as an in- dependent country. It had still to look for protection to an officer who lived on the Continent, and was therefore apt to be more interested in Gaul and Spain than he was in Britain. 30. Christianity in Britain. — When the Romans put down the Druids and their bloody sacrifices, they called the old Celtic gods by Roman names, but made no further alteration in religious usages. Gradually, however, Christianity spread amongst the Romans on the Continent, and merchants or soldiers who came from the Con- tinent introduced it into Britain. Scarcely anything is known of its progress in the island. Alban is said to have been martyred at Verulamium, and Julius and Aaron at Isca Silurum. In 314 three British bishops attended a council held at Arles in Gaul. Little more than these fev/ facts have been handed down, but there is no doubt that there was a settled Church established in the island. The Emperor Constantine acknowledged Christianity as the re- ligion of the whole Empire. The remains of a church of this period have recently been discovered at Silchester. 31. Weakness of the Empire. — The Roman Empire in the time of Constantine had the appearance rather than the reality ot strength. Its taxation was very heavy, and there was no national enthusiasm to lead men to sacrifice themselves in its defence. Roman citizens became more and more unwilling to become soldiers at all, and the Roman armies were now mostly composed of bar- barians. At the same time the barbarians outside the Empire were growing stronger, as the tribes often coalesced into wide con- federacies for the purpose of attacking the Empire. 32. The Piets and Scots. — The assailants of Britain on the north and the west were the Piets and Scots. The Piets were the same as the Caledonians of the time of Agricola. We do not know why they had ceased to be called Caledonians. The usual deriva- tion of their name from the Latin Pictiis^ said to have been given them because they painted their bodies, is inaccurate. Opinions differ whether they were Goidels with a strong Iberian strain, or Iberians with a Goidelic admixture. They were probably Iberians, and at all events they were more savage than the Britons had been before they were influenced by Roman civilisation. The Scots, who afterwards settled in what is 24 ROMAIC BRITAIN 325-383 now kno\\Tias Scotland, at that time dwelt in Ireland. Whilst the Piets, therefore, assailed the Roman province by land, and strove, not always unsuccessfully, to break through the walls which defended its northern frontier, the Scots crossed the Irish Sea in light boats to plunder and slay before armed assistance could arrive. 33. The Saxons. — The Saxons, who were no less deadly enemies of the Roman government, were as fierce and restless as the Piets and Scots, and were better equipped and better armed. At a later time they established themselves in Britain as conquerors and settlers, and became the founders of the English nation ; but at first they were only kno\^m as cruel and merciless pirates. In their long flat-bottomed vessels they swooped down upon some unde- fended part of the coast and carried off not only the property of wealthy Romans, but even men and women to be sold in the slave- market. The pro\fincials who escaped related \vith peculiar horror how the Saxons were accustomed to torture to death one out of every ten of their captives as a sacrifice to their gods. 34. Origin of tha Saxons. — The Saxons were the more dan- gerous because it was impossible for the Romans to reach them in their homes. They were men of Teutonic race, speaking one of the languages, afterwards known as Low German, which were once spoken in the whole of North Germany. The Saxon pirates were probably dra\\Ti from the whole of the sea coast stretching from t];ie north of the peninsula of Jutland to the mouth of the Ems, and if so, there were amongst them Jutes, whose homes were in Jutland itself ; Angles, who inhabited Schleswig and Holstein ; and Saxons, properly so called, who dwelt about the mouth of the Elbe and further to the west. All these peoples afterwards took part in the conquest of southern Britain, and it is not unlikely that they all shared in the original piratical attacks. Whether this was the case or not, the pirates came from creeks and inlets outside the Roman Empire, whose boundary was the Rhine, and they could therefore only be successfully repressed by a power with a good fleet, able to seek out the aggressors in their own homes and to stop the mischief at its source. 35. The Roman Defence. — The Romans had always been weak at sea, and they were weaker now than they had been in earlier days. They were therefore obliged to content themselves with standing on the defensive. Since the time of Severus, Britain had been divided, for purposes of defence, into Upper and Lower Britain. Though there is no absolute certainty about the matter, 3 ^ 3-410 BRRA 1 ^-UP OP THP EMPIRP it is probable that Upper Britain comprised the hill country of the west and north, and that Lower Britain was the south-eastern part of the island, marked off by a line drawn irregularly from the Humber to the Severn.' Lower Britain in the early days of the Roman conquest had been in no special need of military protection. In the fourth century it was exposed more than the rest of the island to the attacks of the Saxon pirates. Fortresses were erected between the Wash and Beachy Head at every point at which an inlet of the sea afforded an opening to an invader. The whole of this part of the coast became known as the Saxon Shore, because it was subjected to attacks from the Saxons, and a special officer known as the Count of the Saxon Shore was appointed to take charge of it. An officer known as the Duke of the Britains {Dux Britanniaruni) commanded the armies of Upper Britain ; whilst a third, who was a civilian, and superior in rank over the other two, was the Count of Britain, and had a general supervision of the whole country. 36. End of the Roman Government. 383 — 410. — In 383 Maxi- mus, who was probably the Duke of the Britains, was proclaimed Emperor by his soldiers. If he could have contented himself with defending Britain, it would have mattered little whether he chose to call himself an Emperor or a Duke. Unhappily for the inhabi- tants of the island, not only did every successful soldier want to be an Emperor, but every Emperor wanted to govern the whole Empire. Maximus, therefore, instead of remaining in Britain, carried a great part of his army across the sea to attempt a conquest of Gaul and Spain. Neither he nor his soldiers ever returned, and in consequence the Roman garrison in the island was deplorably weakened. Early in the fifth century an irruption of barbarians gave full employment to the army which defended Gaul, so that it was impossible to replace the forces which had followed Maximus by fresh troops from the Continent. The Roman Empire was in fact breaking up. The defence of Britain was left to the soldiers who remained in the island, and in 409 they proclaimed a certain Constantine Emperor. Constantine, like Maximus, carried his soldiers across the Channel in pursuit of a wider empire than he could find in Britain. He was himself murdered, and his soldiers, like those of Maximus, did not return. In 410 the Britons implored the Emperor Honorius to send them help. Honorius had enough 1 There were also four smaller divisions, ultimately increased to five. All that is known about their position is that they were not where they are placed in our atlases. 26 THR ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS 410-449? to do to ward off the attacks of barbarians nearer Rome, and announced to the Britons that they must provide for their own defence. F rom this time Britain ceased to form part of the Roman Empire. CHAPTER II THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS LEADING DATES Landing of the Jutes in Thanet a.d. 449 ? The West Saxons defeated at Mount Badon . 520 The West Saxons take Sorbiodunum 552 Battle of Deorham 577 The West Saxons defeated at Faddiley .... 584 1. Britain after the Departure of the Romans. 410 — 449? — After the departure of the Romans, the Piets from the north and the Scots from Ireland continued their ravages, but though they caused terrible misery by slaughtering or dragging into slaveiy the inhabi- tants of many parts of the country, they did not succeed in making any permanent conquests. The Britons were not without a govern- ment and an armed force ; and their later history shows that they were capable of carrying on war for a long time against enemies more formidable than the Piets and Scots. Their rulers were known by the British title Gwledig, and probably held power in different parts of the island as the successors of the Roman Duke of the Britains and of the Roman Count of the Saxon Shore. Their power of resistance to the Piets and the Scots was, how- ever, weakened by the impossibility of turning their undivided attention to these marauders, as at the same time that they had to defend the Roman Wall and the western coast against the Piets and Scots, they were exposed on the eastern coast to the attacks of the Saxon pirates. 2. The Groans of the Britons. — In their misery the thoughts of the Britons turned to those Roman legions who had defended their fathers so well. In 446 they appealed to Aetius, the com- mander of the Roman armies, to deliver them from their destroyers. “ The groans of the Britons ” was the title which they gave to their appeal to him. “ The barbarians,” they wrote, “ drive us to the sea ; the sea drives us back to the barbarians ; between them we are 449 7-49 i 27 jVTES AND SAXONS exposed to two sorts of death : we are either slain or drowned.” Aetius had no men to spare, and he sent no help to the Britons. Before long the whole of Western Europe was overrun by barbarian tribes, the title of Emperor being retained only by the Roman Emperor who ruled from Constantinople over the East, his autho- rity over the barbarians of the West being no more than nominal. 3. The Conquest of Kent. 449? — It had been the custom of the Roman Empire to employ barbarians as soldiers in their armies, and Vortigern, the British ruler, now followed that bad example. In or about 449 a band of Jutish sea-rovers landed at Ebbsfleet, in the Isle of Thanet. According to tradition their leaders were Hengist and Horsa, names signifying the horse and the mare, which were not very likely to have been borne by real warriors. Whatever may have been the names of the chiefs, Vortigern took them into his service against the Piets, giving them the Isle of Thanet as a dwelling-place for themselves. With their help he defeated the Piets, but afterwards found himself unable to defend himself against his fierce auxiliaries. Thanet was still cut off from the mainland by an arm of the sea, and the Jutes were strong enough to hold it against all assailants. Their numbers rapidly increased as shiploads of their fellows landed, and they crossed the strait to win fresh lands from the Britons on the mainland of Kent. In several battles Vortigern was overpowered. His rival and suc- cessor, Ambrosius Aurelianus, whose name makes it probable that he was an upholder of the old Roman discipline, drove back the Jutes in turn. He did not long keep the upper hand, and in 465 he was routed utterly. The defeat of the British army was followed by an attack upon the great fortresses which had been erected along the Saxon Shore in the Roman- times. The Jutes had no means of carrying them by assault, but they starved them out one by one, and some twenty-three years after their first landing, the whole of the coast of Kent was in their hands. 4. The South Saxons. 477. — The conquests of the Jutes stopped at the inlet of the sea now filled by Romney Marsh. To the south and west was the impenetrable Andred’s Wood, which covered what is now known as the Weald. At its eastern extremity stood by the sea the strong fortified town of Anderida, which gave its name to the wood, the most westerly of the fortresses of the Saxon Shore still unconquered by the Jutes. It was at last endangered by a fresh pirate band — not of Jutes but of Saxons — which landed near Selsey,, and fought its way eastwards, conquering the South Downs and the flat land between the South Downs and the sea, till it reached 2g THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS 491-520 Anderida. Anderida was stan ed out after a long blockade, and the Saxons, bursting in, ‘ slew all that dwelt therein, nor was there henceforth one Briton left’ To this day the Roman walls of Anderida stand roimd the site of the desolated city near the modem Pevensey. Its Saxon conquerors came to be kno^m as the South Saxons, and their land as Sussex. 5. The West Saxons and the East Saxons. — Another swarm also of Saxons, called Gewissas, landed on the shore of Southamp- ton Water. After a time they were reinforced by a body of Jutes, and though the Jutes formed settlements of their own in the Isle of Wight and on the mainland, the difference of race and language between them and the Gewissas was not enough to prevent the two tribes from coalescing. Ultimately Gewissas and Jutes became known as West Saxons, and established themselves in a dis- trict roughly corresponding with the modem Hampshire. Then, having attempted to penetrate further west, they were de- feated at Mount Badon, probably Badbur>- Rings in Dorsetshire. Their overthrow was so complete as to check their advance for more than thirt>" years. WTiilst the coast line from the inlet of the sea now filled by Ronmey Marsh to the western edge of Hampshire had thus been mastered by Saxons, others of the same stock, known as East Saxons, seized upon the low coast to the north of the Thames. From them the land was called Essex. Neither Saxons nor Jutes, however, were as yet able to penetrate far up the valley of the Thames, as the Roman settlement of London, surrounded by marshes, still blocked the way. 6. The Anglian Settlements. — The coast-line to the north of the East Saxons was seized at some unascertained dates by different groups of Angles. The land between the Stour and the great fen which in those days stretched far inland from the Wash was occupied by two of these groups, known as the North folk and the South folk. They gave their names to Norfolk and Suffolk, and at some later time combined under the name of East Anghans. North of the Wash were the Lindiswara — that is to say, the settlers about the Roman Lindum, the modem Lincoln, and beyond them, stretching to the Humber, were the Gainas, from whom is derived the name of the modem Gainsborough. To the north of the Humber the coast was fnnged by Angle settlements which had not yet coalesced into one. 7. Nature of the Conquest — The three peoples who effected this conquest were afterw ards known amongst themselves by the common name of English, a name which was originally equivalent 449 ?- 5 -^ NATURE OF 7HE CONQUEST 29 to Angle, whilst amongst the whole of the remaining Celtic popula- tion they were only known as Saxons. The mode in which the English treated the Britons was very different from that of the Romans, who were a civilised people and aimed at governing a conquered race. The new-comers drove out the Britons in order to find homes for themselves, and they preferred to settle in the country rather than in a town. No Englishman had ever lived in a town in his German home, or was able to appreciate the advantages of the commerce and manufacture by which towns are supported. Nor were they inclined to allow the inhabitants of the Roman towns to remain unmolested in their midst. When Anderida was captured not a Briton escaped alive, and there is good reason to believe that many of the other towns fared no better, especially as the remains of some of them still show marks of the fire by which they were consumed. What took place in the country can- not be certainly known. Many of the British were no doubt killed. Many took refuge in fens or woods, or fled to those portions of the island in which their countrymen were still independent. It is diffi- cult to decide to what extent the men who remained behind were spared, but it is impossible to doubt that a considerable number of women were preserved from slaughter. The conquerors, at their landing, must have been for the most part young men, and when they wanted wives, it would be far easier for them to seize the daughters of slain Britons than to fetch women from the banks of the Elbe. 8. The Cultivators of the Soil. — ^When the new-comers planted themselves on British soil, each group of families united by kinship fixed its home in a separate village or township, to which was given the name of the kindred followed by ‘ ham ’ or ‘ tun,’ the first word meaning the home or dwelling, the second the earthen mound which formed the defence of the community. Thus Wokingham is the home of the Wokings, and Wellington the ‘ tun ’ of the Wel- lings. Each man had a homestead of his own, with a strip or strips of arable land in an open field. Beyond the arable land was pasture and wood, common to the whole township, every villager being entitled to drive his cattle or pigs into them according to rules laid down by the whole township. 9. Eorls, Ceorls, Gesiths.— The population was divided into Eorls and Ceorls. The Eorl was hereditarily distinguished by birth, and the Ceorl was a simple freeman without any such dis- tinction. How the difference arose we do not know, but we do know that the Eorl had privileges which the Ceorl bad not. Below 30 THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS 449 ?-520 the Ceorls were slaves taken in war or condemned to slavery as criminals. There were also men known as Gesiths, a word which means ‘ followers,’ who were the followers of the chiefs or Ealdormen {Eldermen) who led the conquerors. The Gesiths formed the war-band of the chief. They were probably all of them Eorls, so that though every settler was either an Eorl or a Ceorl, some Eorls were also Gesiths. This war-band of Gesiths was composed of young men who attached themselves to the chief by a tie of personal devotion. It was the highest glory of the Gesith to die to save his chief’s life. Of one Gesith it is told that, when he saw a murderer aiming a dagger at his chief, he, not having time to seize the assassin, threw his body between the blow and his chief, and perished rather than allow him to be killed. It was even held to be disgraceful for a Gesith to return from battle alive if his chief had been slain. The word by which the chief was known was Hlaford (Lord), which means a giver of bread, because the Gesiths ate his bread. They not only ate his bread, but they shared in the booty which he brought home. They slept in his hall, and were clothed in the garments woven by his wife and her maidens. A continental writer tells how a body of Gesiths once approached their lord with a petition that he should take a wife, because as long as he remained unmarried there was no one to make new clothes for them or to mend their old ones. lo. The Gesiths and the Villagers. — At the time of the English settlement, therefore, there were two sorts of warriors amongst the invaders. The Ceorls, having been accustomed to till land at home, were quite ready to till the lands which they had newly acquired in Britain. They were, however, ready to defend them- selves and their lands if they were attacked, and they were under the obligation of appearing in arms when needed for defence. This general army of the villagers was called the Fyrd. On the other hand, the Gesiths had not been accustomed to till land at home, but had made fighting their business. War, in short, which was an unwelcome accident to the Ceorl, was the business of life to the Gesith. The exact relationship between the Gesiths and the Ceorls cannot be ascertained with certainty. It is not improbable that the Gesiths, being the best warriors amongst their countrymen, some- times obtained land granted them by their chiefs, and were expected in consequence to be specially ready to seiwe the chief whom they had followed from their home. It was from their relation to their chief that they were called Gesiths, a name gradually abandoned for that of Thegns, or servants, when they— -as was soon the case — 449?-S20 social AND POLITICAL DIVISIONS ceased to live with their chief and had houses and lands of their own, though they were still bound to military service. How these Thegns cultivated their lands is a question to which there is no certain answer. In later days they made use of a class of men known as bondmen or villeins. These bondmen were not, like slaves, the property of their masters. They had land of their own, which they were allowed to cultivate for themselves on con- dition of spending part of their time in cultivating the land of their lords. It has been supposed by some writers that the Thegns employed bondmen from the earliest times of the conquest. If, however, this was the case, there arises a further question whether the bondmen were Englishmen or Britons. The whole subject is under investigation, and the evidence which exists is excessively scanty. It is at least certain that the further the conquest piogressed westwards, the greater was the number of Britons preserved alive. II. English and Welsh. — The bulk of the population on the eastern and southern coasts was undoubtedly English. English institutions and English language took firm root. The conquerors looked on the Britons with the utmost contempt, naming them Welsh, a name which no Briton thought of giving to himself, but which Germans had been in the habit of applying somewhat con- temptuously to the Celts on the Continent. So far as British words have entered into the English language at all, they have been words such as ^own or curd, which are likely to have been used by women, or words such as car/ or pony, which are likely to have been used by agricultural labourers, and the evidence of language may therefore be adduced in favour of the view that many women and many agricultural labourers were spared by the conquerors. / 2 . The Township and the Hundred. — The smallest political community of the new settlers was the village, or, as it is com- monly called, the township, which is still represented by the parish, the parish being merely a township in which ecclesiastical institu- tions have been maintained whilst political institutions have ceased to exist. The freemen of the township met to settle small questions between themselves, under the presidency of their reeve or head- man. More important cases were brought before the hundred- moot, or meeting of the hundred, a district which had been in- habited, or was supposed to have been inhabited, either by a hundred kindred groups of the original settlers or by the families of a hun- dred warriors. This hundred-moot was held once a month, and was 32 THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS 449 ?-S20 attended by four men and the reeve from every township,- and also by the Eorls and Thegns living in the hundred. It not only settled disputes about property, but gave judgment in criminal cases as well. 13. Weregild. — In early days, long before the English had left their lands beyond the sea, it was not considered to be the business of the community to punish crime. If any one was murdered, it was the duty of the kinsmen of the slain man to put to death the murderer. In course of time men got tired of the continual slaughter produced by this arrangement, and there sprang up a system according to which the murderer might offer to the kinsmen a sum of money known as weregild, or the value of a man, and if this money was accepted, then peace was made and all thought of vengeance was at an end. At a later time, at all events after the arrival of the English in this country, charges of murder were brought before the hundred-moot whenever the alleged mur- derer and his victim lived in the same hundred. If the accused person did not dispute the fact the moot sentenced him to pay a weregild, the amount of which differed in proportion to the rank of the slain man, not in proportion to the heinousness of the offence. As there was a weregild for murder, so there was also a graduated scale of payments for lesser offences. One who struck off a hand or a foot could buy off vengeance at a fixed rate. 14. Compurgation and Ordeal. — A new difficulty was introduced when a person who was charged with crime denied his guilt. As there were no trained lawyers and there was no knowledge of the principles of evidence, the accused person was required to bring twelve men to be his compurgators — that is to say, to hear him swear to his own innocence, and then to swear in turn that his oath was true. If he could not find men willing to be his com- purgators. he could appeal to the judgment of the gods, which was known as the Ordeal. If he could walk blindfold over red- hot ploughshares, or plunge his arm into boiling water, and show at the end of a fixed number of days that he had received no harm, it was thought that the gods bore witness to his innocency and had as it were become his compurgators when men had failed him. It is quite possible that all or most of those who tried the ordeal failed, but as nobody would try the ordeal who could get com- purgators, those who did not succeed must have been regarded as persons of bad character, so that no surprise would be expressed at their failure. 15. Punishments. — When a man had failed in the ordeal there was a choice of punishments. If his offence was a slight one. a 449?-S20 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 33 fine was deemed sufficient. If it was a very disgraceful one, such as secret murder, he was put to death or was degraded to slavery, in most cases he was declared to be a ‘ wolf s-head ’ — that is to say, he was outlawed and driven into the woods, where, as the protection of the community was withdrawn from him, anyone might kill him without fear of punishment. 1 6. The Folk-moot. — As the hundred-moot did justice between those who lived in the hundred, so the folk-moot did justice between those who lived in different hundreds, or were too important to be judged in the hundred-moot. The folk-moot was the meeting of the whole folk or tribe, which consisted of several hundreds. It was at- tended, like the hundred-moot, by four men and the reeve from each township, and it met twice a year, and was presided over by the chief or Ealdorman. The folk-moot met in arms, because it was a muster as well as a council and a court. The vote as to war and peace was taken in it, and while the chief alone spoke, the warriors signified their assent by clashing their swords against their shields. 17. The Kingship. — How many folks or tribes settled in the island it is impossible to say, but there is little doubt that many of them soon combined. The resistance of the Britons was desperate, and it was only by joining together that the settlers could hope to overcome it. The causes which produced this amalgamation of the folks produced the king. It was necessary to find a man always ready to take the command of the united folks, and this man was called King, a name which signifies the man of the kinship or race at the head of which he stood. His authority was greater than the Ealdorman’s, and his warriors were more numerous than those which the Ealdorman had led. He must come of a royal family — that is, of one supposed to be descended from the god Woden. As it was necessary that he should be capable of leading an army, it was impossible that a child could be king, and therefore no law of hereditary succession prevailed. On the death of a king the folk-moot chose his successor out of the kingly family. If his eldest son was a grown man of repute, the choice would almost certainly fall upon him. If he was a child or an invalid, some other kinsman of the late king would be selected. 18. The Legend of Arthur. — Thirty-two years passed away after the defeat of the West Saxons at Mount Badon in 520 (see p. 28) before they made any further conquests. Welsh legends represent this period as that of the reign of Arthur. Some modern inquirers have argued that Arthur’s kingdom was in the north, whilst others have argued that it was in the south. It is quite D 34 THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS 520-552 possible that the name was given by legend to more than one champion ; at all events, there was a time when an Ambrosius, probably a descendant of Ambrosius Aurelianus (see p. 27), pro- tected the southern Britons. His stronghold was at Sorbiodunum, the hill fort now a grassy space known as Old Sarum, and his great church and monastery, where Christian priests encouraged the Christian Britons in their struggle against the heathen Saxons, was at the neighbouring Ambresbyrig (//r^ fortress of Amdrostus)jHOvr modernised into Amesbury. Thirty-two years after the battle of Mount Badon the kingdom of Ambrosius had been divided amongst his successors, who were plunged in vice and were quarrelling wth one another. 19. The West Saxon Advance. — In 552 Cynric, the West Saxon king, attacked the divided Britons, captured Sorbiodunum, and made himself master of Salisbury Plain. Step by step he fought his way to the valley of the Thames, and when he had reached it, he turned eastwards to descend the river to its mouth 552-584 CONQUESTS OF THE WEST SAXONS 35 Here, however, he found himself anticipated by the East Saxons, who had captured London, and had settled a branch of their people under the name of the Middle Saxons in Middlesex. The Jutes of Kent had pushed westwards through the Surrey hills, but in 568 the West Saxons defeated them and drove them back. After this battle, the first in which the conquerors strove with one another, the West Saxons turned northwards, defeated the Britons in 571 at Bedford, and occupied the valleys of the Thame and Cherwell and the upper valley of the Ouse. They are next heard of much further west, and it has been supposed that they turned in that direction because they found the lower Ouse already held by Angle tribes. Old Sarutn from an engraving published in 1843, showing mound. (It is now obscured by trees from this point of view.) However this may have been, they crossed the Cotswoldsin 577 under two brothers, Ceawlin and Cutha, and at Deorham defeated and slew three kings who ruled over the cities of Glevum {Gloucester)^ Corinium {Cirencester), and Aquae Sulis {Bath). They seized on the fertile valley of the Severn, and during the next few years they pressed gradually northwards. In 584 they destroyed and sacked the old Roman station of Viriconium. This was their last victory for many a year. They attempted to reach Chester, but were de- feated at Faddiley by the Britons, who slew Cutha in the battle. 20. Repulse of the West Saxons. — After the defeat at Faddiley the West Saxons split up into two peoples. Those of them who 36 THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS 547-597 settled in the lower Severn valley took the name of Hwiccan, and joined the Britons against their own kindred. This alliance could hardly have taken place if the Hwiccan, in settling in the Severn valley, had destroyed the whole, or even a considerable part, of the Celtic population, though there can be little doubt that there was still slaughter when a battle was fought or a town taken by storm ; as it is known that the magnificent Roman buildings at Bath were standing in ruins and the city untenanted many years after the capture of the city. At all events, the Britons, now allied with the Hwiccan, defeated Ceawlin at Wanborough. After this disaster, though the West Saxon kingdom retained its independence, it was independent within smaller limits than those which Ceawlin had wished to give to it. If he had seized Chester he would have been on the way to gain the mastery over all England, but he had tried to do too much in a short time. His people can hardly have been numerous enough to occupy in force a territory reaching from South- ampton Water to Bedford on one side and to Chester on another. 21. The Advance of the Angles. — Whilst the West Saxons were enlarging their boundaries in the south, the Angles were gradually spreading in the centre and the north. The East Anglians were stopped on their way to the west by the great fen, but either a branch of the Lindiswara or some new-comers made their way up the Trent, and established themselves first at Nottingham and then at Leicester, and called themselves the Middle English. Another body, known as the Mercians, or men of the mark or border-land, seized on the upper valley of the Trent. North of the Humber the advance was still slower. In 547, five years before the West Saxons attacked Sorbiodunum, Ida, a chieftain of one of the scattered settlements on the coast, was accepted as king by all those which lay between the Tees and the Forth. His new kingdom was called Bernicia, and his principal fortress was on a rock by the sea at Bamborough. During the next fifty years he and his successors enlarged their borders till they reached that central ridge of moorland hill which is sometimes known as the Pennine range. The Angles between the Tees and the Humber called their country Deira, but though they also united under a king, their progress was as slow as that of the Bernicians. Bemicia and Deira together were known as North-humberland, the land north of the Humber, a much larger territory than that of the modem county of Northumberland. 22. The Kymry. — It is probable that the cause of the slow advance of the northern Angles lay in the existence of a strong 597 THE HYMRY 37 Celtic state in front. Welsh tradition speaks of a ruler named Cunedda, who after the departure of the Roman legions governed the territory from the Clyde to the south of Wales, which formed the greater part of what had once been known as Upper Britain. (See p. 25.) This territory was inhabited by a mixed population of Britons and Goidels, with an isolated body of Piets in Galloway. A common danger from the English fused them together, and as a sign of the wearing out of old distinctions, they took the name of Kymry, or Comrades, the name by which the Welsh are known amongst one another to this day, and which is also preserved in the name of Cumberland, though the Celtic language is no longer spoken there. 23. Britain at the End of the Sixth Century. — During the sixth century the Kymry ceased to be governed by one ruler, but the chieftains of the various territories all acknowledged the supremacy of a descendant of Cunedda. For purposes of war they combined together, and as the country which they occupied was hilly and easily defended, the northern English discovered that they too must unite amongst themselves if they were to overpower the united resistance of the Kymry. CHAPTER III THE STRIFE OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS LEADING DATES Augustine’s mission . 597 ^thelfrith’s victory at Chester 613 Penda defeats Eadwine at Heathheld 633 Penda’s defeat at Winwaed ....... 655 Theodore Archbishop of Canterbury 668 Offa defeats the West Saxons at Bensington . 779 Ecgberht returns to England 800 Death of Ecgberht 839 I. England and the Continent. — Whatever may be the exact truth about the numbers of Britons saved alive by the English con- querors, there can be no doubt that English speech and English customs prevailed wherever the English settled. In Gaul, where the German Franks made themselves masters of the country, a different state of things prevailed. Roman officials continued to govern the country under Frankish kings, Roman bishops con- 38 THE STRIPE OP THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS 584 verted the conquerors to Christianity, and Roman cities main- tained, as far as they could, the old standard of civilisation. All commercial intercourse between Gaul, still comparatively rich and prosperous, and Britain was for some time cut off by the irrup- tion of the English, who were at first too rude and too much en- gaged in fighting to need the products of a more advanced race. Gradually, however, as the English settled down into peaceful industry along the south-eastern shores of the island, trade again sprang up, as it had sprung up in the wild times preceding the landing of Caesar. The Gaulish merchants who crossed the straits found themselves in Kent, and during the years in which the West Saxon Ceawlin was struggling with the Britons the communica- tions between Kent and the Continent had become so friendly that in 584, or a little later, ^Ethelberht, king of Kent, took to wife Bertha, the daughter of a F rankish king, Charibert. Bertha was a Christian, and brought with her a Christian bishop. She begged of her husband a forsaken Roman church for her own use. This church, now known as St. Martin’s, stood outside the walls of the deserted city of Durovernum, the buildings of which were in ruins, except where a group of rude dwellings rose in a comer of the old fortifi- cations. In these dwellings ^thelberht and his followers lived, and to them had been given the new name of Cantwarabyrig or Canterbury {the dwelling of the men of Kent). The English were heathen, but their heathenism was not intolerant. 2. iEthelberht’s Supremacy. — ^Ethelberht’s authority reached far beyond his native Kent. Within a few years after his marriage he had gained a supremacy over most of the other kings to the south of the Humber. There is no tradition of any war between ^thelberht and these kings, and he certainly did not thrust them out from the leadership of their own peoples. The exact nature of his supremacy is, however, unknown to us, though it is possible that they were bound to follow him if he went to war with peoples not acknowledging his supremacy, in which case his position towards them was something of the same kind as that of a lord to his gesiths. 3. Gregory and the English. — ^thelberht’s position as the over- lord of so many kings and as the husband of a Christian wife drew upon him the attention of Gregory, the Bishop of Rome, or Pope. Many years before, as a deacon, he had been attracted by the fair faces of some boys from Deira exposed for sale in the Roman slave-market. He was told that the children were Angles. “ Not Angles, but angels,” he replied. “ Who,” he asked, “ is their AUGVSTIMES LAMDim 39 59 > king?” Hearing that his name was yElla, he continued to play upon the words. “ Alleluia,” he said, “ shall be sung in the land of .^lla.” Busy years kept him from seeking to fulfil his hopes, but at last the time came when he could do something to carry out his intentions, not in the land of .^lla, but in the land of yEthelberht. He became Pope. In those days the Pope had far less authority over the Churches of Western Europe than he after- wards acquired, but he offered the only centre round which they could rally, now that the Empire had broken up into many states ruled over by different barbarian kings. The general habit of look- ing to Rome for authority, which had been diffused over the whole Empire whilst Rome was still the seat of the Emperors, made men look to the Roman Bishop for advice and help as they had once looked to the Roman Emperor. Gregory, who united to the tender- heartedness of the Christian the strength of will and firmness of purpose which had marked out the best of the Emperors, now sent Augustine to England as the leader of a band of missionaries. 4. Augustine’s Mission. 597. — Augustine with his companions landed at Ebbsfleet, in Thanet, where yEthelberht’s forefathers had landed nearly a century and a half before. After a while .Ethelberht arrived. Singing a litany, and bearing aloft a painting of the Saviour, the missionaries appeared before him. He had already learned from his Christian wife to respect Christians, but he was not prepared to forsake his own religion. He welcomed the new- comers, and told them that they were free to convert those who would willingly accept their doctrine. A place was assigned to them in Canterbury, and they were allowed to use Bertha’s church. In the end vEthelberht himself, together with thousands of the Kentish men, received baptism. It was more by their example than by their teaching that Augustine’s band won converts. The missionaries lived ‘ after the model of the primitive Church, giving themselves to frequent prayers, watchings, and fastings ; preaching to all who were within their reach, disregarding all worldly things as matters with which they had nothing to do, accepting from those whom they taught just what seemed necessary for livelihood, living themselves altogether in accordance with what they taught, and with hearts prepared to suffer every adversity, or even to die, for that truth which they preached.’ 5. Monastic Christianity. — These missionaries were monks as well as preachers. The Christians of those days considered the monastic life to be the highest. In the early days of the Church, when the world was full of vice and cruelty, it seemed hardly 46 tHE STRIFE OF THE ENGLISli KINGDOMS 597-616 possible to live in the world without being dragged down to its wickedness. Men and women, therefore, who wished to keep them- selves pure, withdrew to hermitages or monasteries, where they might be removed from temptation, and might fit themselves for heaven by prayer and fasting. In the fifth century Benedict of Nursia had organised in Italy a system of life for the monastery which he governed, and the Benedictine rule, as it was called, was soon accepted in almost all the monasteries of Western Europe. The special feature of this rule was that it encouraged labour as well as prayer. It was a saying of Benedict himself that ‘ to labour is to pray.’ He did not mean that labour was good in itself, but that monks who worked during some hours of the day would guard their minds against evil thoughts better than if they tried to pray all day long. Augustine and his companions were Benedictine monks, and their quietness and contentedness attracted the popu- lation amidst which they had settled. The religion of the heathen English was a religion which favoured bravery and endurance, counting the warrior who slaughtered most enemies as most highly favoured by the gods. The religion of Augustine was one of peace and self-denial. Its symbol was the cross, to be borne in the heart of the believer. The message brought by Augustine was very hard to learn. If Augustine had expected the whole English population to forsake entirely its evil ways and to walk in paths of peace, he would probably have been rejected at once. It was perhaps be- cause he was a monk that he did not expect so much. A monk was accustomed to judge laymen by a lower standard of self-denial than that by which he judged himself He would, therefore, not ask too much of the new converts. They must forsake the heathen temples and sacrifices, and must give up some particularly evil habits. The rest must be left to time and the example of the monks. 6. The Archbishopric of Canterbury. — After a short stay Augustine revisited Gaul and came back as Archbishop of the English. vEthelberht gave to him a ruined church at Canterbury, and that poor church was named Christ Church, and became the mother church of England. From that day the Archbishop’s See has been fixed at Canterbury. If Augustine in his character of monk led men by example, in his character of Archbishop he had to organise the Church. With yEthelberht’s help he set up a bishopric at Rochester and another in London. London was now again an important trading city, which, though not in .^Ethelberht’s own kingdom of Kent, formed part of the kingdom of Essex, which was dependent on Kent. More than these three Sees Augustine was 58 S- 59 J C^kEATNESS OF NORTH-HVMBERLaND 41 unable to establish. An attempt to obtain the friendly co-operation of the Welsh bishops broke down because Augustine insisted on their adoption of Roman customs ; and Lawrence, who succeeded to the archbishopric after Augustine’s death, could do no more than his predecessor had done. 7. Death of iEthelberht. 616. — In 616 ^Ethelberht died. The over-lordship of the kings of Kent ended with him, and Augustine’s church, which had largely depended upon his influence, very nearly ended as well. Essex relapsed into heathenism, and it was only by terrifying .^Ethelberht’s son with the vengeance of St. Peter that Lawrence kept him from relapsing also. On the other hand, Rasdwald, king of the East Anglians, who succeeded to much of .(Ethelberht’s authority, so far accepted Christianity as to worship Christ amongst his other gods. 8. The Three Kingdoms opposed to the Welsh. — Augustine’s Church was weak, because it depended on the kings, and had not had time to root itself in the affections of the people, ^thelberht’s supremacy was also weak. The greater part of the small states which still existed — Sussex, Kent, Essex, East Anglia, and most of the small kingdoms of central England — were no longer bordered by a Celtic population. F or them the war of conquest and defence was at an end. If any one of the kingdoms was to rise to perma- nent supremacy it must be one of those engaged in strenuous warfare, and as yet strenuous warfare was only carried on with the Welsh. The kingdoms which had the Welsh on their borders were three — Wessex, Mercia, and North-humberland, and neither Wessex nor Mercia was as yet very strong. Wessex was too distracted by conflicts amongst members of the kingly family, and Mercia was as yet too small to be of much , account. North- humberland was therefore the first of the three to rise to the foremost place. Till the death of ^lla, the king of Deira, from whose land had been carried off the slave-boys whose faces had charmed Gregory at Rome, Deira and Bernicia had been as separate as Kent and Essex. Then in 588 .-Ethelric of Bernicia drove out .Ella’s son and seized his kingdom of Deira, thus joining the two kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia (see p. 36) into one, under the new name of North-humberland.^ 9. iEthelfrith and the Kymry. — In 593, four years before the landing of Augustine, ^Ethelric was succeeded by his son .Ethel- frith. ^thelfrith began a fresh struggle with the Welsh. We * Genealogy of the principal Northumbrian kings : — \Note . — The names of kings are in capitals. The figures denote the order of succession of those who 42 THk STRIFk OP THP ENGLISIi KlPtGPOM^ 593-^03 know little of the internal history of the Welsh population, but what we do know shows that towards the end of the sixth century there was an improvement in their religious and political existence. The monasteries were thronged, especially the great monastery of Bangor-iscoed, in the modem Flintshire, whi^'h contained 2,000 monks. St. David and other bishops gave examples of piety. In fighting against .^thelfrith the warriors of the Britons were fighting for their last chance of independence. They still held the west from the Clyde to the Channel. Unhappily for them, the Severn, the Dee, and the Solway Firth divided their land into four portions, and if an enemy coming from the east could seize upon the heads of the inlets into which those rivers flowed he could prevent the defenders of the west from aiding one another. Already in 577, by the victory of Deorham (see p. 35;, the West Saxons had seized on the mouth of the Severn, and had split off the West Welsh oi the south-western peninsula. .^F^thelfrith had to do with the Kymry, whose territories stretched from the Bristol Channel to the Clyde, and who held an outlying wedge of land then known as Loidis and Elmet, which now together form the West Riding of Yorkshire. 10. .^thelfrith’s Victories. — The long range of barren hills which separated iEthelfrith’s kingdom from the Kymry made it difficult for either side to strike a serious blow at the other. In the extreme north, where a low valley joins the Firths of Clyde and Forth, it was easier for them to meet. Here the Kymry found an ally outside their own borders. Towards the end of the fifth century a colony of Irish Scots had driven out the Piets from the modem Argyle. In 603 their king, Aedan, bringing with him a vast army, in which Piets and the Kymry appear to have taken part, invaded the northern part of .^thelfrith’s country. .(Ethelfrith defeated him at Degsastan, which was probably niled over the whole of North-humberland. Those whose names are followed by a B. or D. ruled only over Bernicia or Deira respectively.] House of Bernicia Ida B. House of Deira Iffa D. I. .(^iTHELRIC ^LLA D. ^Ifric 2, ^THELFRITH = Acha 3. Eadwine OsricD. 4. Oswald 5. Oswiu OswiNi D. 603-625 yETHELFRlTH AND EADmNE 43 Dawstone, near Jedburgh. ‘ From that time no king of the Scots durst come into Britain to make war upon the English.’ Having freed himself from the Scots in the north, .^thelfrith turned upon the Kymry. After a succession of struggles of which no record remains, he forced his way in 613 to the western sea near Chester. The Kymry had brought with them the 2,000 monks of their great monastery Bangor-iscoed, to pray for victory whilst their warriors were engaged in battle. ^Ethelfrith bade his men to slay them all. ‘ Whether they bear arms or no,’ he said, ‘ they fight against us when they cry against us to their God.’ The monks were slain to a man. Their countrymen were routed, and Chester fell into the hands of the English. The capture of Chester split the Kymric kingdom in two, as the battle of Deorham thirty-five years before had split that kingdom off from the West Welsh of the south- western peninsula. The Southern Kymry, in what is now called Wales, could no longer give help to the Northern Kymry between the Clyde and the Kibble, who grouped themselves into the king- dom of Strathclyde, the capital of which was Alcluyd, the modern Dumbarton. Three weak Celtic states, unable to assist one another, would not long be able to resist their invaders. II. The Greatness of Eadwine. — Powerful as ^Ethelfrith was, he was jealous of young Eadwine, a son of his father’s rival, ^lla of Deira. For some years Eadwine had been in hiding, at one time with Welsh princes, at another time with English kings. In 617 he took refuge with Rsedwald, the king of the East Angles. .^Ethel- frith demanded the surrender of the fugitive. Raedwald hesitated, but at last refused, .^thelfrith atacked him, but was defeated and slain near the river Idle, at some point near Retford. Eadwine the Deiran then became king over the united North-humberland in the place of vEthelfrith the Bernician, whose sons fled for safety to the Piets beyond the Forth. Eadwine completed and consolidated the conquests of his predecessors. He placed a fortress, named after himself Eadwinesburh, or Edinburgh, on a rocky height near the Forth, to guard his land against a fresh irruption of Scots and Piets, such as that which had been turned back at Degsastan. He conquered from the Kymry Loidis and Elmet, and he launched a fleet at Chester which added to his dominions the Isle of Man and the greater island which was henceforth known as Anglesea, the island of the Angles. Eadwine assumed unwonted state. Wherever he went a standard was borne before him, as well as a spear decorated with a tuft of feathers, the ancient sign of Roman authority. It has been thought by some that his meaning was that 44 the strife of the ENGLISH KINGDOMS 625-626 he, rather than any Welshman, was the true Gwledig, the successor of the Duke of the Britains (Du^r Britanniarum)^ and that the name of Bretwalda, or ruler of the Britons, which he is said to have borne, was only a translation of the Welsh Gwledig. It is true that the title of Bretwalda is given to other powerful kings before and after Eadwine, some of whom were in no sense rulers over Britons ; but it is possible that it was taken to signify a ruler over a large part of Britain, though the men over whom he ruled were English, and not Britons. 12. Eadwine’s Supremacy. — Eadwine’s immediate kingship did not reach further south than the Humber and the Dee. But before 625 he had brought the East Angles and the kingdoms of central England to submit to his over-lordship, and he hoped to make himself over-lord of the south as well, and thus to reduce all England to dependence on himself. In 625 he planned an at- tack upon the West Saxons, and with the object of winning Kent to his side, he married ^thelburh, a sister of the Kentish king. Kent was still the only Christian kingdom, and Eadwine was obliged to promise to his wife protection for her Christian worship. He was now free to attack the West Saxons. In 626, before he set out, ambassadors arrived from their king. As Eadwine was listening to them, one of their number rushed forward to stab him. His life was saved by the devotion of Lilia, one of his thegns, who threw his body in the way of the assassin, and was slain by the stroke intended for his lord. After this Eadwine marched against the West Saxons. He defeated them in battle and forced them to acknowledge him as their over-lord. He was now over-lord of all the English states except Kent, and Kent had become his ally in consequence of his marriage. 13. Character of the later Conquests. — Eadwine’s over-lordship had been gained with as little difficulty as ^thelberht’s had been. The ease with which each of them carried out their purpose can only be explained by the change which had taken place in the con- dition of the English. The small bodies of conquerors which had landed at different parts of the coast had been interested to a man in the defence of the lands which they had seized. Every freeman had been ready to come forward to defend the soil which his tribe had gained. After tribe had been joined to tribe, and still more after kingdom had been joined to kingdom, there were large numbers who ceased to have any interest in resisting the Welsh on what was, as far as they were concerned, a distant frontier. Thus, when Ceawlin was fighting to extend the West Saxon frontiers 626 CONQUEST AND KINGSHIP 45 in the valley of the Severn, it mattered little to a man whose own allotted land lay on the banks of the Southampton Water whether or not his English kinsmen won lands from the Welsh near Bath or Gloucester. The first result of this change was that the king’s war-band formed a far greater proportion of his military force than it had formed originally. There was still the obligation upon the whole body of the freemen to take arms, but it was an obligation which had become more difficult to fulfil, and it must often have happened that very few freemen took part in a battle except the local levies concerned in defending their own im- mediate neighbourhood. A military change of this kind would account for the undoubted fact that the further the English con- quest penetrated to the west the less destructive it was of British life. The thegns, or warriors personally attached to the king, did not want to plough and reap with their own hands. They would be far better pleased to spare the lives of the conquered and to compel them to labour. Every step in advance was marked by a proportionately larger Welsh element in the population. 14. Political Changes. — The character of the kingship was as much affected by the change as the character of the population. The old folk-moots still remained as the local courts of the smaller kingdoms, or of the districts out of which the larger kingdoms were composed, and continued to meet under the presidency of ealdormen appointed or approved by the king. F our men and a reeve, all of them humble cultivators, could not, however, be expected to walk up to York from the shores of the Forth, or even from the banks of the Tyne, whenever Eadwine needed their counsel. Their place in the larger kingdoms was there- fore taken by the Witenagemot {The moot of the wise men\ composed of the ealdormen and the chief thegns, together with the priests attached to the king’s service in the time of heathendom, and, in the time of Christianity, the bishop or bishops of his kingdom. In one way the king was the stronger for the change. His counsellors, like his fighting force, were more depen- dent on himself than before. He was able to plan greater designs, and to carry out military enterprises at a greater distance. In another way he was the weaker for the change. He had less support from the bulk of his people, and was more likely to undertake enterprises in which they had no interest. The over-lordships of iEthelberht and Eadwine appear very imposing, but no real tie united the men of the centre of England to those of Kent at one time, or to those of North-humberland at another. Eadwine was 46 THE STRIFE OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS 627-633 supreme over the other kings because he had a better war-band than they had. If another king appeared whose war-band was better than his, his supremacy would disappear. 15. Eadwine’s Conversion and Fall. — In 627 Eadwine, moved by his wife’s entreaties and the urgency of her chaplain, Paulinus, called upon his Witan to accept Christianity. Coifi, the priest, declared that he had long served his gods for naught, and would try a change of masters. ‘ The present life of man, O king,’ said a thegn, ‘ seems to me in comparison of that time which is unknown to us like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room where- in you sit at supper in winter, with your ealdormen and thegns, and a good fire in the midst, and storms of rain and snow without. ... So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before or what is to follow we are utterly ignorant. If there- fore this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.’ On this recommendation Christi- anity was accepted. Paulinus was acknowledged as Bishop of York. The new See, which had been originally intended by Pope Gregory to be an archbishopric, was ultimately acknow- ledged as such, but as yet it was but a missionary station. Paulinus converted thousands in Deira, but the men of Bernicia were unaffected by his pleadings. Christianity, like the ex- tension of all better teaching, brought at first not peace but the sword. The new religion was contemptible in the eyes of warriors. The supremacy of Eadwine was shaken. The men of East Anglia slew their king, who had followed his over-lord’s example by accepting Christianity. The worst blow came from Mercia. Hitherto it had been only a little state on the Welsh border. Its king, Penda, the stoutest warrior of his day, now gathered under him all the central states, and founded a new Mercia which stretched from the Severn to the Fens. He first turned on the West Saxons, defeated them at Cirencester, and in 628 brought the territory of the Hwiccas under Mercian sway. On the other hand. East Anglia accepted Eadvvine’s supremacy and Christianity. Penda called to his aid Caedwalla, the king of Gwynnedd, the Snowdonian region of Wales. That he should have done so shows how completely .^Ethelfrith’s victory at Chester, by cutting the Kymric realm in two, had put an end to all fears that the Kymry could ever make head against England as a whole. The alliance was too strong for Eadwine, and in 633, at the battle of Heathfield — the modem Hatfield, in Yorkshire — the great king was slain and his army routed. 635 THE COLUMBAN MISSIONARIES 47 1 6. Oswald’s Victory at Heavenfield. — Penda was content to split up Bemicia and Deira into separate kingdoms, and to join East Anglia to his subject states. Caedwalla had all the wrongs of his race to avenge. He remained in North-humberland burning and destroying till 635, when Oswald, who was a son of .^Ethelfrith and of Eadwine’s sister, and therefore united the claims of the rival families, gathered the men of Bernicia round him, overthrew Caedwalla at Heavenfield, near the Roman Wall, and was grate- fully accepted as king by the whole of North-humberland. 17. Oswald and Aidan. — In the days of Eadwine, Oswald, as the heir of the rival house of Bernicia, had passed his youth in exile, and had been converted to Christianity in the monastery of Hii, the island now known as Iona. The monastery had been founded by Columba, an Irish Scot. Christianity had been intro- duced into Ireland by Patrick early in the fifth century. Ireland was a land of constant and cruel war between its tribes, and all who wished to be Christians in more than name withdrew them- selves into monasteries, where they lived an even stricter and more dscetic life than the monks did in other parts of Western Europe. Bishops were retained in the monasteries to ordain priests, but they were entirely powerless. Columba’s monastery at Hii sent its missionaries abroad, and brought Piets as well as Scots under the influence of Christianity. Oswald now requested its abbot, the suc- cessor of Columba, to send a missionary to preach the faith to the men of North-humberland in the place of Paulinus, who had fled when Eadwine was slain. The first who was sent came back reporting that the people were too stubborn to be converted. “ Was it their stubbornness or your harshness ? ” asked the monk Aidan. “ Did you forget to give them the milk first and then the meat ? ” Aidan was chosen to take the place of the brother who had failed. He established himself, not in an inland town, but in Holy Island. His life was spent in wandering amongst the men of the valleys opposite, winning them over by his gentleness and his self-denying energy. Oswald, warrior as he was, had almost all the gentleness and piety of Aidan. ‘By reason of his con- stant habit of praying or giving thanks to the Lord he was wont whenever he sat to hold his hands upturned on his knees.’ On one occasion when he sat down to a feast with Aidan by his side, he sent both the dainties before him and the silver dish on which they had been served to be divided amongst the poor. “ May this hand,” exclaimed the delighted Aidan, “ never grow old ! ” 18. Oswald’s Greatness and Overthrow. — As a king Oswald 48 THE STRIFE OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS 635-659 based his power on the acknowledgment of his over-lordship by all the kingdoms which were hostile to Penda. In 635 Wessex accepted Christianity, and the acceptance of Christianity brought with it the acceptance of Oswald’s supremacy. Penda was thus surrounded by enemies, but his courage did not fail him, and in 642 at the battle of Maserfield he defeated Oswald. Oswald fell in the battle, begging with his last words for God’s mercy on the souls of his followers. 19. Penda’s Overthrow. — After Oswald’s fall Bernicia was ruled by his brother Oswiu. Deira, again divided from it, was governed first by Eadwine’s cousin Osric, and then by Osric’s son, Oswini, who acknowledged Penda as his over-lord. Oswini was a man after Aidan’s own heart. Once he gave a horse to Aidan to carry him on his mission journeys. Aidan gave it away to the first beggar he met. “Is that son of a mare,” answered Aidan to the reproaches of the king, “ worth more in your eyes than that son of God?” Oswini fell at the bishop’s feet and entreated his pardon. Aidan wept. “ I am sure,” he cried, “ the king will not live long. I never till now saw a king humble.” Aidan was right. In 651 Oswini was slain by the order of King Oswiu of Bernicia, who had long engaged in a struggle with Penda. Penda had for some years been burning and slaughtering in Bernicia, till he had turned a quarrel between himself and Oswiu into a national strife. Oswiu rescued Bernicia from destruction, and after Oswini’s murder joined once more the two kingdoms together. Oswini was the last heir of .Ella’s house, and from that time there was but one North-humber- land. In 655 Oswiu and Penda met to fight, as it seemed for supremacy over the whole of England, by the river Winwaed, near the present Leeds. The heathen Penda was defeated and slain. 20. The Three Kingdoms and the Welsh.— For a moment it seemed as if England would be brought together under the rule of Oswiu. After Penda’s death Mercia accepted Christianity, and the newly united Mercia was split up into its original parts ruled by several kings. The supremacy of Oswiu was, however, as little to be borne by the Mercians as the supremacy of Penda had been borne by the men of North-humberland. Under Wulfhere the Mercians rose in 659 against Oswiu. All hope of uniting England was for the present at an end. For about a century and a half longer there remained three larger kingdoms — North-humberland, Mercia, and Wessex, whilst four smaller ones — East Anglia, Essex, Kent, and Sussex — were usually attached either to Mercia or to Wessex. The failure of North-humberland to maintain the power ENGLISH CHRISTIANITY 49 664 was, no doubt, in the first place owing to the absence of any common danger, the fear of which would bind together its populations in self-defence. The northern Kymry of Strathclyde were no longer formidable, and they grew less formidable as years passed on. The southern Kymry of Wales were too weak to threaten Mercia, and the Welsh of the south-western peninsula were too weak to threaten Wessex. It was most unlikely that any permanent union of the English states would be brought about till some enemy arose who was more terrible to them than the Welsh could any longer be. 21. The English Missionaries.— Some preparation might, how- ever, be made for the day of union by the steady growth of the Church. The South Saxons, secluded between the forest and. the sea, were the last to be converted, but with them English heathenism came to an end as an avowed religion, though it still continued to in- fluence the multitude in the form of a belief in fairies and witchcraft. Monasteries and nunneries sprang up on all sides. Missionaries spread over the country. In their mouths, and still more in their lives, Christianity taught what the fierce English warrior most wanted to learn, the duty of restraining his evil passions, and above all his cruelty. Nowhere in all Europe did the missionaries appeal so exclusively as they did in England to higher and purer motives. Nowhere but in England were to be found kings like Oswald and Oswini, who bowed their souls to the lesson of the Cross, and learned that they were not their own, but were placed in power that they might use their strength in helping the poor and needy. 22. Dispute between Wilfrid and Colman. 664. — The lesson was all the better taught because those who taught it were monks. Monasticism brought with it an extravagant view of the life of self- denial, but those who had to be instructed needed to have the lesson written plainly so that a child might read it. The rough warrior or the rough peasant was more likely to abstain from drunkenness, if he had learned to look up to men who ate and drank barely enough to enable them to live ; and he was more likely to treat women with gentleness and honour, if he had learned to look up to some women who separated themselves from the joys of married life that they might give themselves to fasting and prayer. Yet, great as the influence of the clergy was, it was in danger of being lessened through internal disputes amongst themselves. A very large part of England had been converted by the Celtic missionaries, and the Celtic missionaries, though their life and teaching was in the main the same as that of the Church of Canterbury and of the Churches of the Continent, differed from them in the shape of E 50 STRIFE OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS 664-668 the tonsure and in the time at which they kept their Easter. These things were themselves unimportant, but it was of great importance that the young English Church should not be separated from the Churches of more civilised countries which had preserved much of the learning and art of the old Roman Empire. One of those who felt strongly the evil which would follow on such a separation was Wilfrid. He was scornful and self-satisfied, but he had travelled to Rome, and had been impressed with the ecclesiastical memories of the great city, and with the fervour and learning of its clergy. He came back resolved to bring the customs of England into con- formity with those of the churches of the Continent. On his arrival, Oswiu, in 664, gathered an assembly of the clergy of the north headed by Colman, Aidan’s successor, to discuss the point. Learned arguments were poured forth on either side. Oswiu listened in a puzzled way. Wilfrid boasted that his mode of keep- ing Easter was derived from Peter, and that Christ had given to Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Oswiu at once decided to follow Peter, lest when he came to the gate of that kingdom Peter, who held the keys, should lock him out. Wilfrid triumphed, and the English Church was in all outward matters regulated m conformity with that of Rome. 23. Archbishop Theodore and the Penitential System. — In 668, four years after Oswiu’s decision was taken, Theodore of Tarsus was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury at Rome by the Pope himself. When he arrived in England the time had come for the purely missionary stage of the English Church to come to an end. Hitherto the bishops had been few, only seven in all England. Their number was now increased, and they were set to work no longer merely to convert the heathen, but to see that the clergy did their duty amongst those who had been already converted. Gradually, under these bishops, a parochial clergy came into existence. Sometimes the freemen of a hamlet, or of two or three hamlets together, would demand the constant residence of a priest. Sometimes a lord would settle a piiest to teach his serfs. The parish clergy attacked violence and looseness of life in a way different from that of the monks. The monks had given examples of extreme self-denial. Theodore introduced the penitential system of the Roman Church, and ordered that those who had committed sin should be excluded from sharing in the rites of the Church until they hati done penance. They were to fast, or to repeat prayers, sometimes for many years, before they were readmitted to communion. Many centuries afterwards good men objected that these penances were only bodily actions, and 668 THEODORE AND EALDHELM 51 did not necessarily bring with them any real repentance. In the seventh century the greater part of the population could only be reached by such bodily actions. They had never had any thought that a murder, for instance, was anything more than a dangerous action which might bring down on the murderer the vengeance of the relations of the murdered man, which might be bought off with the payment of a weregild of a few shillings. The murderer who was required by the Church to do penance was being taught that a murder was a sin against God and against himself, as well as an offence against his fellow-men. Gradually — very gradually — men would learn from the example of the monks and from the discipline of penance that they were to live for something higher than the gratification of their own passions. Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts. 24. Ealdhelm and Caedmon. — When a change is good in itself, it usually bears fruit in unexpected ways. Theodore was a scholar as well as a bishop. Under his care a school grew up at Canterbury, full of all the learning of the Roman world. That which distin- guished this school and others founded in imitation of it was that the scholars did not keep their learning to themselves, but strove to make it helpful to the ignorant and the poor. They learnt archi- tecture on the Continent in order to raise churches of stone in the place of churches of wood. One of these churches is still standing at Bradford-on-Avon. Its builder was Ealdhelm, the abbot of Malmesbury^, a teacher of all the knowledge of the time. Ealdhelm, learned as he was, let his heart go forth to the unlearned. Finding that his neighbours would not listen to his sermons, he sang to them Ot tiiuui ybc 52 STRIFE OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS 673-735 on a bridge to win them to higher things. Like all people who cannot read, the English of those days loved a song. In the north, Caedmon, a rude herdsman on the lands of the abbey which in later days was known as Whitby, was vexed with himself because he could not sing. When at ale-drinkings his comrades pressed him to sing a song, he would leave his supper unfinished and return home ashamed. One night in a dream he heard a voice bidding him sing of the Creation. In his sleep the words came to him, and they remained with him when he woke. He had become a poet — a rude poet, it is true, but still a poet. The gift which Csedmon had acquired never left him. He sang of the Creation and of the whole course of God’s providence. To the end he was unable to compose any songs which were not religious. 25. Bede. 673 — 735.— Of all the English scholars of the time Baeda, usually known as ‘the venerable Bede,’ was the most remark- able. He was a monk of Jarrow on the Tyne. From his youth up he was a writer on all subjects embraced by the knowledge of his day. One subject he made his own. He was the first English historian. The title of his greatest work was the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. He told how that nation had been converted, and of the fortunes of its Church; but for him the Church included the whole nation, and he told of the doings of kings and people, as well as of priests and monks. In this he was a true interpreter of the spirit of the English Church. Its clergy did not stand aloof from the rulers of the state, but worked with them as well as for them. The bishops stepped into the place of the heathen priests in the Witenagemots of the kings, and counselled them in matters of state as well as in matters of religion. 26. Church Councils. — Bede recognised in the title of his book that there was such a thing as an English nation long before there was any political unity. Whilst kingdom was fighting against kingdom, Theodore in 673 assembled the first English Church council at Hertford. From that time such councils of the bishops and principal clergy of all England met whenever any ecclesi- astical question required them to deliberate in common. The clergy at least did not meet as West Saxons or as Mercians. They met on behalf of the whole English Church, and their united con- sultations must have done much to spread the idea that, in spite of the strife between the kings, the English nation was really one. 27. Struggle between Mercia and Wessex. — Many years passed away before the kingdoms could be brought under one king. North-humberland stood apart from southern England, and during 710-779 MERCIANS AND WEST SAXONS S3 the latter half of the seventh century Wessex grevv in power. Wessex had been weak because it was seldom thoroughly united. Each district was presided over by an ^Etheling, or chief of royal blood, and it was only occasionally that these^Ethelings, submitted to the king. F rom time to time a strong king com- pelled the obedience of the .^thelings and carried on the old struggle with the western Welsh. It was not till 710 that Ine suc- ceeded in driving the Welsh out of Somerset, and about the same time Saxon horsemen. (Harl. MS. 603.) ^ body of the West SaxonS advancing through Dorset reached Exeter. They took possession of half the city for them- selves, and left the remainder to the Welsh. Ine was, however, checked by fresh outbreaks of the subordinate .^ As far as it is now possible to understand the matter, the change, though it provoked great hostility, was for the better. The secular canons were often married, connected with the laity of the neighbourhood, and living an easy life. The monks were celibate, li\dng according to a strict rule, and conforming them- selves to what, according to the standard of the age, was the highest ideal of religion. By a life of complete self-denial they were able to act as examples to a generation which needed teaching by example more than by word. How completely monasticism was associated wath learning is shown by the fact that the monks now established at Worcester took up the work of continuing the Chronicle w^hich had been begun under iElfred (see p. 6i). 2. The Cession of Lothian. — It is said that Eadgar w'as .once ro\ved by six kings on the river Dee. The story, though probably untrue, sets forth his power not only over his own im- mediate subjects but over the w^hole island. His title of Peaceful show's that at least he lived on good terms w’ith his neighbours. There is reason to believe that he was able to do this because he follow'ed out the policy of Eadmund in singling out the king of Scots as the ruler whom it was most w'orth his wdiile to conciliate. Ead- mund had given over Strathclyde to one king of Scots. Eadgar, it is said — and probably w'ith truth — gave over Lothian to another. Lothian w'as then the name of the w'hole of the northern part of Bemicia stretching from the Cheviots to the F orth. In Eadred’s time the Scots had occupied Eadw'inesburh {Edinburgh)^ the northern border fortress of Bemicia (see p. 43), and after this the land to the south of that fortress must have been difficult to defend against them. It is therefore likely that the story is true that Eadgar ceded Lothian to Kenneth, w'ho w'as then king of the Scots, especially as it would account for the peaceful character of his reign. Kenneth in accepting the gift no doubt engaged to be faithful to Eadgar, though it is im- possible to say w'hat was the exact nature of his obligation. It is of more importance that a Celtic king ruled thenceforward over an ^ 59 - 9^5 SdC/AL AND POLITICAL CHANGMS 69 English people as well as over his own Celtic Scots, and that ulti- mately his descendants became more English than Celtic in character, through the attraction exercised upon them by their English subjects. 3. Changes in English Institutions. — The long struggle with the Danes could not fail to leave its mark upon English society. The history of the changes which took place is difficult to trace ; in the first place because our information is scanty, in the second because things happened in one part of the country which did not happen in another. Yet there were two changes which were widely felt : the growth of the king’s authority, and the acceleration of the process which was reducing to bondage the ceorl, or simple freeman. 4. Growth of the King’s Power. — In the early days of the English conquest the kings and other great men had around them their war-bands, composed of gesiths or thegns, personally at- tached to themselves, and ready, if need were, to die on their lord’s behalf. Very early these thegns were rewarded by grants of land on condition of continuing military service. Every extension of the king’s power over fresh territory made their services more im- portant. It had always been difficult to bring together the fyrd, or general army of the freemen, even of a small district, and it was quite impossible to bring together the fyrd of a kingdom reaching from the Channel to the Firth of Forth. yElfred’s division of the fyrd into two parts, one to fight and the other to stay at home, may have served when all the fighting had to be done in the western part of Wessex, ^thelstan or Eadmund could not possibly make even half of the men of Devonshire or Essex fight in his battles north of the Humber. The kings therefore had to rely more and more upon their thegns, who in turn had thegns of their own whom they could bring with them ; and thus was formed an army ready for military service in any part of the kingdom. A king who could command such an army was even more powerful than one who could command the whole of the forces of a smaller territory. 5. Conversion of the Freemen into Serfs. — It is impossible to give a certain account of the changes which passed over the English freemen, but there can be little doubt that a process had been for some time going on which converted them into bondmen, and that this process was greatly accelerated by the Danish wars. When a district was being plundered the peasant holders of the strips of village land suffered most, and needed the protection of the neighbouring thegn, who was better skilled in war than themselves, ,, ^ June— Cutting wood. May—Sheep-tending. •' Rural life in the eleventh century. January to June. (Cott. MS. Julius A. vi.) Norember— Making a bonfiie. December— Threshing and Winnowing. Rural life in the eleventh century. July to December. (Cott. MS. Julius A. vi.) 72 EADGA^'S EmiAND 959-975 and this protection they could only obtain on condition of be- coming bondmen themselves — that is to say, of giving certain days in the week to work on the special estate of the lord. A bondman differed both from a slave and from a modem farmer. Though he was bound to the soil and could not go away if he wished to do so, yet he could not be sold as though he were a slave ; nor, on the other hand, could he, like a farmer, be turned out of his holding so long as he fulfilled his obligation of cultivating his lord’s demesne. The lord was almost invariably a thegn, either of the king or of some superior thegn, and there thus arose in England, as there arose about the same time on the Continent, a chain of personal relationships. The king was no longer merely the head of the whole people. He was the personal lord of his own thegns, and they again were the lords of other thegns. The serfs cultivated their lands, and thereby set them free to fight for the king on behalf of the whole nation. It seems at first sight as if the English people had fallen into a worse condition. An organisation, partly military and partly servile, was substituted for an organisation of free men. Yet only in this way could the whole of England be amalgamated. The nation gained in unity what it lost in freedom. 6. The Hundred-moot and the Lord’s Court. — In another way the condition of the peasants was altered for the worse by the growth of the king’s power. In former days land was held as ‘ folkland,’ granted by the people at the original conquest, passing to the kinsmen of the holder if he died without children. Afterwards the clergy introduced a system by which the owner could grant the ‘ bookland,’ held by book or charter, setting at nought the claim of his kinsmen, and in order to give validity to the arrangement, obtained the consent of the king and his Witenagemot (see p. 45). In time, the king and the Witenagemot granted charters in other cases, and the new ‘ bookland ’ to a great extent superseded the old ‘ folkland,’ accompanied by a grant of the right of holding special courts. In this manner the old hundred-moots became neglected, people seeking for justice in the courts of the lords. Yet those who lived on the lord’s land attended his court, appeared as com- purgators, and directed the ordeal just as they had once done in the hundred-moot. 7. The Towns. — The towns had grown up in various ways. Some were of old Roman foundation, such as Lincoln and Glou- cester. Others, like Nottingham and Bristol, had come into existence since the English settlement. Others again gathered round monasteries, like Bury St. Edmunds and Peterborough. The LOCAL OkGAmSATlO^L 959-975 n inhabitants met to consult about their own affairs, sometimes in dependence on a lord. Where there was no lord they held a court which was composed in the same way as the hundred-moots outside. The townsmen had the right of holding a market. Every sale had to take place in the presence of witnesses who could prove, if called upon to do so, that the sale had really taken place, and markets were therefore usually to be found in towns, because it was there that witnesses could most easily be found. 8. The Origin of the Shires. — Shires, which were divisions larger than the hundreds, and smaller than the larger kingdoms, originated in various ways. In the south, and on the east coast as far north as the Wash, they were either old kingdoms like Kent and Essex, or settlements forming part of old kingdoms, as Norfolk (the north folk) formed part of East Anglia, and Dorset or Somer- set, the lands of the Dorsaetan or the Somersaetan, formed part of the kingdom of Wessex. In the centre and north they were of more recent origin, and were probably formed as those parts of England were gradually reconquered from the Danes. The fact that most of these shires are named from towns — as Derbyshire from Derby, and Warwickshire from Warwick — shows that they came into existence after towns had become of importance. 9. The Shire-moot. — Whilst the hundred-moot decayed, the folk-moot continued to flourish under a new name, as the shire- moot. This moot was still attended by the freemen of the shire though the thegns were more numerous and the simple freemen less numerous than they had once been. Still the continued exist- ence of the shire-moot kept up the custom of self-government more than anything else in England. The ordeals were witnessed, the were-gild inflicted, and rights to land adjudged, not by an officer of the king, but by the landowners of the shire assembled for the purpose. These meetings were ordinarily presided over by the ealdorman, who appeared as the military commander and the official head of the shire, and by the bishop, who represented the Church. Another most important personage was the sheriff, or shire-reeve, whose business it was to see that the king had all his rights, to preside over the shire-moot when it sat as a judicial court, and to take care that its sentences were put in execution. 10. The Ealdormen and the Witenagemot. — During the long fight with the Danes commanders were needed who could lead the forces of more than a single shire. Before the end of Eadred’s reign there were ealdormen who ruled over many shires. One of them for instance, ^Ethelstan, Ealdorman of East Anglia, and of 74 EADGAR^S ENGLAND 959-975 the shires immediately to the west of East Anglia, was so powerful that he was popularly known as the Half-King. Such earldormen had great influence in their own districts, and they also were very powerful about the king. The king could not perform any im- portant act without the consent of the Witenagemot, which was SECTION FROM S.W. TO N.E. Walker & Boutali jc. Plan and section of a burh of the eleventh century at Laughton-en-le-Morthen, Yorks. made up of three classes — the Ealdormen, the Bishops, and the greater Thegns. When a king died the Witenagemot chose his successor out of the kingly family ; its members appeared as wit- nesses whenever the king ‘ booked ’ land to any one ; and it even, on rare occasions, deposed a king who was unfit for his post. In 959-$75 RURAL LIRE 75 the days of a great warrior king like Eadward or Eadmund, mem- bers of the Witenagemot were but instruments in his hands, but if a weak king came upon the throne, each member usually took his own way and pursued his own interest rather than that of the king and kingdom. 11. The Land. — The cultivated land was surrounded either by wood or by pasture and open commons. Every cottager kept his hive of bees, to produce the honey which was then used as we now use sugar, and drove his swine into the woods to fatten on the acorns and beech nuts which strewed the ground in the autumn. Sheep and cattle were fed on the pastures, and horses were so abundant that when the Danish pirates landed they found it easy to set every man on horseback. Yet neither the Danes nor the English ever learnt to fight on horseback. They rode to battle, but as soon as they approached the enemy they dismounted to fight on foot. 12. Domestic Life. — The huts of the villagers clustered round the house of the lord. His abode was built in a yard surrounded for protection by a mound and fence, whilst very great men often established themselves in burhs, surrounded by earthworks, either of their own raising or the work of earlier times. Its principal feature was the hall, in which the whole family with the guests and the thegns of the lord met for their meals. The walls were covered with curtains worked in patterns of bright colours. The fire was lighted on the hearth, a broad stone in the middle, over which was a hole in the roof through which the smoke of the hall escaped. The windows were narrow, and were either unclosed holes in the wall, or covered with oiled linen which would admit a certain amount of light. 13. Food and Drink. — In a great house at meal-time boards were brought forward and placed on tressels. Bread was to be had in plenty, and salt butter. Meat too, in winter, was always salted, as turnips and other roots upon which cattle are now fed in winter were wholly unknown, and it was therefore necessary to kill large numbers of sheep and oxen when the cold weather set in. There were dishes, but neither plates nor forks. Each man took the meat in his fingers and either bit off a piece or cut it off with a knife. The master of the house sat at the head of the table, and the lady handed round the drink, and afterwards sat down by her husband’s side. She, however, with any other ladies who might be present, soon departed to the chamber which was their own apartment. The men continued drinking long. The cups or MAPGJ^'S MGLAI^D 959 - 9^1 ta glasses which they used were often made with the bottoms rounded so as to force the guests to keep them in their hands till Glass tumbler. (British Museum.) they were empty. The usual drink was mead, that is to say, fer- mented honey, or ale brewed from malt alone, as hops were not Drinking glass. (British Museum. ) introduced till many centuries later. In wealthy houses imported wine was to be had. English wine was not unknown, but it was 959-975 DOMESTIC LIFE 11 so sour that it had to be sweetened with honey. It was held to be disgraceful to leave the company as long as the drinking lasted, and drunkenness and quarrels were not unfrequen-t. Wandering minstrels who could play and sing or tell stories were always welcome, especially if they were juggler^ as well, and could amuse the company by throwing knives in the air and catching them as they fell, or could dance on their hands with their legs in the air. When the feast was over, the guests and dependents slept on the Comb and case of Scandinavian type, found at York. (Now in the British Museum.) floor on rugs or straw, each man taking care to hang his weapons close to his head on the wall, to defend himself in case of an attack by robbers in the night. The lord retired to his chamber, whilst the unmarried ladies occupied bowers, or small rooms, each with a separate door opening on to the yard. Their only beds were bags of straw. Neither men nor women wore night-dresses of any kind, but if they took off their clothes at all, wrapped themselves in rugs. 78 CHAPTER VI ENGLAND AND NORMANDY LEADING DATES Death of Eadgar 975 Accession of /Ethelred 979 Accession of Cnut zoz6 Accession of Eadward the Confessor zo3S Banishment of Godwine Z051 Accession of Harold and Batt'.e of Senlac .... zo66 I. Eadward the Martyr. 975 — 979. — Eadgar died in 975, leaving two boys, Eadward and iEthelred.^ On his death a quarrel broke out amongst the ealdormen, some declaring for the succession ol Eadward and others for the succession of .^Ethelred. The political quarrel was complicated by an ecclesiastical quarrel. The sup- porters of Eadward were the friends of the secular clergy ; the supporters of ^Ethelred were the friends of the monks. Dunstan, with his usual moderation, gave his voice for the eldest son, and Eadward was chosen king and crowned. Not only had he a strong party opposed to him, but he had a dissatisfied step-mother in /Elfthryth, the mother of ^Ethelred, whilst his own mother, who had probably been married to Eadgar without full marriage rites, had been long since dead. After reigning for four years Eadward was 1 Genealogy of the English kings from Eadgar to Eadgar the .^theling : — Eadgar 959^75 Eadward .(Ethelred the Martyr the Unready 975-979 979-10Z6 Eadmund 1 lUtDWARD Ironside the Confessor 1016 1042-1066 1 Eadward the iEtheling EaJgar the .^iiheling 97^994 ^ THE L RED A HD THE DANES 79 murdered near Corfe by some of the opposite party, and, as was commonly supposed, by his step-mother’s directions. 2. /Ethelred’s Early Years. 979 — 988. — iEthelred, now a boy of ten, became king in 979. The epithet the Unready, which is usually assigned to him, is a mistranslation of a word which properly means the Rede-less, or the man without counsel. He was entirely without the qualities which befit a king. Eadmund had kept the great chieftains in subordination to himself because he was a suc- cessful leader. Eadgar had kept them in subordination because he treated them with respect. vEthelred could neither lead nor show respect. He was always picking quarrels when he ought to have been making peace, and always making peace when he ought to have been fighting. What he tried to do was to lessen the power of the great ealdormen, and bring the whole country more directly under his own authority. In 985 he drove out vElfric, the Ealdorman of the Mercians. In 988 Dunstan died, and ^thelred had no longer a wise adviser by his side. 3. The Return of the Danes. 984. — It would have been difficult for iEthelred to overpower the ealdormen even if he had had no other enemies to deal with. Unluckily for him, new swarms of Danes and Norwegians had already appeared in England. They began by plundering the country, without attempting to settle in it. In 991 Brihtnoth, Ealdorman of the East Saxons, was defeated and slain by them at Maldon. .Td, and when September came they must needs be sent home to attend to their hanest, which seems to have been late this year. Scarcely were they gone when Harold received news that his brother Tostig, angry with him for ha%-ing consented to his depo- sition from the North- humbrian earldom, had alhed himself to Harold Hardrada, the fierce sea-rover, who was king of Norway, and that the two, with a mighty host, after wasting the York- shire coast, had sailed up the Humber. The tsvo Northern Earls, Ead\s*ine and Morkere, were hard pressed. Harold had not long before married their sister, and, whatever might be the risk, he was bound as the king of all England to aid them. Marching swiftly northwards with his house-carls and the thegns who joined him on the way, he hastened to their succour. On io66 STAMFORD BRIDGE 95 the way worse tidings reached him. The Earls had been defeated? and York had agreed to submit to the Norsemen. Harold hurried on the faster, and came upon the invaders unawares as they lay A Norman ship. (From the Bayeux Tapestry.) heedl^sly on both sides of the Derwent at Stamford Bridge. Those on the western side, unprepared as they were, were soon over- powered. One brave Norseman, like Horatius and his comrades Norman soldiers mounted. (From the Bayeux Tapestry.) in the Roman legend, kept the narrow bridge against the army, till an Englishman crept under it and stabbed him from below through a gap in the woodwork. The battle rolled across the Derwent, and THE BATTLE OF SENT AC 1066 96 when evening came Harold Hardrada, and Tostig himself, with the bulk of the invaders, had been slain. F or the last time an English king overthrew a foreign host in battle on English soil. 23. The Landing of William. io66. — Harold had shown what an English king could do, who fought not for this or that part of the country, but for all England. It was the lack of this national spirit in Englishmen which caused his ruin. As Harold was feasting at York in celebration of his victory, a messenger told him of the landing of the Norman host at Pevensey. He had saved Eadwine and Morkere from destruction, but Eadwine and Morkere gave him no help in return. He had to hurry back to defend Sussex Group of archers on foot. (From the Bayeux Tapestry.) on which Battle Abbey now stands. On Octo- ber 14 William marched forth to attack him. The military equip- ment of the Normans was better than that of the English. Where the weapons on either side are unlike, battles are decided by the mo- mentum — that is to say, by the combined weight and speed of the weapons employed. The English fought on foot mostly with two- handed axes ; the Normans fought not only on horseback with lances, but also with infantry, some of them being archers. A horse, the principal weapon of a horseman, has more momentum than an armed footman, whilst an arrow can reach the object at which it is aimed long before a horse. Harold, however, had m his favour the slope of the hill up which the Normans would have to ride, and without a single man from the north or the Midlands, except those whom he collected on his line of march. The House of Leofric bore no goodwill to the House of Godwine. England was a king- dom divided against itself. 24. The Battle of Senlac. 1066. — Harold, as soon as he reached the point of danger, drew up his army on the long hill of Senlac to66 THE BATTLE OF SENT AC 97 he took advantage of the lie of the ground by posting his men with their shields before them on the edge of the hill. The position was a strong one for purposes of defence, but it was not one that made it easy for Harold to change his arrangements as the fortunes of the day might need. William, on the other hand, had not only a better armed force, but a more flexible one. He had to attack, and, versed as he was in all the operations of war, he could move his men from place to place and make use of each opportunity as it arrived. The English were brave enough, but William was a more intelligent leader than Harold, and his men were better under control. Twice after the battle had begun the Norman horsemen charged up the hill only to be driven back. The wily William, finding that the hill was not to be stormed by a direct attack, met the difficulty by galling the English with a shower of arrows and ordering his left wing to turn and fly. The stratagem was successful. Some of the English rushed down the hill in pursuit. The fugitives faced round and charged the pursuers, following them up the slope. The English on the height were thus thrown into confusion ; but they held out stoutly, and as the Norman horsemen now in occupation of one end of the hill charged fiercely along its crest, they locked their shields together and fought desperately for life, if no longer for victory. Slowly and steadily the Normans pressed on, till they reached the spot where Harold, surrounded by his house-carls, fought beneath his standard. There all their attacks were in vain, till William, calling for his bowmen, bade them shoot their arrows into the air. Down came the arrows in showers upon the heads of the English warriors, and 98 ENGLAND AND NORMANDY 1066 one of them pierced Harold’s eye, stretching him lifeless on the ground. In a series of representations in worsted work, knowm as the Bayeux Tapestry, which was wrought by the needle of some unknown woman and is now exhibited in the museum of that city, the scenes of the battle and the events preceding it are pictorially recorded. 25. William’s Coronation. 1066. — William had destroyed both the English king and the English army. It is possible that England, if united, might still have resisted. The great men at London chose for their king Eadgar the ^theling, the grandson of Eadmimd Ironside. Eadwine and Morkere were present at the election, but left London as soon as it was over. They would look Death of Harold, who is attempting to pull the arrow from his eye. (From the Bayeux Tapestry.) after their ovm earldoms ; they would not join others, as Harold had done, in defending England as a whole. Di\dded England would sooner or later be a prey to William. He wanted, however, not merely to reign as a conqueror, but to be la^\Tully elected as king, that he might have on his side law as well as force. He first struck terror into Kent and Sussex by ravaging the lands of all who held out against him. Then he marched to the Thames and burnt Southwark. He did not, however, tr>^ to force his way into London, as he wanted to induce the citizens to submit voluntarily to him, or at least in a way which might seem voluntary^ He therefore marched westwards, crossed the Thames at Wallingford, and wheeled round to Berkhampstead. His presence there made io66 WILLIAM'S CORONATION 99 Coronation of a king, temp. William the Conqueror. (From a drawing in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries.) 100 ENGLAND AND NORMANDY 1066 the Londoners feel utterly isolated. Even if Eadwine and Morkere wished to do anything for them, they could not come from the north or north-west without meeting William’s victorious army. The great men and citizens alike gave up all thought of resistance, abandoned Eadgar, and promised to take William for their king. On Christmas Day, io66, William was chosen with acclamation in Eadward’s abbey at Westminster, where Harold had been chosen less than a year before. The Normans outside mistook the shouts of applause for a tumult against their Duke, and set fire to the houses around. The English rushed out to save their propeit}^, and William, frightened for the only time in his life, was left alone with the priests. Not knowing what was next to follow, he was crowned king of the English by Ealdred, Arch- bishop of York, in an empty church, amidst the crackling of flames and the shouts of men striving for the mastery. Books recoinmended for further study of Part /. Dawkins, W. Boyd. Early Man in Britain, Rhys, J, Early Britain, Elton, C. J, Origins of English History, Guest, E, Origines Celticae. Vol. ii, pp, 121-408, Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, Vols. i,-iii. Green, J, R. The Making of England, The Conquest of England, History of the English People, Vol, i, pp, 1-114, Bright, W. Chapters of English Church History, Stubbs, W. The Constitutional History of England, Chaps, I, -IX, Cunningham, W, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce during the Early and Middle Ages, pp, 1-128. Hodgkin, T. The Political H story of England. Vol. i. From the Earliest Times to 1066. lot PART II THE NORMAN AND ANGEVlN KINGS CHAPTER VII WILLIAM I. 1066—1087 LEADING DATES William’s coronation io66 Completion of the Conquest ..... 1070 The rising of the Earls 1075 The Gemot at Salisbury 1086 Death of William I. 1087 I. The First Months of the Conquest. 1066 1067. — Though at the time when William was crowned he had gained actual possession of no more than the south-eastern part of England, he claimed a right to rule the whole as lawful king of the English, not merely by Eadward’s bequest, but by election and coronation. In reality, he came as a conqueror, whilst the Normans by whose aid he gained the victory at Senlac left their homes not merely to turn their Duke into a king, but also to acquire lands and wealth for themselves. Wil- liam could not act justly and kindly to his new subjects even if he wished. What he did was to clothe real vio- lence with the appearance of law. He gave out that as he had been the lawful king of the English ever since Eadward’s death, Harold and all who fought under him at Senlac had forfeited their lands by their treason to himself as their lawful king. These lands he distri- buted amongst his Normans. The English indeed were not entirely A silver penny of William the Conqueror, struck at Romney. 102 WILLIAM /. 1066-1069 dispossessed. Sometimes the son of a warrior who had been slain was allowed to retain a small portion of his father’s land. Some- times the daughter or the widow of one of Harold’s comrades was compelled to man*}^ a Norman whom William wished to favour. Yet, for all that, a vast number of estates in the southern and eastern counties passed from English into Norman hands. The bulk of the population, the serfs — or, as they were now called by a Norman name, the villeins — were not affected by the change, except so far as they found a foreign lord less willing than a native one to hearken to their complaints. The changes which took place were limited as yet to a small part of England. In three months after his coronation William was still without authority beyond an irregular line running from the Wash to the western border of Hampshire, except that he held some outlying posts in Hereford- shire. It is true that Ead'wine and Morkere had acknowledged him as king, but they were still practically independent. Even where William actually ruled he allowed all Englishmen who had not fought on Harold’s side to keep their lands, though he made them redeem them by the pa>unent of a fine, on the principle that all lands in the country', except those of the Church, were the king’s lands, and that it was right to fine those who had not come to Senlac to help him as their proper lord. 2. The Conquest of the West and North. 1067 — 1069. — In March 1067 William returned to Normandy. In his absence the Nor- mans left behind in England oppressed the English, and were sup- ported in their oppression by the two regents appointed to govern in William’s name, his half-brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, whom he, had made Earl of Kent, and William Fitz-Osbern, Earl of Hereford. In some parts the English rose in rebellion. In December William returned, and after putting down resistance in the south-eastern counties, set himself to conquer the rest of England. It took him more than two years to complete his task. Perhaps he would have failed even then if the whole of the uncon- quered part of the country had risen against him at the same time. Each district, however, resisted separately, and he was strong enough to beat them down one by one. In the spring of 1068 he besieged and took Exeter, and subdued the West to the Land’s End. When this had been accomplished he turned northwards against Eadwine and Morkere, who had declared against him. William soon frightened them into submission, and seized on York and all the country to the south of York on the eastern side of England. In 1069 the English of the North rose once more and summoned to 1069-1072 END OF THE CONQUEST 103 their aid Svend, king of Denmark, a nephew of the great Cnut. Svend sent a Danish fleet, and the Danes were joined by Eadgar the ^theling and by other English chiefs. They burnt and plun- dered York, but could do no more. Their great host melted away. The Danes went off with their booty to their ships, and the English returned to their homes. William found no army to oppose him, and he not only regained the lands which he had occupied the year before, but added to them the whole country up to the Tweed. 3. The Completion of the Conquest. 1070. — William was never cruel without an object, but there was no cruelty which he would not commit if it would serve his purpose. He resolved to make all further resistance impossible. The Vale of York, a long and wide stretch of fertile ground running northwards from the city to the Tees, was laid waste by William’s orders. The men who had joined in the revolt were slain. The stored-up crops, the ploughs, the carts, the oxen and sheep were destroyed by fire. Men, women, and children dropped dead of starvation, and their corpses lay unburied in the wasted fields. Some prolonged life by feeding on the flesh of horses, or even of men. Others sold themselves into slavery, bowing their heads, as was said, in the evil days for meat. “ Waste ! waste ! waste ! ” was the account given long afterwards of field after field in what had once been one of the most fertile districts in England. William’s work of conquest was almost over. Early in 1070 he crossed the hills amidst frost and snow, and descended upon Chester. Chester submitted, and with it the shires on the Welsh border. The whole of England was at last subdued. 4. Hereward’s Revolt and the Homage of Malcolm. 1070 — 1072. — Only one serious attempt to revolt was afterwards made, but this was no more than a local rising. The Isle of Ely was in those days a real island in the midst of the waters of the fens. Hereward, with a band of followers, threw himself into the island, and it was only after a year’s attack that he was driven out. When the revolt was at its height, Eadwine and Morkere fled from William’s court to join the insurgents. Eadwine was murdered by his own attendants. Morkere reached Ely, and when resistance was at an end was banished to Normandy. No man ever deserved less pity than these two brothers. They had never sought any one’s advantage but their own, and they had been faithless to every cause which they had pretended to adopt. Before Hereward was overpowered, Malcolm, king of the Scots, ravaged northern England, carrying off with him droves of English slaves. In 1072 William, 104 WILLIAM L 1072 who had by that time subdued Hereward, marched into Scotland as far as the Tay. Malcolm submitted to him at Abernethy, and acknowledged him to be his lord. Malcolm’s acknowledgment was only a repetition of the acknowledgment made by his predecessors, the Scottish kings, to Eadward and Cnut (see pp. 63, 84) ; but William was more powerful than Eadward or Cnut had been, and was likely to construe the obligation more strictly. 5. How William kept down the English. — William, having conquered England, had now to govern it. His first object was to keep the English in subjection. {a) The Confiscation of Land . — In the first place he continued to treat all who had resisted him as rebels, confiscating their land and giving it to some Norman follower. In almost every district there was at least one Norman landowner, who was on the watch against any attempt of his English neighbours to revolt, and who knew that he would lose his land if William lost his crown. fi) Building Castles . — In the second place William built a castle in every town of importance, which he garrisoned with his own men. The most notable example of these castles is- the Tower of London. (^r) The Feudal Army . — In the third place, though the diffusion of Norman landowners and of William’s castles made a general revolt of the English difficult, it did not make it impossible, and William took care to have an army always ready to put down a revolt if it occurred. N o king in those days could have a constantly paid army, such as exists in all European countries at the present day, because there was not much money anywhere. Some men had land and some men had bodily strength, and they bartered one for the other. The villein gave his strength to plough and reap for his lord, in return for the land which he held from him. The fighting man gave his strength to his lord, to serve him with his horse and his spear, in return for the land which he held from him. This system, which is known as feudal, had been growing up in England before the Conquest, but it was perfected on the Continent, and William brought it with him in its perfected shape. The warrior who served on horseback was called a knight, and when a knight received land from a lord on military tenure — that is to say, on con- dition of military service — he was called the vassal of his lord. When he became a vassal he knelt, and, placing his hands between those of his lord, swore to be his man. This act was called doing homage. The land which he received as sufficient to maintain him was called a knight’s fee. After this homage the vassal was 1072 NORMALS and DNGUSN 105 bound to serve his lord in arms, this service being the rent pay- able for his land. If the vassal broke his oath and fought against his lord, he was regarded as a traitor, or a betrayer of his trust, and could be turned out of his land. The whole land of Eng- land being regarded as the king’s, all land was held from the king. Sometimes the knights held their fees directly from the king and did homage to him. These knights were known as tenants in chief {in capite)^ however small their estates might be. Usually, however, the tenants in chief were large landowners, to whom the king had granted vast estates ; and these when they did homage engaged not merely to fight for him in person, but to bring some hundreds of knights with them. To enable them to do this they had to give out portions of their land to sub-tenants, each engaging to bring himself and a specified number of knights. There might thus be a regular chain of sub-tenants, A engaging to serve under B, B under C, C under D, and so on till the tenant-in-chief was reached, who engaged to bring them all to serve the king. Almost all the larger tenants-in-chief were Normans, though Englishmen were still to be found amongst the sub-tenants, and even amongst the smaller tenants-in-chief The whole body, however, was pre- ponderantly Norman, and William could therefore depend upon it to serve him as an army in the field in case of an English rising. 6. How William kept down the Normans. — William was not afraid only of the English. He had cause to fear lest the feudal army, which was to keep down the English, might be strong enough to be turned against himself, and that the barons — as the greater tenants-in-chief were usually called — might set him at naught as Eadwine and Morkere had set Harold at naught, and as the Dukes of Normandy had set at naught the kings of France. To prevent this he adopted various contrivances. {a) Abolition of the great Earldoms. — In the first place he abolished the great earldoms. In most counties there were to be no earls at all, and no one was to be earl of more than one county. There was never again to be an Earl of the West Saxons like God- wine, or an Earl of the Mercians like Leofric. {b) The Estates of the Barons scattered. — Not only did William diminish the official authority of the earls, he also weakened the territorial authority of the barons. Even when he granted to one man estates so numerous that if they had been close together they would have extended at least over a whole county, he took care to scatter them over England, allowing only a few to be held by a single owner in any one county. If, therefore, a great baron took io6 WILLIAM L 1072 it into his head to levy war against the king, he would have to collect his vassals from the most distant counties, and his intentions would thus be known before they could be put in practice. {c) The Fyrd kept in readiness . — Still more important was William’s resolution to be the real head of the English nation. He had weakened it enough to fear it no longer, but he kept it strong enough to use it, if need came, against the Norman barons. He won Englishmen to his side by the knowledge that he was ready to do them justice whenever they were wronged, and he could therefore venture to summon the fyrd whenever he needed support, without having cause to fear that it would turn against him. 7. Ecclesiastical Organisation. — Before the Conquest the English Church had been altogether national. Its bishops had sat side by side with the ealdormen or earls in the shire-moots, and in the Witenagemot itself They had been named, like the ealdormen or earls, by the king with the consent of the Witenagemot. Eccle- siastical questions had been decided and ecclesiastical offences punished not by any special ecclesiastical court, but by the shire- moot or Witenagemot, in which the laity and the clergy were both to be found. William resolved to change all this. The bishops and abbots whom he found were Englishmen, and he replaced most of them by Normans. The new Norman bishops and abbots were dependent on the king. They looked on the English as barbarians, and would certainly not support them in any revolt, as their English predecessors might have done. Thurstan, indeed, the Norman Abbot of Glastonbury, was so angry with his English monks because they refused to change their style of music that he called in Norman archers to shoot them down on the steps of the altar. Such brutality, however, was exceptional, and, as a rule, even Norman bishops and abbots were well disposed towards theif English neighbours, all the more because they were not very friendly with the Norman nobles, who often attempted to encroach on the lands of the Church. Many a king in William’s position would have been content to fill the sees with creatures of his own, who would have done what they were bidden and have thought of no one’s interest but his. William knew, as he had already shown in Normandy, that he would be far better served if the clergy were not only dependent on himself but deserving the respect of others. He made his old friend Lanfranc (see p. 88) Archbishop of Can- terbury. Lanfranc had, like William, the mind of a ruler, and under him bishops and abbots were appointed who enforced dis- cipline. The monks were compelled to keep the rules of their 1066-1073 the church OF THE CONQUEST 107 order, the canons of cathedrals were forced to send away their wives, and though the married clergy in the country were allowed to keep theirs, orders were given that in future no priest should marry. Everywhere the Church gave signs of new vigour. The monasteries became again the seats of study and learning. The sees of bishops were transferred from villages to populous towns, as when the Bishop of Dorchester, in Oxfordshire, migrated to Lincoln, and the Bishop of Thetford to Norwich. New churches were built and old ones restored after the new Continental style, which is known in England as Norman, and which Eadward had introduced in his abbey of Westminster. The Church, though made dependent on William, was independent, so far as its spiritual rights were concerned, of the civil courts. Ecclesiastical matters were discussed, not in the Witenagetnot, but in a Church synod, and, in course of time, punishments were in- flicted by Church courts on ecclesiastical offenders. The power of William was strength- ened by the change. That power rested on three supports — the Norman conquerors, the English nation, and the Church, and each one of these three had reason to distrust the other two. 8. Pope Gregory VII.- The strength which William had acquired showed itself in his bearing towards the Pope. In 1073 Archdeacon Hildebrand, who for some years had been more powerful at Rome than the Popes themselves, himself became Pope under the name of Gregory VII. Gregory was as stern a ruler of the Church as William was of the State. He was an uncom- promising champion of the Cluniac reforms (see p. 67). His object was to moderate the cruelty and sinfulness of the feudal warriors of Europe by making the Church a light to guide the world to piety and self-denial. As matters stood on the Continent, it had been impossible for the Church to attain to so high a standard. The clergy bought their places and fought and killed like the io8 WILLIAM I. 1073 laymen around them. The Cluniac monks, therefore, thought it best to separate the clergy entirely from the world. In the first place they were to be celibate, that they might not be entangled in the cares of life. In the second place they were to refrain from simony, or the purchase of ecclesiastical preferment, that they might not be dependent on the great men of the world. A third demand was added later, that bishops and abbots should not receive from lay- men the ring and staff which were the signs of their authority — the ring as the symbol of marriage to their churches ; the staff or crozier, in the shape of a shepherd’s crook, as the symbol of their pastoral authority. The Church, in fact, was to be governed by its own laws in perfect independence, that it might become more pure itself, and thus capable of setting a better example to the laity. As might have been expected, though the internal condition of the Church was greatly improved, yet when Gregory attempted entirely to free ecclesiastics from the influence and authority of the State, he found himself involved in endless quarrels. Clergy and laity alike resisted him, and they were supported by the Emperor Henry IV., whose rule extended over Germany and the greater part of Italy. Gregory next claimed the right of excommunicating kings and emperors, and of deposing them if they did not repent after excommunication. The State, he declared, was as the moon, re- ceiving light from the Church, which shone like the sun in heaven. The whole of the remainder of Gregory’s life was spent in a struggle with the Emperor, and the struggle was carried on by the successors of both. 9. William and Gregory VII. — It is remarkable that such a Pope as Gregory never came into conflict with William. William appointed bishops and abbots by giving them investiture, as the presenting of the ring and staff was called. He declared that no Pope should be obeyed in England who was not acknowledged by himself, that no papal bulls or letters should have any force till he had allowed them, and that the decrees of an ecclesiastical synod should bind no one till he had confirmed them. When, at a later time, Gregory required William to do homage to the see of Rome, William refused, on the ground that homage had never been ren- dered by his predecessors. To all this Gregory submitted. No doubt Gregory was prudent in not provoking William’s anger ; but that he should have refrained from even finding fault with William may perhaps be set down to the credit of his honesty. He claimed to make himself the master of kings because as a rule they did not care to advance the purity of the Church. William did care to 1073 GREGORY VI L 109 Part of the nave of St. Alban’s Abbey Church. Built by Abbot Paul between 1077 and 1093. no WILLIAM I. 1075 advance it. He chose virtuous and learned bishops, and defended the clergy against aggression from without and corruption within. Gregory may well have been content to leave power over the Church in the hands of a king who ruled it in such a fashion. lo. The Rising of the Earls. 1075. —Of the three classes of men over which William ruled, the great Norman barons imagined themselves to be the strongest, and were most inclined to throw off his yoke. The chief feature of the reigns of William and of his successors for three generations was the struggle which scarcely ever ceased between the Norman barons on the one side, and the king supported by the English and the clergy on the other. It was to the advantage of the king that he had not to contend against the wTiole of the Normans. Normans with small estates clung for support, like their English neighbours, to the crown. The first of many risings of the barons took place in 1075. Roger, Earl of Hereford, in spite of William’s prohibition, gave his sister in marriage to Ralph of Wader, Earl of Norfolk, who, though of English birth on his father’s side, had fought for William at Senlac, and may practically be counted as a Norman. As the chronicler expressed it : There was that bride-ale To many men’s bale. The two earls plotted a rising against William and the revivals of the old independent earldoms. They took arms and were beaten. Ralph fled the country, and Roger was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. His followers were blinded or had their feet cut off. It was the Norman custom not to put criminals to death. To this rule, however, William made one exception. Waltheof, the last earl of purely English race, had been present at the fatal bride-ale, but though he had listened to the plottings of the con- spirators, he had revealed all that he knew to William. His wife, Judith, a niece of the Conqueror, accused him of actual treason, and he was beheaded at Winchester. By the English he was regarded as a martyr, and it was probably his popularity amongst them which made William resolve upon his death. II. The New Forest. — Only once did William cause misery amongst his subjects for the sake of his own enjoyment. Many kings before him had taken pleasure in hunting, but William was the first who claimed the right of hunting over large tracts of country exclusively for himself. He made, as the chronicler says, ‘ mickle deer-frith ’ — a tract, that is to say, in which the deer might DOMESDAY BOOK III 1075-1085 have peace — ‘ and laid laws therewith that he who slew hart or hind that man should blind him. ... In sooth he loved the high deer as though he were their father.’ He forbade, in short, all men, except those to whom he gave permission, to hunt within the limits of the royal forests. In the south-west of Hampshire, near his favourite abode at Winchester, he enlarged the New Forest. The soil is poor, and it can never have been covered by cultivated fields, but here and there, by the sides of streams, there were scattered hamlets, and these were destroyed and the dwellers in them driven off by William’s orders, that there might be a ‘ mickle deer-frith.’ We may be sure that there was not nearly as much misery caused by the making of the New Forest as was caused by the harrying of the Vale of York, but popular tradition rightly held in more abhorrence the lesser cruelty for the sake of pleasure than the greater cruelty for the sake of policy. It told how the New Forest was accursed for William’s family. In his own lifetime a son and a grandson of his were cut off within it by unknown hands, probably falling before the vengeance of some who had lost home and substance through the creation of the Forest, and in due time another son, who suc- ceeded him on the throne, was to meet with a similar fate. 12. Domesday Book. 1085 — 1086. — It was to William’s credit that his government was a strong one. In William’s days life and property and female honour were under the protection of a king who knew how to make himself obeyed. Strong government, however, is always expensive, and William and his officers were always ready with an excuse for getting money. “ The king and the headmen loved much and overmuch covetousness on gold and on silver, and they recked not how sinfully it was gotten, if only it came to them. . . . They reared up unright tolls, and many other unright things they did that are hard to reckon.” Other men, in short, must observe the law ; William’s government was a law to itself. It was, however, a law, and not a mere scramble for money. Though there were no Danish invaders now, William continued to levy the Danegeld, and he had rents and payments due to him in many quarters which had been due to his predecessors. In order to make his exactions more complete and more regular, he resolved to have set down the amount of taxable property in the realm that his full rights might be known, and in 1085, “ He sent over all Eng- land into ilk shire his men, and let them find out how many hun- dred hides were in the shire, or what the king himself had of land or cattle in the land, or whilk rights he ought to have. . . . Eke he let write how mickle of land his archbishops had, and his bishops, II2 WILLIAM I 1085-1086 and his abbots and his earls, and what or how mickle ilk man had that landholder was in England in land and in cattle, and how mickle fee it was worth. So very narrowly he let speer it out that there was not a single hide nor a yard of land, nor so much as — it is a shame to tell, though he thought it no shame to do — an ox nor a cow nor a swine was left that was not set in his writ.” The chronicler who wrote these words was an English monk of Peterborough. Englishmen were shocked by the new regularity t fr Ttr^ Atm^' tut. Iti hmo-d' una. 7 m. ^im. ofd. cu,i. c2o/ inJUn pcL . ic ^alurr.^i- lift 7 ualcc- ^utf w. Reduced facsimile of part of Domesday Book. of taxation. They could hardly be expected to understand the advantages of a government strong enough through regular taxa- tion to put down the resistance of rebellious earls at home and to defy invasion from abroad. The result of the inquiries of the king’s commissioners was embodied in Domesday Book, so called because it was no more possible to appeal from it than from the Last Judgment. 13. William’s Great Councils. — Though William was himself io86 THE GEE AT GEMOT 113 the true ruler of England, he kept up the practice of his prede- cessors in summoning the Witenagemot from time to time. In his days, however, the name of the Witenagemot was changed into that of the Great Council, and, to a slight extent, it changed its nature with its name. The members of the Witenagemot had at- tended because they were officially connected with the king, being ealdormen or bishops or thegns serving in some way under him. Members of the Great Council attended because they held land in chief from the king. The difference, however, was greater in appearance than in reality. No doubt men who held very small estates in chief might, if they pleased, come to the Great Council, and if they had done so the Great Council would have been much more numerously attended than the Witenagemot had been. The poorer tenants-in-chief, however, found that it was not only too troublesome and expensive to make the journey at a time when all long journeys had to be made on horseback, but that when they arrived their wishes were disregarded. They therefore stayed at home, so that the Great Council was regularly attended only by the bishops, the abbots of the larger abbeys, and certain great landowners who were known as barons. In this way the Great Council became a council of the wealthy landowners, as the Witenagemot had been, though the two assemblies were formed on different principles. 14. The Gemot at Salisbury. 1086. — In 1086, after Domesday Book had been finished, William summoned an unusually numerous assembly, known as the Great Gemot, to meet at Salisbury. At this not only the tenants-in-chief appeared, but also all those who held lands from them as sub-tenants. “ There came to him,” wrote the chronicler, “. . . all the landowning men there were over all England, whose soever men they were, and all bowed down before him and became his men, and swore oaths of fealty to him, that they would be faithful to him against all other men.” It was this oath which marked the difference between English and Continental feudalism, though they were now in other respects alike. On the Continent each tenant swore to be faithful to his lord, but only the lords who held directly from the crown swore to be faithful to the king. The consequence was that when a lord rebelled against the king, his tenants followed their lord and not the king. In England the tenants swore to forsake their lord and to serve the king against him if he forsook his duty to the king. Nor was this all. Many men break their oaths. William, however, was strong enough in England to punish those who broke their I WILLIAM I. 114 1087 oaths to him, whilst the king of France was seldom strong enough to punish those who broke their oaths to him. 1 5. William’s Death. 1087. — The oath taken at Salisbury was the completion of William’s work in England. To contemporaries he appeared as a foreign conqueror, and often as a harsh and despotic ruler. Later generations could recognise that his supreme merit was that he made England one. He did not die in England. In 1087 he fought with his lord, the king of France, Philip I. In anger at a jest of Philip’s he set fire to Mantes. As he rode amidst the burning houses his horse shied and threw him forward on the pommel of his saddle. He was now corpulent and the injury proved fatal. On September 9 he died. When the body was carried to Caen for burial in the abbey of St. Stephen, which William himself had reared, a knight stepped forward and claimed as his own the ground in which the grave had been dug. It had been taken, he said, by William from his father. “ In the name of God,” he cried, “ I forbid that the body of the robber be covered with my mould, or that he be buried within the bounds of my inheritance.” The bystanders acknowledged the truth of his accusation, and paid the price demanded. CHAPTER VHI WILLIAM II. 1087—1100 LEADING DATES Accession of William II 1087 Norman rebellion against William II 1088 Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury 1093 The Council of Rockingham, and the First Crusade . 1095 Conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders .... 1099 Death of William II 1100 I. The Accession of the Red King. 1087. — In Normandy the Conqueror was succeeded by his eldest son, Robert. Robert was sluggish and incapable, and his father had expressed a wish that England, newly conquered and hard to control, should be ruled by his more energetic second son, William. To the third son, Henry, he gave a sum of money. There was as yet no settled rule of succession to the English crown, and William at once crossed the sea and was crowned king of the English at Westminster, by Lan- THE RED KING ”5 1087-1088 franc. William Rufus, or the Red King, as men called him, feared not God nor regarded man. Yet the English rallied round him, because they knew that he was strong-willed, and because they needed a king who would keep the Norman barons from oppressing them. F or that very reason the more turbulent of the N orman barons declared for Robert, who would be too lazy to keep them in order. In the spring of 1088 they broke into rebellion in his name. William called the English people to his help. He would not, he said, wring money from his subjects or exercise cruelty in defence of his hunt- ing grounds. On this the English rallied round him. At the head of a great army he marched to attack the rebels, and finally laid siege to Rochester, which was held against him by his uncle Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, whom he had released from the imprisonment in which the Conqueror had kept him. William called upon yet greater numbers of the English to come to his help. Every one, he declared, who failed him now should be known for ever by the shameful name of Nithmg^ or worthless. The English came in crowds. When at last Odo surrendered, the English pleaded that no mercy should be shown him. “ Halters, bring halters ! ” they cried ; “ hang up the traitor bishop and his ’accomplices on the gibbet.” William, however, spared him, but banished him for ever from England 2. The Wickedness of the Red King. — William had crushed the Norman rebels with English aid. When the victory was won he turned against those who had helped him. It was not that he oppressed the English because they were English, but that he op- pressed English and Normans alike, though the English, being the weaker, felt his cruelty most. He broke all his promises. He gathered round him mercenary soldiers from all lands to enforce his will. He hanged murderers and robbers, but he himself was the worst of robbers. When he moved about the country with the ruffians who attended him, the inhabitants fled to the woods, leaving their houses to be pillaged. William allowed no law to be pleaded against his own will. His life, and the life of his courtiers, was passed in the foulest vice. He was as irreligious as he was vicious. It was in especial defiance of the Christian sentiment of the time that he encouraged the Jews, who had begun to come into England in his father’s days, to come in greater numbers. They grew rich as money-lenders, and William protected them against their debtors, exacting a high price for his protection. Once, it is said, he in- vited the Jewish rabbis to argue in his presence with the bishops on the merits of their respective creeds, and promised to become ii6 WILLIAM II 1088 a Jew if the rabbis had the better of the argument. His own mouth was filled with outrageous blasphemies. “ God,” he said, “ shall never see me a good man. I have suffered too much at His hands.” 3. Ranulf Flambard. — The chief minister of the Red King was Ranulf Flambard, whom he ultimately made Bishop of Durham. He was one of the clerks of the king’s chapel. The word ‘clerk’ properly signified a member of the clergy. The only Avay in which men could work with their brains instead of with their hands was by becoming clerks, the majority of whom, however, only entered the lower orders, without any intention of becoming priests or even deacons. Few, except clerks, could read or write, and whatever work demanded intelligence naturally fell into their hands. They acted as physicians or lawyers, kept accounts, and wTOte letters. The clerks of the king’s chapel w’ere the king’s secretaries and men of business. These ready wTiters had taken a leading part in the compilation of Domesday Book, and they were always active in bringing in money. Under the Conqueror they w^ere expected to obseiwe at least something of the rules of justice. Under the Red King they w^ere expected to disregard them entirely. Of all the clerks Ranulf Flambard w^as the most unscrupulous ; therefore he rose into the greatest favour. The first William had appointed high officers, known as Justiciars, to act in his name from time to time w^hen he w'^as absent from England, or w^as from any cause unable to be present when im- portant business w^as transacted. Flambard w^as appointed J usticiar by the second William, and in his hands the office became per- manent. The Justiciar was now' the king’s chief minister, acting in his name whether he was present or absent. Flambard used his power to gather wealth for the king on every side. “He drave the king’s gemots,” w'e are told, “ over all England ; ” that is to say, he forced the reluctant courts to exact the money w'hich he claimed for the king. 4. Feudal Dues. — It w'as Flambard w'ho systematised, if he did not invent, the doctrine that the king was to profit by his position as supreme landlord. In practice this meant that he exacted to the full the consequences of feudal tenure. If a man died who held land by knight service from the crowm, leaving a son w'ho w'as a minor, the boy became the ward of the king, who took the profits of his lands till he was twenty-one, and forced him to pay a relief or fine for taking them into his own hands wfien he attained his majority. If the land PLAMBARD and ANSELM 17 1089-1092 fell to an heiress the king claimed the right of marrying her to whom he would, or of requiring of her a sum of money for permission to take a husband at her own choice, or, as was usually the case, at the choice of her relations. Under special circumstances the king exacted aids from his tenants-in-chief. If he were taken prisoner they had to pay to ransom him from captivity. When he knighted his eldest son or married his eldest daughter they had to contribute to the expense. It is true that this was in accordance with the principle of feudality. Neither a boy nor a woman could render service in the field, and it was therefore only fair that the king should hold the lands at times when no service was rendered to him for them ; and it was also fair that the dependents should come to their lord’s help in times of special need, especially as all that the king took from them they in turn took from their own sub-tenants. Flambard, however, did not content himself with a moderately harsh exaction of these feudal dues. The grievance against him was that he made the king ‘to be every man’s heir, whether he were in orders or a laymam’ that is to say, that Flambard so stripped and exhausted the land belonging to the king’s wards as to make it almost worthless, and then demanded reliefs so enormous that when the estate had at last been restored, all its value had passed into the hands of the king. When a bishop or an abbot died, the king appointed no successor, and appropriated the revenues of the vacant see or monastery till some one chose to buy the office from him. The king alone grew rich, whilst his vassals were impoverished. 5. Archbishop Anselm. — In 1089 Lanfranc died, and the arch- bishopric of Canterbuiy was then left vacant for nearly four years. The Archbishop of Canterbury was more than the first of English bishops. He was not only the maintainer of ecclesiastical discipline, but also the mouthpiece of the English people when they had com- plaints to make to the king. Men turned their thoughts to Anselm, the Abbot of Bee. Anselm was a stranger from Aosta, on the Italian side of the Alps. He was the most learned man of the age, and had striven to justify the theology of the day by rational arguments. He was as righteous as he was learned, and as gentle as he was righteous. Tender to man and woman, he had what was in those days a rare tenderness to animals, and had caused astonishment by saving a hunted hare from its pursuers. In 1092 the king’s vassals assembled in the Great Council urged William to choose a successor to Lanfranc, and asked him to allow prayers to be offered in the churches that God might move his heart to select a worthy ii8 WILLIAM II. 1093-1097 chief pastor. “ Pray as you will,” said the king, scornfully. “ I shall do as I think good ; no man’s prayers will do anything to shake my will ! ” In the spring of 1093 William fell sick. Believing himself to be a dying man, he promised to amend his life, and named Anselm archbishop. On his refusal to accept the nomina- tion, Anselm was dragged to the king’s bedside, and the pastoral staff, the symbol of the pastoral office of a bishop, was forced into his hands by the bystanders. 6. The Council of Rockingham. 1095.— To this well-meant violence Anselm submitted unwillingly. He was, he said, a weak old sheep to be yoked with an untamed bull to draw the plough of the English Church. Yet, gentle as he was, he was possessed of indomitable courage in resistance to evil. William recovered, and returned to his blasphemy and his tyranny. In vain Anselm warned him against his sins. A fresh object of dispute soon arose between the king and the new archbishop. Two Popes claimed the obedience of Christendom. Urban II. was the Pope acknowledged by the greater part of the Church. Clement III. was the Pope supported by the Emperor. Anselm declared that Urban was the true Pope, and that he would obey none other. William asserted that his father had laid down a rule that no Pope should be acknowledged in England without the king’s assent, and he proposed to act upon it by acknowledging neither Clement nor U rban. His object was, perhaps, to prevent the enforcement of eccle- siastical discipline by temporarily getting rid of the papal authority. Anselm wanted the authority of the Pope to check vice and disorder. The question was set aside for a time, but in 1095 Anselm, tired of witnessing William’s wicked actions, asked leave to go to Rome to fetch from Urban the pallium, a kind of scarf given by the Pope to archbishops in recognition of their office. William replied that he did not acknowledge Urban as Pope. A Great Council was summoned to Rockingham to discuss the question. The lay barons, who liked to see the king resisted, were on Anselm’s side. The bishops, many of whom were creatures of William, appointed from amongst his clerks, took the side of the king. Anselm stated his case firmly and moderately, and then, caring nothing for the angry king, retired into the chapel and went quietly to sleep. The king, finding that the barons would give him no support, was unable to punish Anselm. Two years later, in 1097, Anselm betook him- self to Rome, and William at once seized on his estates. 7. William II. and his Brothers.— Normandy under Robert was even worse off than England under William. William was I 09 t-lo 93 NORMANDY AND SCOTLAND 119 himself a tyrant, but in Normandy there were at least a hundred tyrants because Robert was too easy-tempered to bring any one to Justice. The land was full of violence. Each baron made war on his neighbour, and, as usual, the peasant suffered most. Robert’s own life was vicious and wasteful, and he was soon in debt. He sold the Cotentin and the territory of Avranches to his youngest brother, Henry. Henry was cool-headed and prudent, and he kept order in his new possession better than either of his elder brothers would have done. The brothers coveted the well- ordered land, and in 1091, two years before Anselm became arch- bishop, they marched together against Henry. Henry was besieged on St. Michael’s Mount, a rocky island surrounded by the sea at high water. After a time water ran short. The easy-tempered Robert sent in a supply. “ Shall we let our brother die of thirst ? ” he said to William. Henry was in the end forced to surrender, and the land which he had purchased was lost to him for a time. In 1095 Henry was again in Normandy. Robert of Belleme, the lord of Domfront, was the most cruel of the cruel barons. Once he had torn out with his own hands the eyes of his godson, merely because the child’s father had displeased him. The people of Domfront called on Henry to deliver them from such a monster. Henry seized Domfront, ruled its people with justice, and soon recovered the possessions from which his brothers had driven him. 8. William and Scotland. 1093 — ^ 094 - — William’s attention was at this time drawn to the North. Early in his reign he annexed Cumberland, and had secured it against the Scots by fortifying Carlisle, which had been desolate since the Danish inva- sion in the reign of Alfred. Malcolm, king of the Scots, was a rude warrior who had been tamed into an outward show of piety by his saintly wife, Margaret, the sister of Eadgar the .^Etheling. Though he could not read her books of devotion, he liked to look at the pictures in them and to kiss the relics which she honoured. Margaret gathered Englishmen round her, and spread abroad something of southern piety and civilisation amongst the fierce Celtic warriors of her husband. She could not teach them to change their natures. In 1093 Malcolm burst into Northumberland, plun- dering and burning, till an Englishman slew him at Alnwick. Queen Margaret died broken-hearted at the news, and was before long counted as a saint. For the moment the Scottish Celts were weary of the English queen and her English ways. They set up Malcolm’s brother, Donald Bane, as their king, refusing to be WILLIAM It. liC) 1094-1096 governed by any of Margaret’s sons. Donald at once ‘ drave out all the English that before were with King Malcolm.’ In 1094 Duncan, Margaret’s step-son, gained the crown from Donald with the aid of a troop of English and Norman followers. The Celts soon drove out his followers, and after a while they slew him and restored Donald. 9. Mowbray’s Rebellion. 1095. — William had as yet too much to do at home to interfere further in Scotland. The Norman barons hated him, and in 1095 Robert of Mowbray, Earl of Northum- berland — the name was now confined to the land between the Tweed and the Tyne — refused obedience. William at oncemarched against him, and took from him the new castle which he had built in 1080, and which has ever since been known as Newcastle-on- Tyne. Robert held out long in his stronger fortress of Barn- borough, which was only taken at last by fraud. He was condemned to a lifelong imprisonment, and it is even said that the Pope, seeing his case hopeless, allowed his wife to marry again as though her husband had been dead. Mowbray’s rebellion, like the conspiracy of the Earls against the Conqueror, shows how eagerly the Nor- man barons longed to shake off the yoke of the king, and how readily Englishmen and the less powerful Normans supported even a tyrannical king rather than allow the barons to have their way. 10. The First Crusade. 1095 — 1099. — These petty wars were interrupted by a call to arms from the Pope. For centuries Chris- tians had made pilgrimages to Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the holy places where their Lord had been bom and had been cmcified. WTien the Arabs conquered the Holy Land, Mohammedans as they were, they gave protection to the pilgrims from the West. The Turks, who were also Mohammedans, had lately obtained the mastery over the Arabs, and had secured dominion over the Holy Land. They were fierce warriors, ignorant and cruel, who either put the pilgrims to death or subjected them to torture and ill-usage- In 1095 Pope Urban II. came to Clermont to appeal to the Chris- tians of the West to set out on a Cmsade — a war of the Cross — to deliver the Holy City from the infidel. After he had spoken the multitude burst out with the cry, “ It is the will of God ! ” Men of every rank placed on their garments a cross, as the sign of their devotion to the service of Christ. In 1096 a huge multitude set forth under Peter the Hermit, who had been active in urging men to take part in the Crusade. They believed it to be unnecessary to take money or food, trusting that God would supply His warriors. THE PIRST CRuSadE 1096- I 099 l2t All these perished on the way. A better-equipped body of knights and nobles set out later under Godfrey of Bouillon. They fought their way through Asia Minor and Syria to Jerusalem, and in 1099 the Holy City was taken by storm. Godfrey, though he became its first Christian king, refused to be crowned. “ I will not,” he said, “ wear a crown of gold where my Saviour wore a crown of thorns.” The piety of the Christian warriors was not accompanied by mercy to the vanquished. Holding Mohammedans to be the special enemies of God, they treated them as no better than savage beasts. There was a terrible butchery when Jerusalem was taken, and Christian men fancied that they did God service by dashing out the brains of Mohammedan babes against the walls. 11. Normandy in Pledge. 1096. — Robert was amongst the Crusaders. To raise money for his expedition he pledged Normandy to his brother William. William had no wish to take part in a holy war, but he was ready to make profit out of those who did. Normandy was the better for the change. It is true that William oppressed it himself, but he saved the people from the worse oppression of the barons. 12. The Last Years of the Red King. — The remaining years of William’s reign were years of varying success. An English force set up Eadgar, the son of Malcolm and Margaret, as king of the Scots, and Eadgar consented to hold his crown as William’s vassal. William’s attempts to reduce the Welsh to submission ended in failure, and he was obliged to content himself with hemming them in with castles. In 1098 the wicked Robert of Belleme succeeded his brother as earl of Shrewsbury. Robert robbed and tortured Englishmen as he had robbed and tortured Normans. He was a great builder of castles, and at Bridgenorth he raised a fortress as the centre of a group of strong places which could defy the Welsh and form the basis of his operations against them. In the same year William captured Le Mans, the capital of Maine, which had recovered its independence from Robert, Avhich was held against him by Helie de la Fleche, one of the few unselfish men of the day. Unlike his father, the Red King often began enterprises which he did not finish. In 1099 he had all his work to do over again. He was hunting in the New Forest when he heard that Helie had regained Le Mans. He rode hard to Southampton, and, leaping on board a vessel, bade the sailors put to sea. A storm was raging, and the sailors prayed him to wait till the wind fell. “ I never heard,” he answered, “ of a king being drowned.” The next morning he was in Normandy. He 122 WILLIAM IT. recovered Le Mans, but returned to England without conquering Maine. 13. The Death of the Red King. iioo. — On August 2, iioo, the Red King went out to hunt in the New Forest. In the evening his body was found pierced by an arrow. Who his slayer was is unknown. The blow may have been accidental. It is more likely to have been intentional. In every part of England were men who had good cause to hate William, and nowhere were his enemies in greater numbers than round the New Forest. Whoever was his slayer, the body of the tyrant was borne to the cathedral of Win- chester and buried as the corpse of a wild beast, without funeral rites or weeping eyes. When, after a few years had passed, the tower above the unhallowed tomb fell in, men said that it had fallen because so foul a body lay beneath it. CHAPTER IX HENRY I. AND STEPHEN HENRY I, IIOO— 1135. STEPHEN, II35— II54 LEADING DATES The Accession of Henry 1 1100 Battle of Tinchebrai 1106 Death of Henry I. and Accession of Stephen . 1135 The Civil War 1139 Treaty of Wallingford 1153 Death of Stephen 1154 I. The Accession of Henry I. iioo. — When the news spread that the Red King had been slain in the New Forest, his younger brother, Henry, hastened to Winchester, where he was chosen king by the barons who happened to be there. At his coronation at Westminster he swore to undo all the evil of his brother’s reign. The name by which he came to be known — the Lion of Justice — shows how well he kept his promise. He maintained order as his father had done, and his brother had not done. Flambard, the wicked minister of the Red King, was imprisoned in the Tower, and Anselm, the good archbishop, recalled to England. Henry’s chief strength lay in the support of the English. To please them he married Eadgyth, the daughter of Malcolm and Margaret, the descendant through her mother of the old English kings. Through IICX) HENRY L AND THE ENGLISH 123 Eadgyth the blood of Alfred and Ecgberht was transmitted to the later kings. It was, however, necessary that she should take another Henry I. and his queen Matilda. (From the west front of Rochester Cathedral.) tiENRV /. I101-I106 t^4 name. Every one at Henry’s court talked French, and ‘ Eadgyth ’ was unpronounceable in French. The new queen was therefore known as Matilda, or Maud. The English called her the good queen. The Normans mocked her husband and herself by giving them the English nicknames of Godric and Godgifu. 2. Invasion of Robert, iioi. — One danger at least Henry had to face. The Norman barons yearned after the weak rule of Robert, who was again in possession of Normandy. Once, we are told, he had to stay in bed till noon, because his favourites had carried off his clothes, and he had no others to put on. A duke who could not keep his own clothes was not likely to be able to rule his duchy, and Normandy was again the scene of fightings and plunderings which he made no effort to suppress. Flambard, having escaped from prison, fled to Normandy, and urged Robert to claim England as the heritage of the eldest ^on of the Conqueror. Robert listened to the tempter and sailed for England. When he landed at Porchester he found that the Church and the English had rallied to Heniy. Robert’s position was hopeless, and he made a treaty with his brother, abandoning all claim to the crown. 3. Revolt of Robert of Bell^me. 1102.— Henry knew that the great barons wished well to Robert, and on one pretext or another he stripped most of them of power. Robert of Belleme, the strongest and wickedest of them all, rose in revolt. After cap- turing many of his castles, Henry laid siege to his great fortress at Bridgenorth. The barons who served under Henry urged him to spare a rebel who was one of their own class. The Englishmen and the inferior Norman knights thought otherwise. “ Lord King Henry,” they cried, “trust not those traitors. They do but strive to deceive you, and to take away from you the strength of kingly justice. . . . Behold, we all stand by you faithfully; we are ready to seiwe and help you in all things. Attack the castle vigorously ; shut in the traitor on all sides, and make no peace with him till you have him alive or dead in your hands.” Bridgenorth was taken, and Robert of Belleme, having been stripped of his English land, was sent off to Normandy. Henry was now, in very truth, king of the English. “ Rejoice, King Henry,” ran a popular song, “ and give thanks to the Lord God, because thou art a free king since thou hast overthrown Robert of Belleme, and hast driven him from the borders of thy kingdom.” Never again during Henry’s reign did the great Norman lords dare to lift hand against him. 4. The Battle of Tinchebrai. iio6. — It was impossible for Henry to avoid interference in Normandy. Many of his vassals in 125 1106-1107 CONQUEST OF NORMANDY England possessed lands in Normandy as well, where they were exposed to the violence of Robert of Belleme and of others who had been expelled from England. The Duke of the Normans would do nothing to keep the peace, and Henry crossed the sea to protect his own injured subjects. Duke Robert naturally resisted him, and at last, in iio6, a great battle was fought at Tinchebrai, in which Robert was utterly de- feated. Duke Robert was kept for the re- mainder of his life a prisoner in Cardiff Castle, where he died after an imprisonment of twenty-eight years. Henry became Duke of the Normans as well as king of the English, and all Normandy was the better for the change. Robert of Bellem^ was thrown into prison, and the cruel oppressor thus shared the fate of the weak ruler whose remissness had made his oppressions possible. $. Henry and Anselm, iioo — 1107. — Though Anselm had done everything in his power to support Henry against Robert ol Belleme, he was himself engaged in a dispute with the king which lasted for some years. A bishop in Anselm’s time was not only a great Church officer, whose duty it was to maintain a high standard of religion and morality amongst the clergy. He was also one of the king’s barons, because he was possessed of large estates, and was therefore bound like any other baron to send knights to the king when they were needed. Consequently, when Anselm became arch- bishop he had not only received investiture from William II. by accepting from him the ring and the staff which were the signs of ecclesiastical authority, but also did homage, thus acknowledging himself to be the king’s man, and obliging himself, not indeed to fight for him in person, but to send knights to fight under his orders. When, however, Henry came to the throne, and asked Anselm to repeat the homage which he had done to William, 126 HENRY /. 1107 Anselm not only refused himself to comply with the king’s request, but also refused to consecrate newly-chosen bishops who had re- ceived investiture from Henry. During the time of his exile Anselm had taken part in a council of the Church, in which bishops and abbots nad been forbidden by the Pope and the council either to receive investiture from laymen or to do homage to them. These decrees had not been issued merely to serve the purpose of papal ambition. At that time all zealous ecclesiastics thought that the only way to stop the violence of kings in their dealings with the Church was to make the Church entirely independent. Anselm’s experience of the Red King’s wickedness must have made him ready to concur with this new view, and there can be no doubt that it was from the most conscientious motives that he refused to do homage to Henry. On the other hand, Henry, wishing to rule justly, thought it very hard that the archbishop should insist upon the independence of the bishops, especially as in consequence of their large estates they had so many knights to send into the field. Though the dispute was a hot one, it was carried on without any of the violence which had characterised the dispute between Anselm and the Red King, and it ended in a compromise. Henry abandoned all claim to give the ring and the pastoral staff which were the signs of a bishop’s or an abbot’s spiritual jurisdiction, whilst Anselm consented to allow the new bishop or abbot to render the homage which was the sign of his readiness to employ all his temporal wealth and power on the king’s behalf. The bishop was to be chosen by the chapter of his cathedral, the abbot by the monks of his abbey, but the election was to take place in the king’s presence, thus giving him influence over their choice. Whether this settlement n^ould work in favour of the king or the clergy depended on the character of the kings and the clergy. If the kings were as riotous as the Red King and the clergy as self-denying as Anselm, the clergy would grow strong in spite of these arrangements. If the kings were as just and wise as Henry, and the clergy as wicked as Ralph Flambard, all advantage would be on the side of the king. 6. Roger of Salisbury. — After the defeat of the Norman barons the Great Council ceased for a time to have any important influence on the government. Henry was practically an absolute king, and it was well that he should be so, as the country wanted order more than discussion. Henry, however, loved to exercise absolute power in an orderly way, and he chose for his chief minister Roger, whom he made Bishop of Salisbury. Roger had first attracted his notice when he was going out hunting, by saying mass in a shorter time 1107-1135 ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER 127 than any other priest, but he retained his favour by the order and system which he introduced into the government. A special body of officials and councillors was selected by the king — perhaps a similar body had been selected by his predecessor — to sit in judg- ment over cases in which tenants-in-chief were concerned, as well as over other cases which were, for one reason or another, trans- ferred to it from the Baronial Courts. This council or committee was called the Curia Regis (the King’s Court). The members of this Curia Regis met also in the Exche- quer, so called from the chequered cloth which covered the table at which they sat. They were then known as Barons of the Exchequer, and controlled the receipts and out- goings of the treasury. The Justiciar presided in both the Curia Regis and the Exchequer. Amongst those who took part in these proceedings was the Chancellor, who was then a secretary and not a judge, as well as other superior officers of the king. A regular system of finance was introduced, and a regular sys- tem of justice accompanied it. At last the king determined to send some of the judges of his court to go on circuit into distant parts of the kingdom. These itinerant Justices f Justiiiarii errantes) brought the royal power into connection with the local courts. Their business was of a very miscellaneous charac- ter. They not only heard the cases in which the king was concerned — the pleas of the crown, as they were called — but they made assessments for purposes of taxation, listened to complaints, and conveyed the king’s wishes to his people. 7. Growth of Trade. — Though Henry’s severe discipline was not liked, yet the law and order which he maintained told on the prosperity of the country, and the trade of London flourished so Monument of Roger, Bishop of Salis- bury (died 1139), in his cathedral church. 128 HENRY L 1107-1135 much as to attract citizens from Normandy to settle in it. Flemings too, trained in habits of industry, came in crowds, and with the view of providing a bulwark against the Welsh, Henry settled a colony of them in South Pembrokeshire, which has since been knovm as Little England beyond Wales. The foreigners were not popular, but the Jews, to whom Henry continued the protection which William had given them, were more unpopular still. Porchester Church, Hampshire. Built about 1135. 8. The Benedictines. — In the midst of this busy life the Bene- dictine monasteries were still harbours of refuge for all who did not care to fight or trade. They were now indeed wealthier than they had once been, as gifts, usually of land, had been made to the monks by those who reverenced their piety. Sometimes these gifts took a shape which aftenvards caused no little evil. Lando^^^lers who had churches on their lands often gave to a monaster}’’ the tithes which had hitherto been paid for the support of the parish priest, and the monastery^ stepped into the place of the parish priest, 1107-1135 MONASTIC ORDERS 129 sending a vicar to act for it in the performance of its new duties. As the monks them'selves grew richer they grew less ascetic. Their life, however, was not spent in idleness. They cared for the poor, kept a school for the children, and managed their own property. Some of their number studied and wrote, and our knowledge of the history of these times is mainly owing to monastic writers. When Henry I. came to the throne the Chronicle was still being written in the English tongue by the monks of Worcester, and for some years after his death was still carried on at Peterborough. The best historical compositions were, however, in Latin, the language under- stood by the clergy over all Western Europe. Amongst the authors of these Latin works, the foremost was William of Malmesbury. 9. The Cistercians. — Useful as the Benedictines were, there were some monks who complained that the extreme self-denial of their founder, St. Benedict, was no longer to be met with, and the complainants had lately originated a new order, called the Cistercian, from Citeaux, in Burgundy, the site of their first abbey. The Cistercians made their appearance in England in 1128. Their buildings and churches were simpler than those of the Benedic- tines, and their life more austere. They refused to receive gifts of tithes lest they should impoverish the parish clergy. They loved to make their homes in solitary places far from the haunts of men, and some of the most beautiful of the abbeys which remain in ruins — those, for instance, of Fountains and Tintern — were Cistercian abbeys. They are beautiful, not because the Cistercians loved pleasant places, but because they loved solitude, whilst the Benedic- tines had either planted themselves in towns or had allowed towns to grow up round their monasteries. 10. The White Ship. — Henry, in consequence of the possession of Normandy, had been frequently involved in war with France. Robert’s son, William. Clito, claimed Normandy, and his claim was supported by Louis VI. the Fat, who was styled king of France, though the territory which he actually ruled was no larger than Normandy. In these wars Henry was usually successful, and at last, in 1127, William was killed, and Henry freed from danger. His own son, also named William, had already been drowned on the voyage between Normandy and England in 1120. The ship in which he sailed ran upon a rock, and the young man was placed in a boat, and might have escaped if he had not returned to save his half- sister, the Countess of Perche, who was still on board. As soon as he approached the sailors and passengers crowded into the boat and swamped it. Only one man, a butcher, was saved, by clinging 130 HENRY I. 1120 to the mast of the ship when it sank. The captain, who was with him on the mast, threw himself oft as soon as he learned that the king^s son had been drowned, and perished in the water. It is said Part of Uie nave of Durhara Cathetlral. Built about 113a 1120-1135 MATILDA AND STEPHEN 31 that no man dared to tell Henry that his son was drowned, and that at last a little child was sent to inform him of his misfortune. 11. The Last Years of Henry I. — Henry had many illegitimate children, but after William’s death the only lawful child left to him was Matilda. She had been married as a child to the Emperor Henry V., but her husband had died before she was grown up, and she then returned to her father, as the Empress Matilda. There had never been a queen in England, and it would have been very hard for a woman to rule in those times of constant war and blood- shed. Yet Henry persuaded the barons to swear to accept her as their future sovereign. He then married her to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, who came of a brave and active race, and whose lands, which lay to the south of Normandy, would enlarge the French possessions of Henry’s descendants. In 1135 Henry died. The great merit of his English government was that he forsook his brother’s evil ways of violence, and maintained peace by erecting a regular administrative system, which kept down the outrages of the barons. One of the English chroniclers in recording his death prayed that God might give him the peace that he loved. ^ 12. Stephen’s Accession. 1135. — Among the barons who had sworn to obey Matilda was Stephen of Blois, a son of the Conqueror’s daughter Adela, and a nephew of Henry I. As soon as Henry’s death was known Stephen made his way to London, where he was joyfully received as king. The London citizens felt that their chief interest lay in the maintenance of peace, and they thought that a man would be more likely than a woman to secure order. The barons chose Stephen king at Winchester, where his brother, Henry of Blois, was the bishop. Shortly afterwards some of these very barons rose against him, but their insurrection was soon repressed. More formidable was the hostility of David, 1 Genealogy of the Conqueror’s sons and grandchildren : — William I. = Matilda of Flanders 1066-1087 1 Robert, Duke of William II. 1 Henry I. Adela = Stephen of Blois Normandy 1087-1100 1100-1135 1 1 f 1 Stephen William Clito William 1135-1154 (i) The Emperor Henry V. = Matilda=(2) Geoffrey Plantagenet Henry II. 1154-1189 132 STEPHEN 1135-1138 king of the Scots. David was closely connected with the family of Henry I., his sister having been Henry’s wife, the Empress Matilda being consequently his niece. He also held in right of his own wife the earldom of Huntingdon. Under the pretext of taking up Matilda’s cause he broke into the north of England. Though he himself carried on the work of introducing English Keep 01 Rochester Castle. Built between 1126 and 1139. civilisation into Scotland, his Celtic followers were still savage, and massacred women and infants. In 1137 Stephen drove David back. In 1138 David reappeared, and this time the aged Thurstan, Archbishop of York, sent the levies of the North against him. In the midst of the English army was a cart bearing a standard, at the top of which the banners of the three great churches of St. Peter’s of York, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon, waved round 1138 STEPHEN and the B A ROMS 133 the consecrated Host. The battle which ensued, near Northallerton, has consequently been known as the battle of the Standard. The Scots were completely defeated, but Stephen, in spite of the victory gained for him, found himself obliged to buy peace at a heavy price. He agreed that David’s son, Henry, should hold Northumberland, with the exception of the fortresses of Bamborough and of New- castle, as a fief of the English Crown. David himself was also allowed to keep Cumberland without doing homage. Keep of Castle Rising. Built about 1140-50. 13. Civil^War. — It would have been well for Stephen if he had learnt from the men of the North that his strength lay in rallying the English people round him against the great barons, as the Red King and Henry I. had done when their right to the crown had been challenged by Robert. Instead of this, he brought over mer- cenaries from Flanders, and squandered treasure and lands upon his favourites so as to have little left for the hour of need. He made friends easily, but he made enemies no less easily. One of the most powerful of the barons was Robert, Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of Henry I., who held the strong fortress of 134 STEPHEN 1133-1139 Bristol, and whose power extended over both sides of the lower course of the Severn. In 1138 Stephen, who distrusted him, ordered his castles to be seized. Robert at once declared his half-sister Matilda to be the lawful queen, and a terrible civil war began. Robert’s garrison at Bristol was a terror to all the country round. He, too, gathered foreign mercenaries, who knew not what pity was. Other barons imitated Robert’s example, fighting only for themselves whether they nominally took the part of Stephen or of Matilda, and the southern and midland counties of England were preyed upon by the garrisons of their castles. 14. Stephen’s Quarrel with the Clergy. 1139. — Evil as were the men who fought on either side, it was to Stephen and not to Matilda and Robert that men as yet looked to restore order. The port towns, London, Yarmouth, and Lynn, clung to him to the last. Unfortunately Stephen did not know how to make good use of his advantages. The clergy, like the traders, had always been in favour of order. Some of them, with the Justiciar, Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, at their head, had organised the Exchequer of Henry I., had gathered in the payments due to the Crown, or had acted as judges. Yet with all their zeal in the service of the Crown, they had not omitted to provide for their own interests. Roger in particular had been insatiable in the pursuit of wealth for himself and of promotion for his family. One of his nephews, Nigel, Bishop of Ely, was Treasurer, whilst another, Alexander, was Bishop of Lincoln, and his own illegitimate son, Roger, was Chancellor. In 1139 Stephen, rightly or wrongly, threw him into prison with his son and Alexander of Lincoln. The other nephew, Nigel, escaped to his uncle’s castle at Devizes, in which was the younger Roger’s mother, Matilda of Ramsbury. Stephen brought her son before the castle, and put a rope round his neck to hang him unless the castle was surrendered. The unhappy mother could not bear the sight, and opened the gates to Stephen. It might have been wise to deprive a too ambitious bishop of his castle, but it was not wise personally to maltreat the clergy. Every priest in England turned against Stephen. His own brother, Henry, Bishop of Win- chester, declared against him, and Stephen was obliged to do penance for his offence. The administration of the Exchequer was shattered, and though it was not altogether destroyed, and money was brought to it for the king’s use even in the worst times, Stephen’s financial resources were from henceforth sadly diminished. 15. Anarchy. 1139. — The war now lapsed into sheer anarchy. The barons on either side broke loose from all restraint. “ They ANARCMV *35 1139-1148 fought amongst themselves with deadly hatred ; they spoiled the fairest lands with fire and rapine ; in what had been the most fertile of counties they destroyed almost all the provision of bread.” All goods and money they carried off, and if they sus- pected any man to have concealed treasure they tortured him to oblige him to confess where it was. “ They hanged up men by the feet and smoked them with foul smoke ; some were hanged up by their thumbs, others by their head, and coats of mail were hung on to their feet. They put knotted strings about men’s heads, and twisted them till they went to the brain. They put men into prisons where adders and snakes and toads were crawling ; and so they tormented them. Some they put into a chest, short and narrow and not deep, and that had sharp stones within ; and forced men therein, so that they broke all their limbs. In many of the castles were hateful and grim things called neckties, which two or three men had enough to do to carry. This instrument of torture was thus made : it was fastened to a beam, and had a sharp iron to go about a man’s neck and throat, so that he might no way sit or lie or sleep, but he bore all the iron. Many thousands they starved with hunger. . . . Men said openly that Christ and His saints were asleep.” 16. The End of the War. 1141— 1148.— In the autumn of 1139, Matilda appeared in England, and in 1141 there was a battle at Lincoln, in which Stephen was taken prisoner. Henry of Win- chester (see p. 1 31) acknowledged Matilda as queen, and all England submitted to her, London giving way most reluctantly. Her rule did not last long. She was as much too harsh as Stephen was too good-natured. She seized the lands of the Church, and ordered the Londoners to pay a heavy fine for having, supported Stephen. On this the Londoners rang their bells, and the citizens in arms swarmed out of their houses ‘ like bees out of a hive.’ Matilda fled to Winchester before them. Bishop Henry then turned against her. Robert of Gloucester was taken prisoner, and after a while Matilda was obliged to set free King Stephen in exchange for her brother. Fighting continued for some time. On all sides men were longing for peace. The fields were untilled because no man could tell who w'ould reap the harvest. Thousands perished of starvation. If peace there was to be, it could only come by Stephen’s victory. It was now known that Matilda was even less fit to govern than Stephen. Stephen took one castle after another. In 1147 Earl Robert died, and in 1148 Matilda gave up the struggle and left England. STEPHEN 147-1149 136 17. Henry, Duke of the Normans. H49* — Whilst Matilda had been losing England her husband had been conquering Normandy, Tower of Castor Church, Northamptonshire. Uuilt about 1145. (The parapet and spire are later.) and for a little while it seemed possible that England and Normandy would be separated ; England remaining under Stephen and his 147-1154 STEPHEN AND HENkY 137 heirs, and Normandy united with Anjou under the Angevin Geoffrey and his descendants. That the separation did not yet take place was partly owing to the different character of the two heirs. Stephen’s son, Eustace, was rough and overbearing. Geoffrey’s son, Henry, was shrewd and prudent. Henry had already been in England when he was still quite young, and had learnt something of English affairs from his uncle, Robert of Gloucester. He returned to his father in 1147, and in 1149 Geoffrey gave up to him the duchy of Normandy. He was then sent to try his fortune in England in his mother’s stead, but he was only a boy of sixteen, and too young to cope with Stephen. In 1150 he abandoned the struggle for a time. In his absence Stephen had still rebels to put down and castles to besiege, but he had the greater part of the kingdom at his back, and if Henry had continued to leave him alone he would probably have reduced all his enemies to submission. 18. The Last Days of Stephen. 1153— 1154.— In 1150 Geoffrey died, and Henry became Count of Anjou as well as Duke of Nor- mandy. Before long he acquired a much wider territory than either Anjou or Normandy. Louis VII. of France had to wife Eleanor, the Duchess of Aquitaine, and through her had added to his own scanty dominions the whole of the lands between the Loire and the Pyrenees. Louis, believing that she was unfaith- ful to him, had divorced her on the pretext that she was too near of kin. Henry was not squeamish about the character of so great an heiress, and in 1152 married the Duchess of Aquitaine for the sake of her lands. Thus strengthened, he again returned to England. He was now a young man of nineteen ; his vigour was as great as that of Stephen, and his skill greater. He won fortress after fortress. Before the end of 1153 Eustace died, and Stephen had no motive for prolonging the strife if his personal interests could be saved. It was arranged by the treaty of Wallingford that Stephen should retain the crown for life, and that Henry should be his heir. The castles which had sprung up during the civil war without the licence of the king — the ‘ adulterine castles,’ as they were called — and there were no less than 365^ of them— were to be destroyed, and oraer and good government were to return. For five months Henry remained in England. The robber barons could not hold out against the two rivals now united. Many of the castles were demolished, and ‘ such good peace as never was here ’ was established. In 1154 Stephen died, and young Henry ruled England in his own name. 1 The number usually given, ‘ 1,115,’ is probably an error. CHAPTER X HENRY II. 1154—1189 LEADING DATES Accession of Henry II • 1154 Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury Z162 The Constitutions of Clarendon 1164 Murder of Archbishop Thomas . XI.72 The Assize of Arms . 1181 Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem . 1187 Death of Henry II. ..... 1. Henry’s Accession. 1154. — Henry II. was but twenty- one when he returned, after Stephen’s death, to govern England. He had before him the difficult task of establishing order where anarchy had prevailed, but it was a task for which he was specially suited. His frame was strong and thick-set, and he was as active as he was strong. His restlessness was the dismay of his courtiers. Eager to see everything for himself, and having to rule a territory extend- ing from the Pyrenees to the Scottish border, he was always on the move. His followers were not allowed to know till he started in the morning where he intended to sleep at night, and he frequently changed his mind even after he had set out. He was as busy with his mind as he was with his body, as fond of a book as of a horse, and ready to chat with any one of whatever rank. Even when he was at mass he either drew pictures to amuse himself or conversed in whispers with his neighbours. His ceaseless energy was combined with a strong will, a clear perception of the limits beyond which action would be unwise, a good eye for ability in others, and a power of utilising their ability in his own service. On the Continent his saga- city appeared in his resolution to be content with the dominions which he had acquired without making further conquests. In England his main object was the same as that of his predecessors, to establish the king’s authority over the great barons. What especially distin- guished him was his clear perception of the truth that he could only succeed by securing, not merely the passive goodwill, but the active co-operation of those who, whether they were of N orman or of English descent, were inferior in wealth and position to the great barons. 2. Pacification of England. — Henry’s first year was spent in completing the work which he had begun after the treaty of Wallingford. He sent Stephen’s mercenaries over the sea and HENRY II. 139 Effigies of Henry II. and Queen Eleanor at Fontevrault. 140 henry II. 1154-1162 completed the destruction of the ‘ adulterine castles.’ One great rebel after another was forced to submit and have his strong walls pulled down. There were to be no more dens of robbers in England, but all men were to obey the king and the law. What castles remained were the king’s, and as long as they were his re- bellions would not be likely to be successful. Henry even regained from Malcolm IV., king of the Scots, Northumberland and Cumber- land, which had been surrendered by Stephen (see p. 133). In his government Henry did his best to carry out the plans of his grand- father, Henry I. It was perhaps because he was afraid that one Justiciar would be too powerful, that he appointed two, Richard de Lucy and the Earl of Leicester, to see that justice was executed and the government maintained whether the king were absent or present. The old Bishop Nigel of Ely was reappointed Treasurer, and pre- sided over the Exchequer at Westminster. Thomas of London, known in later times by the name of Becket,^ an active and vigorous man, fifteen years older than the king, who had been ordained a deacon, but had nothing clerical about him except the name, was made Chancellor. Thomas was the king’s chosen friend, and the two together delighted in the work of restoring order. Thomas liked sumptuous living, and the magnificence cf his housekeeping and of his feasts was the talk of the whole country. Yet though he laughed and jested in the midst of his grandeur, he kept himself from every kind of vice. Henry was fond of horseplay, and once on a bitter winter’s day, when he was riding with Thomas, he snatched at a fine new scarlet mantle from the Chancellor’s neck to throw to a beggar. Thomas struggled hard, and the two men nearly pulled one another off their horses, but in the end the beggar got the mantle. 3. Henry and Feudality. — It was principally with Thomas the Chancellor that Henry consulted as to the best means of esta- blishing his authority. He resolved not only to renew but to ex- tend the administrative system of Henry I. The danger which threatened him came from the great barons, and as the great barons were as dangerous to the lesser ones and to the bulk of the people as they were to the king, Henry was able to strengthen himself by winning the affections of the people. Feudality in itself was only a method of owning land ; but it was always threatening to pass into a method of government. In France the great feudal 1 His father’s name was Becket, but at that time hereditary surnames had not come into use. He was once called Thomas Becket in his lifetime by one of his murderers as an insult. 1154-1162 HENRY AND THE BARONS 14 1 lords ruled their own territories with very little regard for the wishes of the king, and the smaller feudal lords had their own courts in which they hanged and imprisoned their villeins. In Stephen’s time an attempt had been made to introduce this system into England, with evil consequences both to king and people. Before the Conquest great landowners had often received permission from the king to exercise criminal jurisdiction in the Manor Courts on their own estates, whilst the vast extent of their landed property gave them a preponderant voice in the proceedings of the shire- moots, now known by the Normans as County Courts. Henry resolved to attack the evil at both ends : in the first place to make the barons support the king’s government instead of setting up their own ; in the second place, to weaken the Manor and County Courts and to strengthen courts directly proceeding from himself. 4. The Great Council and the Curia Regis. — Henry in the early years of his reign revived the importance of the Great Council, taking care that it should be attended not only by the great barons, but by vassals holding smaller estates, and therefore more depen- dent on himself. He summoned the Great Council oftener than his predecessors had done. In this way even the greater barons got the habit of sharing in the government of England as a whole, instead of seeking to split up the country, as France was split up, into different districts, each of which might be governed by one of themselves. It was in consequence of the increasing habit of con- sulting with the king that the Great Council, after many changes, ultimately grew into the modern Parliament. It was of no less im- portance that Henry II. strengthened the Curia Regis^ which had been established in the reign of Henry I. (see p. 127) to collect the king’s revenue, to give him political advice, and to judge as many questions as it could possibly get hold of. It was especially by doing justice that the Curia Regis was likely to acquire strength, and the strength of the Curia Regis was in reality the strength of the king. 5. Scutage. — If Henry was to carry out justice everywhere it would be necessary for him to weaken still further the power of the barons. He reintroduced a plan v/hich had been first adopted by his grandfather, which had the double merit of strengthening the king upon the Continent and of weakening the barons in England. Henry needed an army to defend his Continental possessions against the king of France. The fyrd, or general levy of English- men, was not bound to fight except at home, and though the feudal vassals were liable to serve abroad, they could only be 142 HENRY II. 1154-1162 made to serve for forty days in the year, which was too short a time for Henry’s purposes. He accordingly came to an agreement with his vassals. The owner of every knight’s fee was to pay a sum of money known as scutage {shield-money) in lieu of service. Both parties gained by the arrangement. The king got money with which he paid mercenaries abroad, who would fight for him all the year round, and the vassal escaped the onerous duty of fight- ing in quarrels in which he took no interest. Indirectly the change weakened the feudal vassals, because they had now less opportunity than before of acquiring a military training in actual war. 6. Archbishop Thomas. 1162. — Henry, who meditated great judicial reforms, foresaw that the clergy would be an obstacle in his way. He was eager to establish one law for his whole kingdom, and the clergy, having been exempted by the Conqueror from the jurisdiction of the ordinary law courts in all ecclesiastical matters, had, during the anarchy of Stephen’s reign, encroached on the royal authority, and claimed to be responsible, even in criminal cases, only to the ecclesiastical courts, which were unable to inflict the penalty of death, so that a clerk who committed a murder could not be hanged like other murderers. As large numbers of clerks were only in the lower orders, and as many of them had only taken those orders to escape from the hardships of lay life, their morals were often no better than those of their lay neighbours. A Ecclesiastical costume in the twelfth century. 1162-1164 HENRY AND THOMAS 143 vacancy occurring in the Archbishopric of Canterbury, Henry, who wished to make these clerks punishable by his own courts, thought that the arrangement would easily be effected if Thomas, who had hitherto been active as a reformer in his service, were Archbishop as well as Chancellor. It was in vain that Thomas remonstrated. “ I warn you,” he said to Henry, “ that, if such a thing should be, our friendship would soon turn to bitter hate.” Henry persisted in spite of the warning, and Thomas became Archbishop. 7. Breach between Henry and Thomas. — The first act of the new Archbishop was to surrender his Chancellorship. He was unable, he said, to serve two masters. It is not difficult to under- stand his motives. The Church, as the best men of the twelfth century believed, was divinely instituted for the guidance of the world. It was but a short step for the nobler spirits amongst the clergy to hold it necessary that, in order to secure the due per- formance of such exalted duties, the clergy should be exempted from the so-called justice of laymen, which was often only another name for tyranny, even if the exemption led to the infliction upon wicked clerks of lesser punishments than were meet. In this way the clergy would unconsciously fall into the frame of mind which might lead them to imagine it more to the honour of God that a wicked clerk should be insufficiently punished than that he should be punished by a layman. Of all men Archbishop Thomas was the most likely to fall into this mistake. He was, as Chancellor, prone to magnify his office, and to think more of being the originator of great reforms than of the great reforms themselves. As Archbishop hq would also be sure to magnify his office, and to think less, as Anselm would have thought, of reconciling the true interests of the kingdom with the true interests of the Church, than of making the Arch- bishop’s authority the centre of stirring movement, and of raising the Church, of which he was the highest embodiment in England, to a position above the power of the king. All this he would do with a great, if not a complete, sincerity. He would feel that he was himself the greater man because he believed that he was fighting in the cause of God. 8. The Constitutions of Clarendon. 1164. — Between a king eager to assert the rights of the crown and an archbishop eager to assert the rights of the clergy a quarrel could not be long deferred. Thomas’s first stand, however, was on behalf of the whole country. At a Great Council at Woodstock he resisted the king’s resolution to levy the old tax of Danegeld, and in consequence Danegeld was never levied again. Henry had for some time been displeased 144 HEN R V I L 1164 because, without consulting him, the Archbishop had seized on lands which he claimed as the property of the see of Canter- bury, and had excommunicated one of the king’s tenants. Then a clerk who had committed a rape and a murder had been acquitted in an ecclesiastical court. On this, Henry called on the bishops to promise to obey the customs of the realm. Thomas, being told that the king merely wanted a verbal promise to save his dignity, A bishop ordaining a priest. (From a MS. of the latter part of the twelfth century.) with some reluctance consented. He soon found that he had been tricked. In 1164 Henry summoned a Great Council to meet at Clarendon, and directed some of the oldest of his barons to set down in writing the customs observed by his grandfather. Their report was intended to settle all disputed points between the king and the clergy, and was drawn up under sixteen heads known as the Constitutions of Clarendon. The most important of them de- 164 CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON 145 dared that beneficed clergy should not leave the realm without the king’s leave ; that no tenant-in-chief of the king should be excom- municated without the king’s knowledge ; that no villein should be ordained without his lord’s consent ; that a criminous clerk should be sent to the ecclesiastical court for trial, and that after he had been there convicted or had pleaded guilty the Church should deprive him and leave him to the lay court for further punishment. It was for the Curia Regis to determine what matters were pro- perly to be decided by the ecclesiastical courts; and no appeal to Rome was to be allowed without its permission. To all this Thomas was violently opposed, maintaining that the sentence of deprivation, which was all that an ecclesiastical court was empowered to inflict, was so terrible, that one who had incurred it ought not to be sen- tenced to any further penalty by a lay court. After six days’ struggle he left the Council, refusing to assent to the Constitutions. 9. The Persecution of Archbishop Thomas. 1164.— Unluckily for himself, Henry could not be content firmly and quietly to enforce the law as it had been declared at Clarendon. He had in his character much of the orderly spirit of his grandfather, Henry I., but he had also something of the violence of his great- uncle, William, 1 1 . A certain John the Marshal had a suit against the archbishop, and when the archbishop refused to plead in a lay court, the king’s council sentenced him to a fine of 500/. Then Henry summoned the archbishop to his castle at Northampton to give an account of all the money which, when he was Chancellor, he had received from the king — a claim which is said to have amounted to 30,000/., a sum equal in the money of these days to not much less than 400,000/. now. Thomas, with the crucifix in his hand, awaited in the hall the decision of Henry, who with the council was discussing his fate in an upper chamber. When the Justiciar came out to tell him that he had been declared a traitor he refused to listen, and placed himself under the Pope’s protection. Hot words were bandied on either side as he walked out of the hall. “ This is a fearful day,” said one of his attendants. “ The Day of Judgment,” replied Thomas, will be more fearful.” Thomas made his way to the coast and fled to F ranee. Henry in his wrath banished no less than four hundred of the archbishop’s kinsmen and friends. Thomas found less help in France than he had expected. There were once more two rival Popes — Alexander HI,, who was acknow- ledged by the greater part of the clergy and by the kings of England and France, and Calixtus HI., who had been set up by the Emperor F rederick Barbarossa. Alexander was too much afraid L 146 HENRY II. 1164-1166 lest Henry should take the part of Calixtus to be very eager in supporting Thomas. He therefore did his best to effect a recon- ciliation between Henry and Thomas, but for some years his efforts were of no avail. 10. The Assize of Clarendon. 1166, — Henry, being temporarily disembarrassed of Thomas’s rivalry, was able to devote his time to carrying out still further the judicial organisation of the country. In 1166 he held a Great Council at Clarendon, and with its approval issued a set of decrees known as the Assize of Clarendon. By this assize full force was given to a change which had for some time been growing in the judicial system. The old English way of dealing with criminals had been by calling on an accused person to swear to his own innocence and to bring compurgators to swear that his oath was true. If the accused failed to find compurgators he was sent to the ordeal. According to the new way there was to ii66 JUDICIAL REFORMS 147 be in each county juries consisting of twelve men of the hundred and of four from each township in it to present offences — felonies, murders, and robberies — and to accuse persons on common report. They were sworn to speak the truth, so that their charges were known as verdicts {ver^ dicta). No compurgators were allowed, but the accused, after his offence had been presented, had to go to the ordeal, and even if he succeeded in this he was, if his character was notoriously bad, to abjure the realm — that is to say, to be banished, swearing never to return. If he came back he was held to be an outlaw, and might be put to death without mercy by any one. 1 1. Recognitions. — A very similar system to that which was thus adopted in criminal cases had already in the early part of Henry’s reign been widely extended in civil cases. When, before the Conquest, disputes occurred amongst the English as to the posses- sion of property, each party swore to the justice of his own case, brought compurgators, and summoned witnesses to declare in his favour. There was, however, no method of cross-examination, and if the hundred or shire court was still unsatisfied, it had recourse to the ordeal. The Normans introduced the system of trial by battle, under the belief that God would intervene to give victory to the litigant whose cause was just. This latter system, however, had never been popular with the English, and Henry favoured another which had been in existence in Normandy before the Conquest, and was fairly suited to English habits. This was the system of recog- nitions. Any freeholder who had been dispossessed of his land might apply to the Curia Re^is, and the Curia Regis ordered the sheriff of the county in which was the land in dispute to select four knights of that county, by whom twelve knights were chosen to serve as Recognitors. It was the business of these Recognitors to find out either by their own knowledge or by private inquiry the truth of the matter. If they were unanimous their verdict was ac- cepted as final. If not, other knights were added to them, and when at last twelve were found agreeing, their agreement was held to settle the question. 12. The Germ of the Jury. — Thus, whilst in criminal cases the local knowledge of sworn accusers was treated as satisfactory evidence of guilt, in civil cases a system was growing up in which is to be traced the germ of the modern jury. The Recognitors did not indeed hear evidence in public or become judges of the fact, like the modern jury ; they were rather sworn witnesses, allowed to form an opinion not merely, like modern witnesses, on what they HENRY II. 148 1166-1170 had actually seen or heard, but also on what they could gather by private inquiry. 13. The Itinerant Justices Revived. — To carry out this system Henry renewed his grandfather’s experiment of sending members of the Curia Regis as itinerant justices visiting the counties. They held what were called the pleas of the crown — that is to say, trials which were brought before the king’s judges instead of being tried either in the county courts or the manorial courts. Both these judges and the king had every interest in getting as much business before their courts as possible. Offenders were fined and suitors had to pay fees, and the best chance of in- creasing these profits was to attract suitors by administering justice better than the local courts. The more thronged were the king’s courts, the more rich and powerful he became. The consequent growth of the influence of the itinerant justices was no doubt offensive to the lords of the manor, and especially to the greater landowners, as diminishing their importance, and calling them to account whenever they attempted to encroach on their less powerful neighbours. 14. The Inquisition of the Sheriffs. 1170. — It was not long before Henry discovered another way of diminishing the power of the barons. In the early part of his reign the sheriffs of the counties were still selected from the great landowners, and the sheriff was not merely the collector of the king’s revenue in his county, but had, since the Conquest, assumed a new importance in the county court, over which in the older times the ealdorman or earl and the bishop had presided. Since the Conquest the bishop, having a court of his own for ecclesiastical matters, had ceased to take part in its proceedings, and the earl’s authority, which had been much lessened after the Conquest, had now dis- appeared. The sheriff, therefore, was left alone at the head of the county court, and when the new system of trial grew up he as well as the itinerant justices was allowed to receive the presentments of juries. When, in the spring of 1170, the king returned to England after an absence of four years, he held a strict inquiry into the conduct of them all, and deposed twenty of them. In many cases, no doubt, the sheriffs had done things to displease Henry, but there can be no doubt that the blow thus struck at the sheriffs was, in the main, aimed at the great nobility. The successors of those turned out were of lower rank, and therefore more submissive. From this time it was accepted by the kings of England as a principle of government that no great noble should serve as sheriff. 1170 RETURN OF ARCHBISHOP THOMAS 149 15. The Nobles and the Church. — Henry knew well that the great nobles were indignant, and that it was possible that they might rise against him, as at one time or another they had risen against every king since the Conquest. He knew too that his predecessors had found their strongest support against the nobles-in the Church, and that the Church was no longer unanimously on his side. He could indeed count upon all the bishops save one. Bishops who were or had been his officials, bishops envious of Thomas or afraid of himself, were all at his disposal, but they brought him no popular strength. Thomas alone amongst them had a hold on the imagination of the people through his austerities and his daring. Moreover, as the champion of the clergy, he was regarded as being also the champion of the people, from whose ranks the clergy were recruited. 16. The Coronation of Young Henry. 1170. — At the moment of Henry’s return to England he had special need of the Church. He wished the kingdom of England to pass at his death to his eldest son, Henry, and since the Conquest no eldest son had ever succeeded his father on the throne. He therefore determined to adopt a plan which had succeeded with the kings of France, of having the young Henry chosen and crowned in his own lifetime, so that when he died he might be ready to step into his father’s place. Young Henry was chosen, and on June 14, 1170, he was crowmed by Roger, Archbishop of York ; but on the day before the coronation Roger received from Thomas a notice of his excommunication of all bishops taking part in the ceremony, on the ground that it belonged only to an Archbishop of Canterbury to crown a king, and this excommunication had been ratified by the Pope. It was therefore possible that the whole ceremony might go for nothing. 17. The Return of Archbishop Thomas. 1170. — To obviate this danger Henry again sought to make peace with Thomas. An agreement was come to on the vague terms that the past should be forgotten on both sides. Henry perhaps hoped that when Thomas was once again in England he would be too wise to rake up the question of his claim to crown the king. If it was so he was soon disappointed. On December i, 1170, Thomas landed at Sandwich and rode to Canterbury amidst the shouts of the people. He refused to release from excommunication the bishops who had taken part in young Henry’s coronation unless they would first give him satisfaction for the wrong done to the see of Canterbury, thus showing that he had forgotten nothing. 18. Murder of Archbishop Thomas. 1170. — The aggrieved 150 HENRY IL 1170 bishops at once crossed the sea to lay their complaint before Henr}'-. “ What a parcel of fools and dastards,” cried Henry impatiently, “ have I nourished in my house, that none of them can be found to Part of the choir of Canterbury Cathedral (in building from 1175-1184). 1170 - 1 17 I MURDER OE THE ARCHBISHOP i^l avenge me on one upstart clerk!” Four of his knights took him at his word, and started in all haste for Canterbury. The Arch- bishop before their arrival had given fresh offence in a cause more righteous than that of his quarrel with the bishops. Ranulf de Broc and others who had had the custody of his lands in his absence refused to surrender them, robbed him of his goods, and maltreated his followers. On Christmas Day he excommunicated them and repeated the excommunication of the bishops. On December 29 the four knights sought him out. They do not seem at first to have intended to do him bodily harm. The excommunication of the king’s servants before the king had been consulted was a breach of the Constitutions of Clarendon, and they bade him, in the king’s name, to leave the kingdom. After a hot altercation the knights retired to arm themselves. The archbishop was persuaded by his followers to take refuge in the church. In rushed the knights crying, “ Where is the traitor ? Where is the archbishop ? ” “ Be- hold me,” replied Thomas, “ no traitor, but a priest of God.” The assailants strove to lay hands upon him. He struggled and cast forth angry words upon them. In the madness of their wrath they struck him to the ground and slew him as he lay. 19. Popular Indignation. 1171. — Archbishop Thomas did not die as a martyr for any high or sacred cause. He was not a martyr for the faith, like those who had been thrown to the lions by the Roman emperors. He was not a martyr for righteousness, like Archbishop /Elfheah. He was a martyr for the privileges of his order and of his see. Yet if he sank below the level of the great martyrs, he did not sink to that lowest stage at which men cry out for the preser- vation of their own privileges, after those privileges have ceased to benefit any but themselves. The sympathy of the mass of the population shows the persistence of a widespread belief that in maintaining the privileges of the clergy Thomas was maintaining the rights of the protectors of the poor. This sentiment was only strengthened by his murder. All through Europe the news was received with a burst of indignation. Of that indignation the Pope made himself the mouthpiece. In the summer of 1171 two Papal legates appeared in Normandy to excommunicate Henry unless he was able to convince them that he was guiltless of the murder. Henry was too cautious to abide their coming. He crossed first to England and then to Ireland, resolved to have something to offer the Pope which might put him in a better humour. 20. State of Ireland — In the domarin of art, Ireland was inferior to no European nation. In metal-work, in sculpture, and in the 152 HENRY II. 1154-1172 skilful illumination of manuscripts it surpassed them all. It had no mean school of music and song. In political development it lagged far behind. Ireland was still in the tribal stage, and had never been welded into unity by foreign conquerors, as Gaul had been welded into unity by the Romans, and as England had been welded into unity by the Normans. Tribe warred with tribe and chief with chief. The efforts of chiefs to attain supremacy over the whole island had always ended in partial or complete failure. The Danes had made settlements in Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick, but though the native Celtic popu- lation was not strong enough to expel them, neither were they strong enough to conquer the Celts. The Church was as dis- organised as the State, and there was little discipline exercised outside the monasteries. For some time the Fopes and the Arch- bishops of Canterbury had been anxious to establish a better regu- lated Church system, and in 1154 Adrian IV. — the only Englishman who was ever Pope — hoping that Henry would bring the Irish Church under Papal order, had made him a present of Ireland, on the ground that all islands belonged to the Pope. 21. Partial Conquest of Ireland. 1166 — 1172. — Henry, however, had too much to do during the earlier years of his reign to think of conquering Ireland. In 1166 Dermot, king or chief of Leinster, having been driven out of his dominions, appealed to Henry for aid. Henry gave him leave to carry over to Ireland any English knights whom he could persuade to help him. On this a number of knights from South Wales, of whom the most important was Richard de Clare, afterwards known as Strongbow, flocked across the Irish Sea (1169 — 1170). They fought and conquered, and Strongbow, who married Dermot’s daughter, gave himself the title of Earl of Leinster. The rule of these knights was a rule of cruelty and violence, and, what was more, it might well become dangerous to Henry himself. If feudal nobles established themselves in Ireland, they might soon be holding out a hand to help the feudal nobles who were Henry’s worst enemies in England. When Henry landed in Ireland in 1171 he set himself to restore order. The Irish welcomed him because he alone could bridle the invaders, and the invaders submitted to him because they dared not resist him. He gathered a synod of the clergy at Cashel, and arranged for the future discipline of the Church. Unhappily he could not remain long in Ireland, and when he left it the old anarchy and violence blazed up again. Though Henry had not served Ireland, he had gained his own personal ends. He had frightened Strongbow and his followers, and had 1 1 72- 1 1 74 YOUNG HENRY AND THE BARONS 153 shown the Pope, by his proceedings at Cashel, that his friendship was worth having. 22. Young Henry’s Coronation and the Revolt of the Barons. 1172 — 1174. — In the spring of 1172 Henry was back in Normandy. The English barons were longing to take advantage of his quarrel with the Church, and his only chance of resist- ing them was to propitiate the Church. He met the Papal legates at Avranches, swore that he was innocent of the death of Thomas, and renounced the Constitutions of Clarendon. He then proceeded to pacify Louis VII., whose daughter was married to the younger Henry, by having the boy recrowned in due form. Young Henry was a foolish lad, and took it into his head that because he had been crowned his father’s reign was at an end. In 1173 he fled for support to his father-in-law and persuaded him to take up his cause. “Your master,” said Louis to the ambassadors of the father, “ is king no longer. Here stands the king of the English.” These words were the signal for a general attack on the elder king. Headed by Louis, his neighbours and discontented subjects took arms against him, and it was not till Sep- tember that he prevailed over them. In July the great English barons of the north and centre rose in insur- rection, and William the Lion, king of the Scots, joined them. De Lucy, the Justiciar, stood up for Henry ; but, though he gained ground, the war was still raging in the following year, 1174. the rebels were gaining the upper hand, and the younger Henry was preparing to come to their help. In July the elder Henry landed in England. For the first and only time in his life he brought to England the mercenaries who were paid with the scutage money. At Canterbur>' he visited the tomb of Thomas, now ac- Mitre of Archbishop Thomas of Canterbury preserved at Sens. In the spring of that year 154 HENRY II. lt74-iiSi knowledged as a martyr, spent the whole night in prayer and tears, and on the next morning was, at his own request, scourged by the monks as a token of his penitence. That night he was awakened by a messenger with good news. Ranulf de Glan- vile had won for him a great victory at Alnwick, had dispersed the barons’ host, and had taken prisoner the Scottish king. About the same time the fleet which was to bring his son over was dispersed Military and civil costume of the latter part of the twelfth century. by a storm. Within a few weeks the whole rebellion was at an end. It was the last time that the barons ventured to strive with the king till the time came when they had the people and the Church on their side. William the Lion was carried to Normandy, where, by the treaty of Falaise, he acknowledged himself the vassal of the king of England for the whole of Scotland. 23. The Assize of Arms. 1181.— In September 1174 there was a general peace. In 1181 Henry issued the Assize of Arms, 172 -iibi MI LIT A R Y ORGANISA TION 155 organising the old fyrd in a more serviceable way. Every English freeman was bound by it to find arms of a kind suitable to his property, that he might be ready to defend the realm against rebels or invaders. The Assize of Arms is the strongest possible evidence as to the real nature of Henry’s government. He had long ago sent back to the Continent the mercenaries whom he had brought with him in the peril of 1174, and he now entrusted himself not to a paid standing army, but to the whole body of English freemen. He was, in truth, king of the English not merely because he ruled over them, but because they were ready to rally round him in arms against those barons whose ancestors had worked such evil in the days of Stephen. England was not to be given over either to baronial anarchy or to military despotism. 24. Henry II. and his Sons. — In England Henry ruled as a national king over a nation which, at least, preferred his govern- ment to that of the barons. The old division between English and Norman was dying out, and though the upper classes, for the most part, still spoke French, intermarriages had been so frequent that there were few amongst them who had not some English ancestress and who did not understand the English language. Henry was even strong enough to regain much that he had sur- rendered when he abandoned the Constitutions of Clarendon. In his Continental possessions there was no such unity. The inhabi- tants of each province were tenacious of their own laws and customs, and this was especially the case with the men of Aquitaine, the country south of the Loire, who differed in habits, and even in lan- guage, from the Frenchmen of Normandy and Anjou. They there- fore found it difficult to give a share of the allegiance which they owed to their own duchess, Eleanor, to her Angevin husband, the king of England. Henry in 1172 having appointed his eldest son, Henry, as the future ruler of Normandy and Anjou as well as of England, thought it wise to recognise this feeling by giving to his second son, Richard, the immediate possession of Eleanor’s duchy of Aquitaine. In 1181 he provided for his third son, Geoffrey, by a marriage with Constance, the heiress of Brittany, over which country he claimed a feudal superiority as Duke of the Normans. Yet, though he gave away so much to his sons, he wished to keep the actual control over them all. The arrangement did not turn out well. He had set no good example of domestic peace. His sons knew that he had married their mother for the sake of her lands, that he had subsequently thrown her into prison and had been faith- less to her with a succession of mistresses. Besides this, they were HENRY IL 156 1173-1187 tom away from him by the influence of the men whom they were set to rule. Richard was dragged away from his father by the inter- ests and feelings of the men of Aquitaine, Geoffrey by the interests and feelings of the men of Brittany. John, the fourth son, who was named Lackland from having no territory assigned to him, was, as yet, too young to be troublesome.^ Both Richard and Geoffrey had taken part with their brother Henry in the great revolt of 1173. In 1177 they were again quarrelling with their father and with each other. “ Dost thou not know,” was the message which Geoffrey sent to his father, “ that it is our proper nature, planted in us by inheritance from our ancestors, that none of us should love the other, but that ever brother should strive with brother and son against father ? I would not that thou shouldst deprive us of our hereditary right nor vainly seek to rob us of our nature.” Henry loved his children, and could never bring himself to make war very seriously against them. Henry died young in 1183, and Geoffrey in 1185. Richard was now the heir of all his father’s lands, from the Tweed to the Pyrenees. Henry made an effort to provide for John in Ireland, and in 1185 he sent the youth — now eighteen years old — to Dublin to rule as king of Ireland. John soon showed his incompetence. He was rude to the English barons, and still ruder to the Irish chiefs, amusing himself by laughing at their dress and pulling the hairs out of their beards. Before the end of the year his father was obliged to recall him. 25. The Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. 1187. — The divi- sions in Henry’s family were stirred up afresh by the new king of France, Philip II., who had succeeded his father, Louis VII., in 1179. Philip was resolved to enlarge his narrow dominions at the expense of Henry. He was Henry’s feudal lord, and he was crafty enough to know that by assisting Henry’s sons he might be able to convert his nominal lordship into a real power. News, however, arrived in the midst of the strife which for a little time put an end to the discords J Genealogy of the sons and grandchildren of Henry II. : — Henry II. 1154-1189 Henry Richard Geoffrey Margaret of 1189-1199 w. Constance of France m. Berengaria of Brittany Navarre I John = (i) Avice of 1199-1216 1 Gloucester ' (2) Isabella of ! AngoulSme Henry HI. 1216-1272 Arthur DEATH OF HENRY II. ^S7 1187-1189 of men and peoples. The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, which had been established after the first crusade, had only maintained itself because the Mahommedan rulers of Egypt were the rivals and enemies of the Mahommedan rulers of Syria. Yet even with the advantage of divisions amongst their enemies, the Christians had only defended themselves with difficulty. A second crusade which had gone out to relieve them in Stephen’s reign, under the Emperor Conrad III. and Louis VII. of France, had accomplished nothing. Their real defenders were two bodies of soldiers, known as the Knights Templars and the Knights of St. John, who were bound, like monks, to vows of celibacy, so that they might always be free to de- fend Jerusalem. At last a great Mahommedan warrior, Saladin, arose, who ruled both Egypt and Syria, and was therefore able to bring the united forces of the two countries against the Christian colony. In 1187 he destroyed the Christian army at Tiberias, and in the same year took Jerusalem and almost every city still held by the Christians in the East. Tyre alone held out, and that, too, would be lost unless help came speedily. 26. The Last Years of Henry II. 1188 -1189. — Fora moment the rulers of the West were shocked at the tidings from the East. In 1188 Philip, Henry, and Richard had taken the cross as the sign of their resolution to recover the Holy City from the infidel. To enable him to meet the expenses of a war in the East, Henry im- posed upon England a new tax of a tenth part of all movable property, which is known as the Saladin tithe, but in a few months those who were pledged to go on the crusade were fighting with one another — first Henry and Richard against Philip, and then Philip and Richard against Henry. At last, in 1189, Henr>', beaten in war, was forced to submit to Philip’s terms, receiving in return a list of those of his own barons who had engaged to support Richard against his father. The list reached him when he was at Chinon, ill and worn out. The first name on it was that of his favourite son John. The old man turned his face to the wall. “ Let things go now as they will,” he cried bitterly. “ I care no more for myself or for the world.” After a few days of suffering he died. The last words which passed his lips were, ‘‘ Shame, shame upon a conquered king.” 27. The Work of Henry I!. — The wisest and most powerful ruler can only assist the forces of nature ; he cannot work against them. Those who merely glance at a map in which the political divisions of France are marked as they existed in Henry’s reign, cannot but wonder that Henry did not make himself master of the HENRY II. 158 1189 small territory which was directly governed, in turn, by Louis VII. and Philip II. A careful study of the political conditions of his reign shows, however, that he was not really strong enough to do anything of the kind. His own power on the Continent was purely feudal, and he held authority over his vassals there because they had personally done homage to him. Henry, however, had also done homage to the king of France, and did not venture, even if he made war upon his lord, the king of France, to push matters to extremities against him, lest his sons as his own vassals might push matters to extremities against himself He could not, in short, expel the king of F ranee from Paris, lest he should provoke his own vassals to follow his example of insubordination and expel him from Bordeaux or Rouen. Moreover, Henry had too much to do in England to give himself heart and soul to Continental affairs, whilst the king of France, on the contrary, who had no foreign possessions, and was always at his post, would be the first to profit by a national French feeling whenever such a feeling arose. Eng- land under Henry II. was already growing more united and more national. The crown which Henry derived from the Conqueror was national as well as feudal. Henry, like his predecessors, had two strings to his bow. On the one hand he could call upon his vassals to be faithful to him because they had sworn homage to him, whilst he himself, as far as England was concerned, had sworn homage to no one. On the other hand, he could rally round him the national forces. To do this he must do justice and gain the goodwill of the people at large. It was this that he had attempted to do, by sending judges round the country and by improving the law, by establishing scutage to weaken the power of the barons, and by strengthening the national forces by the Assize of Arms. No doubt he had little thanks for his pains. Men could feel the weight of his arm and could complain of the heavy fines exacted in his courts of justice. It was only a later generation, which enjoyed the benefits of his hard discipline, which understood how much England owed to him. 159 CHAPTER XI RICHARD I. 1189—1199 LEADING DATES Accession of Richard 1 1189 Richard’s Return to England from the Crusade . 1194 Death of Richard 1 1199 1. Richard in England. 1189. — Richard was accepted without dispute as the master of the whole of the Angevin dominions. He was a warrior, not a statesman. Impulsive in his generosity, he was also impulsive in his passions. Having determined to embark on the crusade, he came to England eager to raise money for its ex- penses. With this object he not only sold offices to those who wished to buy them, and the right of leaving office to those who wished to retire, but also, with the Pope’s consent, sold leave to remain at home to those who had taken the cross. Regard- less of the distant future, he abandoned for money to William the Lion the treaty of Falaise, in which William had engaged to do homage to the English king. 2. William of Long- champs. 1189 — 1191. — To secure order during his absence Richard appoint- ed two Justiciars — Hugh of Puiset, Bishop of Durham, and William of Longchamps, Bishop of Ely. At the same time he attempted to conciliate all who were likely to be dangerous by making them lavish grants of land, especially giving what was practically royal authority over five shires to his brother John. Such an arrangement Royal arms of England from Richard I. to Edward III. (From the wall arcade, south aisle of nave, Westminster Abbey.) l6o mCIIAKD I. 1189 was not likely to last. Before the end of 1189 Richard crossed to the Continent. Scarcely was he gone when the populace in many towns turned savagely on the Jews and massacred them in crowds. The Jews lived by money-lending, and money-lenders are never I he Galilee or Lady Chapel, Durham Cathedral. Built by Bishop Hugh of Puiset between 1180 and 1197. popular. In York they took refuge in the castle, and when all hope of defending themselves failed, slew their wives and children, set fire to the castle, and perished in the flames. The, Justiciars were too much occupied with their own quarrels to heed such matters. Hugh was a stately and magnificent prelate. William was lame 1189-1192 RICHARD IN THE HOLY LAND 161 and misshapen, quick of wit and unscrupulous. In a few weeks he had deprived his rival of all authority. His own power did not last long. He had a sharp tongue, and did not hesitate to let all men, great and small, know how meanly he thought of them. Those whom he despised found a leader in John, who was anxious to suc- ceed his brother, and thought that it might some day be useful to have made himself popular in England. In the autumn of 1191 William of Longchamps was driven out of the country. 3. The Third Crusade. 1189 — 1192. — Richard threw his whole heart — his lion’s heart, as men called it — into the crusade. Alike by sea and by land, he knew better than any other leader of his age how to direct the operations of war. He was too im- petuous to guard himself against the intrigues and personal rancour of his fellow- Crusaders. At Messina he quarrelled with the wily Philip II. of France, while he gave offence to all Germans by up- holding the claims of Tancred to the crown of Sicily, which was also claimed by the German king, who afterwards became the Emperor Henry VI. In the spring of 1191 Richard sailed from Sicily for the Holy Land, conquering Cyprus on the way, where he married Beren- garia of Navarre. Passing on to the coast of Syria, he found the Crusaders besieging Acre, and his own vigour greatly contributed to its fall. When Acre was taken Philip slipped home to plot against Richard, and Richard found every French Crusader and every Ger- man Crusader banded together against him. When he advocated the right of Guy of Lusignan to the crown of Jerusalem, they advo- cated the claim of Conrad of Montferrat. Jerusalem was not to be had for either of them. Twice Richard brought the Crusading host within a few miles of the Holy City. Each time he was driven to retreat by the failure of the Crusaders to support him. The last time his comrades invited him at least to reach a spot from which a view of the city could be gained. Richard refused. If he was not worthy, he said, to regain the city, he was not worthy to look on it. 4. The Return of Richard. 1192 — 1194. — In 1192 there was nothing for it but to return home. Enemies were watching for him on every shore. Landing at the head of the Adriatic, he attempted to make his way in disguise through Germany. With characteristic want of reflection, he roasted his meat at a village inn near Vienna with a jewelled ring on his finger. Attention was aroused, and he was arrested and delivered up to Leopold, Duke of Austria, who had been his bitter antagonist in the Holy Land, and Leopold de- livered him up to his own feudal superior, the Emperor, Henry VI. M i62 RICHARD I. 1192-1194 Effigy of a knight in the Temple Church, London, showing armour of the end of the twelfth century. The imprisonment of Richard was jo^diil news to Philip and John. John did his best to get into his hands all the English and Continental dominions of his brother. His meanness was, however, by this time well known, and he was repelled on all sides. At last in 1193 the Emperor consented to let Rich- ard go on payment of what was then the enormous ransom of 150,000 marks, or 100,000/. “ Beware,” wrote Philip to John when he heard that the Em- peror’s consent had been given ; “ the devil is loose again.” Philip and John tried to bribe the Emperor to keep his pri- soner, but in February 1194 Richard was liberated, and set out for England. 5. Heavy taxation. — Before Richard reappeared in England each tenant-in-chief had to pay the aid which was due to deliver his lord from prison (see p. 1 1 7), but this was far from being enough. Besides all kinds of irregular expedients the Dane- geld had been practically re- vived, and to it was now given the name of carucage, a tax of two shillings on every plough- land. Another tax of a fourth part of all movable goods had also been imposed, for which a precedent had been set by Henry II. when he levied the vSaladin tithe (see p. 157}. Richard had now to gather in what was left unpaid ctf these II94-II9S HUBERT WALTER 163 charges. Yet so hated was John that Richard was welcomed with every appearance of joy, and John thought it prudent to submit to his brother. Philip, however, was still an open enemy, and as soon as Richard had gathered in all the money that he could raise in England he left the country never to return. On the Continent he could best defend himself against Philip, and, besides this, Richard was at home in sunny Aquitaine, and had no liking for his English realm, 6. The Administration of Hubert Walter. 1194 — 1198. — For four years the administration of England was in the hands of a new Justiciar, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter. He was a statesman of the school of Henry II,, and he carried the jury system yet farther than Henry had done. The immense increase of taxation rendered it the more necessary to guard against unfair- ness, and Hubert Walter placed the selection of the juries of presentment (see p. 147) in the hands of four knights in every shire, who, as is probable, were chosen by the freeholders in the County Court, instead of being named by the sheriff. This was a further step in the direction of allowing the counties to manage their own affairs, and a still greater one was taken by the frequent employ- ment of juries in the assessment of the taxes paid within the county, so as to enable them to take a prominent part in its financial as well as in its judicial business. In 1198 there was taken a new survey of England for taxable purposes, and again elected juries were employed to make the returns. In this year Archbishop Hubert retired from the Justiciarship, and was succeeded by Geoffrey Fitz-Peter. Archbishop Hubert’s administration marks a great advance in constitutional progress, though it is probable that his motive was only to raise money more readily. The main con- stitutional problem of the Norman and Angevin reigns was how to bring the national organisation of the king’s officials into close and constant intercourse with the local organisation of the counties. Henry I. and Henry II. had attacked the problem on one side by sending the judges round the country to carry the king’s wishes and commands to each separate county. It still remained to devise a scheme by which the wishes and complaints of the counties could be brought to the king. Hubert Walter did not contrive that this should be done, but he made it easy to be done in the next genera- tion, because before he left office he had increased the powers of the juries in each county and had accustomed them to deal indepen- dently with all the local matters in which the king and the county were both interested. It only remained to bring these juries together in one place where they might join in making the king aware of the RICHARD / 1199 1199 THR ANGRVm KINGS i6s wishes and complaints of all counties alike. When this had been accomplished there would, for the first time, be a representative assembly in England. 7. Death of Richard. 1199. — It was not only Richard’s love for his old home which fixed him on the Continent. He knew that the weakest part of his dominions w'as there. His lands beyond sea had no natural unity. Normans did not love Angevins, neither did Angevins love the men of Poitou or Guienne. Philip was willingly obeyed in his own dominions, and he had all the advantage which his title of king of the French could give him. Richard fought desperately, and for the most part successfully, against the F rench king, and formed alliances with all who were opposed to him. He built on a rock overhanging the Seine above Les Andelys a mighty fortress — the Chateau Gaillard, or Saucy Castle, as he called it in jest. With characteristic haste he completed the build- ing in a few months. “ How fair a child is mine ! ” he called to his followers, “ this child but a twelvemonth old.” Other child he had none, and he had but the miserable John to look to to hold his dominions after he was gone. He did not live long enough to see whether his new castle could stand a siege. A peasant dug up a treasure on the land of the lord of Chains in the Limousin. Richard claimed it as his right because he was the over-lord. On the refusal of the lord to surrender it he laid siege to Chains. An arrow from the castle struck him on the shoulder. The wound rankled, and mortification followed. As Richard lay dying the castle sur- rendered, and the man who had aimed the fatal shot was brought before him. “ What have I done to thee,” asked Richard, “ that thou shouldest slay me?” “Thou hast slain my father and two of my brothers with thy own hand,” said the prisoner, “and thou wouldest fain have killed me too. Avenge thyself upon me as thou wilt. I will gladly endure the greatest torments thou canst devise, since I have seen thee on thy deathbed.” Richard, generous to the last, bade his attendants set the prisoner free. They kept him till Richard was dead, and then tortured him to death. 8. Church and State under the Angevin Kings. — During the forty-five years of the reigns of Richard and his father the chief feature of English history is the growth of the power of the state. There was more justice and order, and also more taxation, at the end of the period than at the beginning. During the same period the influence of the Church grew less. The character of Thomas’s resistance to the king was lower than that of Anselm, and not long 166 THE ANGEVIN KINGS 1199 after Thomas’s murder Henry indirectly regained the power which he had lost, and filled the sees with officials and dependents who cared little for the higher aims of religion. The evil consequences Part o*" rhnir of Ripon Cathedral : built during ihc last quarter of the twelfth century. 11 S 4 -H 99 LITERATURE AND KNOWLEDGE 167 of making the Church dependent on the king were at least as great as those of freeing the political and social life of the clergy from the control of the State. Even monasticism ceased to afford a strong example of self-denial. The very Cistercians, who had begun so well, had fallen from their original purity. They were now owners of immense tracts of pasture-land, and their keenness in money- making had become notorious. They exercised great influence, but it was the influence of great landlords, not the influence of ascetics. 9. Growth of Learning. — The decay of asceticism was to some extent brought about by the opening of new careers into which energetic men might throw themselves. They were needed as judges, as administrators, as councillors. A vigorous literature sprung up in the reign of Henry II., but at the end of the reign most of it was connected with the court rather than with the monasteries. Henry’s Justiciar, Ranulf de Gian vile, wrote the first EnglishTaw-book. His Treasurer, Richard Fitz-Nigel, set forth in the Dialogus de Scaccario the methods of his financial administra- tion, and also produced ‘The Deeds of King Henry and King Richard.’ William of Newburgh, indeed, the best historian of these reigns, wrote in a small Yorkshire monastery, but Roger of Hoveden and Ralph de Diceto pursued their historical work under the influence of the court. Still more striking is the universality of the intellectual inquisitiveness of Walter Map. On the one hand, in his De Nugis Ciirialium he chattered over the manners of his con- temporaries, and in his satirical poems scourged the greed and vices of the clergy, whilst on the other hand he took a principal part m spreading a knowledge of the legend of the high-souled King Arthur and of the quest of the Holy Grail. Giraldus Cambrensis again, or Gerald of Wales, wrote on all sorts of subjects with shrewd humour and extensive knowledge. 10. The University of Oxford. — There was already in England a place where learning was cherished for its own sake. For some time there had been growing up on the Continent gatherings for the increase of learning, which ultimately were known as universi- ties, or corporations of teachers and scholars. One at Bologna had devoted itself to the study of the civil or Roman law. Another at Paris gave itself to the spread of all the knowledge of the time. In these early universities there were no colleges. Lads, very poor for the most part, flocked to the teachers and lodged themselves as best they could. Such a university, though the name was not used till later, had been gradually forming at Oxford. Its origin and i68 THE ANGEVIN KINGS I 154-1199 early history is obscure, but in 1186 Giraldus, wishing to find a cul- tivated audience for his new book on the topography of Ireland, read it aloud at Oxford, where, as he tells us, ‘ the clergy in England chiefly flourished and excelled in clerkly lore.’ It appears that there were already separate faculties or branches of study, and per- sons recognised as doctors or teachers in all of them. 1 1. Country and Town. — Intellectual progress was accompanied by material progress. In the country the old system of cultivation by the labour service of villein-tenants still prevailed, but in many parts the service had been commuted, either for a money payment or for payments in kind, such as payments of a fixed number of eggs or fowls, or of a fixed quantity of honey or straw. Greater pro- gress was made in the towns. At the time of the Conquest there were about eighty towns in England, most of them no larger than villages. The largest towns after London were Winches- ter, Bristol, Norwich, York, and Lincoln, but even these had not a population much above 7,000 apiece. In the smaller towns trade was sufficiently pro- vided for by the establishment of a market to which country people brought their grain or their cattle, and where they provided them- selves in turn with such rude household necessaries as they required. Even before the Conquest port towns had grown up on Costume of shepherds in the twelfth century. 1154-1199 COMMERCE AND TOWNS 169 the coast, but foreign trade was slight, imports being almost entirely confined to luxuries for the rich. The order introduced by the Normans and the connection between England and the king’s Continental possessions was followed by an increase of trade, and there arose in each of the larger towns a corporation which was known as the Merchant Gild, and which was, in some instances at least, only a development of an older association existing in the times before the Conquest. No one except the brothers of the Merchant Gild was allowed to trade in any article except food, but any one living in the town might become a brother on payment of a settled fee. The first Merchant Gild known was constituted in 1093. A little later, Henry I. granted charters to some of the towns, conferring on them the right of managing their own affairs ; and his example was followed, in far greater profusion, by Henry 1 1 , and Richard I. Though the organisation of the Merchant Gild was originally distinct from the organisation of the town, and the two were in theory kept apart, the Merchant Gild, to which most of the townsmen belonged, usually encroached upon the authorities of the town, regulated trade to its own advantage, and practically controlled the choice of officers, the principal officer being usually styled an Alderman, with power to keep order and generally to provide for the well-being of the place. In this way the trades- men and merchants of the towns prepared themselves uncon- sciously for the time when they would be called on to take part in managing the affairs of the country. Even in these early times, however, the artisans in some of the trades attempted to combine together. 12. Condition of London. — Of all the towns London had been growing most rapidly in wealth and population, and during the troubles in which John had been pitted against William of Long- champs it had secured the right of being governed by a Mayor and Aldermen of its own, instead of being placed under the jurisdiction of the King’s sheriff. The Mayor and Aldermen, however, did not represent all the townsmen. In London, though there is no evidence of the existence of a Merchant Gild, there was a corporation com- posed of the wealthier traders, by which the city was governed. The Mayor and Aldermen were chosen out of this corporation, as were the juries elected to assess the taxes. Artisans soon came to believe that these juries dealt unfairly with the poor. One of the Aldermen, William Longbeard, made himself the mouthpiece of their complaints and stirred them up against the rest. Hubert Walter sent a messenger to seize him, but William Longbeard slew the 170 THE ANGEVIN KINGS 1154-1199 messenger and fled into the church of Mary-at-Bow. Here, accord- ing to the ideas of his age, he should have been safe, as every church was considered to be a sanctuary in which no criminal could be arrested. Hubert Walter, however, came in person to seize him, set the church on fire, and had him dragged out. William Longbeard was first stabbed, and then tried and hanged, and for the time the rich tradesmen had their way against the poorer artisans. 13. Architectural Changes. — Even in the most flourishing towns the houses were still mostly of wood or rubble covered Hall of Oakham Castle, Rutland : built about 1185. with thatch, and only here and there was to be found a house of stone. So slight, indeed, were the ordinary buildings, that it was provided by the Assize of Clarendon .that, the houses of certain offenders should be carried outside the town and burnt. Here and there, however, as in the case of the so-called Jews’ house at Lincoln, stone houses were erected. In the larger houses the arrangements were much as they had been before the Conquest, the large hall being still the most conspicuous part, though another apart- ment, known as the solar, to which an ascent was made by steps from the outside, and which served as a sitting-room for the master 1154-1199 ARCHITECTURE 17 1 of the house, had usually been added. The castles reared by the king or the barons were built for defence alone, and it was in the great cathedrals and churches that the skill of the architect was shown. An enormous number of parish churches of stone were raised by Norman builders to supersede earlier buildings of wood. For some time the round-arched Norman architecture which had been introduced by Eadward the Confessor was alone followed, such Norman House at Lincoln, called the Jews' House. Built about 1140. The square windows are of later date. as may be studied in the Galilee of Durham (seep. i6o) the nave of St. Albans (see p. 109) and the tower of Castor (see p. 136). Gradu- ally the pointed arch of Gothic architecture took its place, and after a period of transition, of which the nave of Durham, and the choirs of Canterbury and of Ripon afford examples (see pp. 130, 150, 166), the graceful style now known as Early English was first used on a large scale in 1192 in the choir of the cathedral of Lincoln. 1^2 THE ANGEVIN KINGS 1154-1199 Books reco7n7nended for further study of Part II. Stubbs, W. (Bishop of Oxford). Constitutional History of England. Vol. i. chaps. ix.-xiii. Freeman, E. A. History of the Norman Conquest. Vols. iv. and v. History of William Rufus. Green, J. R. History of the English People. Vol. i. pp. 115-189. Norgate, Miss K. England under the Angevin Kings. Vols. i. and ii. pp. 1-388. Cunningham, W. Giowth of English Industry and Commerce during the Early and Middle Ages, pp. 129-173. Wakeman, H. O., and Hassall, A. Constitutional Essays. Adams, G B. The Political History of England. Vol. ii. From the Norman Conquest to the Death of John {1066-1216). *73 PART III THE GROWTH OF THE PARLIAMENTARY CONS TITUTION 1 199-1399 CHAPTER XII JOHN. 1199-1216 LEADING DATES Accession of John Loss of Normandy England under an Interdict Magna Carta Death of John 1. The Accession of John. 1199. — After Richard’s death there were living but two descendants of Henry II. in the male line — John, Richard’s only surviving brother, and Arthur, the young son of John’s elder brother, Geoffrey. The English barons had to make their choice between uncle and nephew, and, as had been done in the days of JEUredj they preferred the grown man to the child. It was the last time when that principle of election was confessedly acted on. Archbishop Hubert in announcing the result used words which seem strange now : “ F orasmuch,” he declared to the people assembled to witness John’s coronation, “as we see him to be prudent and vigorous, we all, after invoking the Holy Spirit’s grace, for his merits no less than his royal blood, have with one consent chosen him for our king.” In reality, John was of all men most unworthy. He was without dispute the worst of the English kings. Like William II. he feared not God nor regarded man. Though William indeed was more vicious in his private life, John’s violence and tyranny in public life was as great as William’s, and he added a meanness and frivolity which sank him far below him. 2. John’s First War with Philip II. 1199— 1200. — On the Con- 1199 X204 1208 1215 1216 174 JOHN 1199-1203 tinent John had a difficult game to play. Normandy and Aquitaine submitted to him, but Anjou and its dependent territories declared for Arthur, who was Duke of Brittany in right of his mother. Philip .IL, who had long been the rival of Richard, now took the field in 1199 as the rival of John in support of Arthur ; but for the moment he ruined his chance of success by keeping in his own hands the castles which he took from John instead of making them over to Arthur. Arthur’s supporters took offence, and in 1200 Philip made peace with John. Philip acknowledged John as Richard’s heir, but forced him in return to pay a heavy -um of money, and to make other concessions. 3. John’s Misconduct in Poitou. 1200— 1201.-- John did not know how to make use of the time of rest which he had gained. Being tired of his wife, Avice of Gloucester, he persuaded some Aquitanian bishops to divorce him from her, though he took care to keep the lands which he had received from her at her marriage. He then married Isabella of Angouleme, though she was betrothed to a Poitevin noble, Hugh of Lueignan. Hugh was enraged, and, together with many of his neighbours, took arms against John. In 1201 John charged all the barons of Poitou with treason, and bade them clear their character by selecting champions to fight with an equal number of English and Norman knights. 4. The Loss of Normandy and Anjou. 1202 — 1204. — The Poitevin barons, instead of accepting the wager of battle, appealed to Philip as John’s over-lord, and in 1202 Philip summoned John to answer their complaints before his peers. John not only did not appear, but made no excuse for his absence ; and Philip afterwards pre- tended that the peers had condemned him to forfeit his lands. After this Philip, in alliance with Arthur, invaded Normandy. John’s aged mother, Eleanor, who was far more able and energetic than her son, took up his cause against her grandson Arthur. She was besieged by Arthur at Mirebeau when John came to her help, and not only raised the siege, but carried off Arthur as a prisoner. Many of his vassals rose against him, and finding himself unable to meet them in the field he wreaked his vengeance on his helpless prisoner. A little before Easter 1203 Arthur ceased to live. How the boy died has never been known, but it was generally believed that he was drowned in the Seine near Rouen — some said by his uncle’s own hands. The murderer was the first to suffer from the crime. Philip at once invaded Normandy The Norman barons had long ceased to respect John, and very few of them would do anything to help him. Philip took castle after castle. John was indeed capable of a sudden outbreak of violence. 1203 JOHN AND HIS SECOND WIFE 175 17^ JOnN 1204-1205 but he was incapable of sustained effort. He now looked sluggishly on, feasting and amusing himself whilst Philip was conquering Nor- mandy. “ Let him alone,” he lazily said ; “ I shall some day win back all that he is taking from me now.” His best friends dropped off from him. The only fortress which made a long resistance was that Chiteau Gaillard which Richard had built to guard the Seine. In 1204 it was at last taken, and before the end of that year Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Touraine, together with part of Poitou, had submitted to Philip. 5. Causes of PhUip’s Success. — It was not owing to John’s vigour that Aquitaine was not lost as well as Normandy and Anjou. Philip had justified his attack on John as being John’s feudal lord, and as being therefore bound to take the part of John’s vassals whom he had injured. Hitherto the power of the king over his great vassals, which had been strong in England, had been weak in France. Philip made it strong in Normandy and Anjou because he had the support there of the vassals of John. That these vassals favoured him was owing partly to John’s contemptible character, but also tc the growth of national unity between the inhabitants of Normandy and Anjou on the one hand and those of Philip’s French dominions on the other. N ormans and Angevins both spoke the same language as the Frenchmen of Paris and its neighbourhood. Their manners and characters were very much the same, and the two peoples very soon blended with one another. They had been separated merely because their feudal organisation had been distinct, because the lord over one was John and over the other was Philip. In Aquitaine it was otherwise. The language and manners there, though much nearer to those of the French than they were to those of the English, differed considerably from the language and manners of the Frenchmen, Normans, and Angevins. What the men of Aquitaine really wanted was independence. They therefore now clung to John against Philip as they had clung to Richard against Henry II. They resisted Henry II. because Henry II. ruled in Anjou and Normandy, and they wished to be free from any con- nection with Anjou and Normandy. They resisted Philip because Philip now ruled in Anjou and Normandy. They were not afraid of John any longer, because they thought that now that England alone was left to him, he would be too far off to interfere with them. 6. The Election of Stephen Langton to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. 1205. — In England John had caused much discontent by the heavy taxation which he imposed, not with the regularity of Henry II. and Hubert Walter, but with unfair inequality. In 77 1205-1206 JOHN'S QUARREL WITH THE POPE 1205 Archbishop Hubert Walter died. The right of choosing a new archbishop lay with the monks of the monastery of Christchurch at Canterbury, of which every archbishop, as the successor of St Augustine, was the abbot. This right, however, had long been exercised only according to the wish of the king, who practically named the archbishop. This time the monks, without asking J ohn’s leave, hurriedly chose their sub- prior Reginald, and sent him off with a party of monks to Rome, to obtain the sanction of the Pope. Reginald was directed to say nothing of his election till he reached Rome ; but he was a vain man, and had no sooner reached the Continent than he babbled about his own dignity as an arch- bishop. When John heard this he bade the monks choose the Bishop of Norwich, John de Grey, the king’s treasurer ; and the monks, thoroughly frightened, chose him as if they had not already made their election. J ohn had, however, forgotten to consult the bishops of the province of Can- terbury, who had always been con- sulted by his father and brother, and they too sent messengers to the Pope to complain of the king. 7. Innocent III. and Stephen Lang^on. 1206. — The Pope was Innocent III., who at once deter- mined that John must not name bishops whose only merit was that Bishop Marshall of Exeter, died 1206 ; , , from his tomb at Exeter, showing they were good state officials. a bishop vested for mass. Being an able man, he soon dis- covered that Reginald was a fool. He therefore in 1206 sent for a fresh deputation of monks, and, as soon as they arrived in Rome, bade them make a new choice in the name of their monastery. At Innocent’s suggestion they chose Stephen Langton, one of the most pious and learned men of the day, whose greatness of character was hardly suspected by anyone at the time. N t7S JOHN 1206-1209 8. John’s Quarrel with the Church. 1206 — 1208. — The choice of an archbishop in opposition to the king was undoubtedly something new. The archbishopric of Canterbury was a great national office, and a king as skilful as Henry II. would probably have succeeded in refusing to allow it to be disposed of by the Pope and a small party of monks. John was unworthy to be the champion of any cause whatever. In 1207, after an angry correspondence with Innocent, he drove the monks of Christchurch out of the kingdom. Innocent in reply threatened England with an interdict, and in the spring of 1208 the interdict was published. 9. England under an Interdict. 1208. — An interdict carried with it the suppression of all the sacraments of the Church except those of baptism and extreme unction. Even these were only to be received in private. No words of solemn import were pronounced at the burial of the dead. The churches were all closed, and to the men of that time the closing of the churCh-doors was like the closing of the very gate of heaven. In the choice of the punishment inflicted there was some sign that the Papacy was hardly as strong in the thirteenth as it had been in the eleventh century. Gregory VII. had smitten down kings by personal excommunication; Innocent III. found it necessary to stir up resistance against the king by inflicting sufferings on the people. Yet there is no evidence of any indignation against the Pope. The clergy rallied almost as one man round Innocent, and songs proceeded froni the monasteries which mocked the few official bishops who took John’s side as money-makers who cared more for marks than for Mark, and more for lucre than for Luke, whilst John de Grey was branded with the title of ‘ that beast of Norwich.’ John taking no heed of the popular feeling, seized the property of the clergy who obeyed the interdict. Yet he was not without fear lest the barons should join the clergy against him, and to keep them in obedience he compelled them to entrust to him their eldest sons as hostages. One lady to whom this order came replied that she would never give her son to a king who had murdered his nephew. 10. John Excommunicated. 1209. —In 1209 Innocent excommu- nicated John himself. John cared nothing for being excluded from the services of the Church, but he knew that if the excommunication were published in England few would venture to sit at table with him, or even to speak with him. For some time he kept it out of the country, but it became known that it had been pronounced at Rome, and even his own dependents began to avoid his company. He feared lest the barons whom he had wearied with heavy fines 179 1209-1213 A FREN~CH ARMY OF INVASION and taxes might turn against him, and he needed large sums of money to defend himself against them. First he turned on the Jews, threw them into prison, and after torturing those who refused to pay, wrung from them 40,000/. The abbots were next summoned before him and forced by threats to pay 100,000/. Besides this the wealthy Cistercians had to pay an additional fine, the amount of which is uncertain, but of which the lowest estimate is 27,000/ In 1211 some of the barons declared against John, but they were driven from the country, and those who remained were harshly treated. Some of their sons who had been taken as hostages were hanged or starved to death. II. The Pope threatens John with Deposition. 1212 — 1213. — In Parsonage house of early thirteenth-century date at West Dean, Sussex. 1212 Innocent’s patience came to an end, and he announced that he would depose John if he still refused to give way, and would transfer his crown to his old enemy, Philip II. The English clergy and barons were not likely to oppose the change. Philip gathered a great army in France to make good the claim which he expected Innocent to give him. John, indeed, was not entirely without re- source. The Emperor Otto IV. was John’s sister’s son, and as he too had been excommunicated by Innocent he made common cause with John against Philip. Early in 1213 John gathered an army of 60,000 men to resist Philip’s landing, and if Otto with his i8o JOHN 1213 Germans were to attack France from the east, a French army would hardly venture to cross into England, unless indeed it had no serious resistance to fear. John, however, knew well that he could not de- pend on his own army. Many men in the host hated him bitterly, and he feared deposition, and perhaps death, at the hands of those whom he had summoned to his help. 12. John’s Submission. 1213. — Under these circumstances John preferred submission to the Pope to submission to Philip or his own barons. He invited Pandulf, the Pope’s representative, to Dover. He swore to admit Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, to restore to their rights all those of the clergy or laity whom he had banished, and to give back the money which he had wrongfully exacted. Two days later he knelt before Pandulf and did homage to the Pope for England and Ireland. He was no longer to be an independent king but the Pope’s vassal. In token of his vassalage he agreed that he and his successors should pay to Innocent and his successors 1,000 marks a year, each mark being equal to 1 3^“. 4^., or two-thirds of a pound. Innocent had reached his aim as far as John was concerned. In his eyes the Papacy was not merely the guide of the Church, it was an institution for controlling kings and forcing them to act in accordance with the orders of the Popes. It remained to be seen whether the Pope’s orders would be always unselfish, and whether the English barons and clergy would submit to them as readily as did this most miser- able of English kings. 13. The Resistance of the Barons and Clergy. 1213. — At first John seemed to have gained all that he wanted by submission. Pandulf bade Philip abandon all thought of invading England, and when Philip refused to obey, John’s fleet fell upon the French fleet off the coast of Flanders and destroyed it. John even pro- posed to land with an army in Poitou and to reconquer Normandy and Anjou. His subjects thought that he ought to begin by ful- filling his engagements to them. John having received absolu- tion, summoned four men from each county to meet at St. Albans to assess the damages of the clergy which he had bound himself to make good. The meeting thus summoned was the germ of the future House of Commons. It was not a national political assembly, but it was a national jury gathered together into one place. The exiled barons were recalled, and John now hoped that his vassals would follow him to Poitou. They refused to do so, alleging their poverty and the fact that they had already fulfilled their feudal obligation of forty days’ service by attending him at Dover. They had, in I2I3-12I4 the charter OE HENRY I l8i fact, no interest m regaining Normandy and Anjou for John. Though the English barons still spoke French, and were proud of their Norman descent, they now thought of themselves as English- men and cared for England alone. John turned furiously on the barons, and was only hindered from attacking them by the new Archbishop, who threatened to excommunicate everyone who took arms against them. It was time lor all Englishmen who loved order and law to resist John. Stephen Langton put himself at the head of the movement, and at a great assembly at St. Paul’s pro- duced a charter of Henry I., by which that king had promised to put an end to the tyranny of the Red King, and declared amidst general applause that it must be renewed by John. It was a memor- able scene. Up to this time it had been necessary for the clergy and the people to support the king against the tyranny of the barons. Now the clergy and people offered their support to the barons against the tyranny of the king. John had merely the Pope on his side. Innocent’s view of the situation was very simple. John was to obey the Pope, and all John’s subjects were to obey John. A Papal legate arrived in England, fixed the sum which John was to pay to the clergy, and refused to listen to the complaints of those who thought themselves defrauded. 14. The Battle of Bouvines. 1214. — In 1214 John succeeded in carrying his barons and their vassals across the sea. With one anny he landed at Rochelle, and recovered what had been lost to him on the south of the Loire, but failed to make any permanent conquests to the north of that river. Another army, under John’s illegitimate brother, the Earl of Salisbury, joined the Emperor Otto in an attack on Philip from the north. The united force of Germans and English was, however, routed by Philip at Bouvines, in Flanders. “ Since I have been reconciled to God,” cried John, when he heard the news, “ and submitted to the Roman Church, nothing has gone well with me.” He made a truce with Philip, and temporarily renounced all claims to the lands to the north of the Loire. 15. The Struggle between John and the Barons. 1214 — 1215. When John returned he called upon all his vassals who had re- mained at home to pay an exorbitant scutage. In reply they met at Bury St. Edmunds. The charter of Henry L, which had been produced at St. Paul’s the year before, was again read, and all present swore to force John to accept it as the rule of his own government John asked for delay, and attempted to divide his antagonists by offering to the clergy the right of free election to bishoprics and abbacies. Then he turned against the barons. Early i 82 Effigy of a knight in the Temple Church, London, showing armour worn be- tween 1190 and 1225. in 1215 he brought over a large force of foreign mercenaries, and per- suaded the Pope to threaten the barons with excommunication. His attempt was defeated by the con- stancy of Stephen Langton. The demands of the barons were placed in writing by the archbishop, and, on John’s refusal to accept them, an army was formed to force them on the king. The army of God and the Holy Church, as it was called, grew rapidly. London admitted it within its walls, and the accession of London to the cause of the barons was a sign that the traders of Eng- land were of one mind with the barons and the clergy. John found that their force was superior to his own, and at Runnimede on June 15, 1215, confirmed with his hand and seal the articles of the barons, with the full intention of breaking his engagement as soon as he should be strong enough to do so. 16. Magna Carta. 1215. — Magna Carta, or the Great Charter, as the articles were called after John con- firmed them, was won by a combi- nation between all classes of free- men, and it gave rights to them all. {a) Its Concessions . — The Church was to be free, its privileges were to be respected, and its right to free elections vLich John had granted earlier in the year was not to be in- fringed on. As for the laity, the tenants-in-chief were to pay only fixed reliefs when they entered on their estates. Heirs under age were to be the king’s wards, but the king was to treat them fairly, and do 1215 The great char'TEr nothing to injure their land whilst it was in his hands. The king might continue to find husbands for heiresses and wives for heirs, but only amongst those of their own class. The tenants-in-chief again were bound to pay aids to the king when he needed ransom from imprisonment, or money to enable him to bear the expenses of knightinghis eldest son or of marrying his eldest daughter. For all other purposes the king could only demand supplies from his tenants-in-chief with the consent of the Common Council of the realm. As only the tenants-in-chief were concerned, this Common Council was the Great Council of tenants-in-chief, such as had met under the N orman and Angevin kings. A fresh attempt, however, was made to induce the smaller tenants-in-chief to attend, in addition to the bishops, abbots, and barons, by a direction that whilst these were to be summoned personally, the sheriffs should in each county issue a general summons to the smaller tenants-in-chief. Though the sub-tenants had no part in the Common Council of the realm, they were relieved by a direction that they should pay no more aids to their lords than their lords paid to the king, and by a general declaration that all that had been granted to their lords by the king should be allowed by their lords to them. The Londoners and other townsmen had their privileges assured to them ; and all free- men were secured against heavy and irregular penalties if they committed an offence. (J?) Its Securities . — Such were the provisions of this truly national act, which Englishmen were for ages engaged in maintaining and developing. The immediate question was how to secure what had been gained. The first thing necessary for this purpose was to make the courts of law the arbitrators between the king and his subjects. In a series of articles it was declared that the sworn testimony of a man’s peers should be used whenever fines or penalties were imposed, and this insistence on the employment of the jury system as it then existed was emphasised by the strong words to which John placed his seal : “No freeman may be taken^ or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go against him, or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. To none will we sell or deny or delay right or justice.” It was a good security if it could be maintained, but it would avail nothing against a king who was willing and able to use force to set up the old tyranny once more. In the first place John must dis- miss all his foreign mercenaries. So little, however, was John trusted that it was thought necessary in the second place to esta- 184 1215-1216 JOHN blish a body of twenty-five— twenty-four barons and the Mayor of London — which was to guard against any attempt of the king to break his word. If John infringed upon any of the articles of the Charter the twenty-five, with the assistance of the whole community of the kingdom, had the right of distraining upon the king’s lands till enough was obtained to make up the loss to the person who had suffered wrong. In other words, there was to be a permanent organisation for making war upon the king. 17. War between John and the Barons. 1215 — 1216. — John waited for the moment of vengeance. Not only did he refuse to send his mercenaries away, but he sent to the Continent for large reinforcements. Pope Innocent declared the barons to be wicked rebels, and released John from his oath to the Great Charter. War soon broke out. John’s mercenaries were too strong for the barons, and in the beginning of 1216 almost all England with the exception of London had been overrun by them. Though the Pope laid London under an interdict, neither the citizens nor the barons paid any attention to it. They sent to Louis, the eldest son of Philip of France, to invite him to come and be their king in John’s stead. Louis was married to John’s niece, and might thus be counted as a member of the English royal family. The time had not yet come when a man who spoke French was regarded as quite a foreigner amongst the English barons. On May 21, 1216, Louis landed with an army in the Isle of Thanet. 18. Conflict between Louis and John. 1216. — John, in spite of his success, found himself without sufficient money to pay his mer- cenaries, and he therefore retreated to Winchester. Louis entered London in triumph, and afterwards drove John out of Winchester. Innocent indeed excommunicated Louis, but no one took heed of the excommunication. Yet John was not without support The A silver penny of John, struck at Dublin. trading towns of the East, who probably regarded Louis as a foreigner, took his part, and many of his old officials, to whom the victory of the barons seemed likely to bring back the anarchy of 12i6 A BOV^KItfG Stephen’s time, clung to him. One of these, a high-spirited and strong-willed man, Hubert de Burgh, held out for John in Dover Castle. John kept the field and even won some successes. As he was crossing the Wash the tide rose rapidly and swept away his baggage. He himself escaped with difficulty. Worn out in mind and body, he was carried on a litter to Newark, where on October 19, 1216, he died. CHAPTER XIII HENRY III. 1216—1272 LEADING DATES Accession of Henry III. ..... iax6 The Fall of Hubert de Burgh 1333 The Provisions of Oxford 1358 Battle of Lewes 1264 Battle of Evesham ...... . . 1265 Death of Henry III 1272 1. Henry III. and Louis. 1216—1217. — Henry HI., the eldest son of John, was but nine years old at his father’s death. Never before had it been useful for England that the king should be a child. As Henry had oppressed no one and had broken no oaths, those who dared not trust the father could rally to the son. The boy had two guardians, one of whom was Gualo, the legate of Pope Honorius HI., a man gentler and less ambitious than Innocent HI., whom he had just succeeded ; the other was William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who had been constant to John, not because he loved his evil deeds, but because, like many of the older officials, he feared that the victory of the barons would be followed by anarchy. These two had on their side the growing feeling on behalf of English nationality ; whereas, as long as John lived, his opponents had argued that it was better to have a foreign king like Louis than to have a king like John, who tyrannised over the land by the help of foreign mercenaries. Henry’s followers daily increased, and in 1217 Louis was defeated by the Marshal at Lincoln. Later in the year Hubert de Burgh, the Justiciar, sent out a fleet which defeated a French fleet off Dover. Louis then submitted and left the kingdom. 2. The Renewal of the Great Charter. 1216 —1217. — The tS6 HENRY IIL 1216-1219 Effigy of Henry III. ; from his tomb in Westminster Abbey. principles Oil which William the Marshal intended to govern were signified by the changes made in the Great Charter when it was renewed on the king^s accession in 1216, and again on Louis’s ex- pulsion in 1217. Most of the clauses binding the king to avoid oppression were allowed to stand ; but those which prohibited the raising of new taxation without the authority of the Great Council, and the stipulation which established a body of twenty-five to distrain on John’s property in case of the breach of the Charter, were omit- ted. Probably it was thought that there was less danger from Henry than there had been from John ; but the acceptance of the compro- mise was mainly due to the feeling that, whilst it was desirable that the king should govern with mode- ration, it would be a dangerous ex- periment to put the power to con- trol him in the hands of the barons, who might use it for their own ad- vantage rather than for the advan- tage of the nation. The whole history of England for many years was to turn on the difficulty of weakening the power of a bad king without producing anarchy. 3. Administration of Hubert de Burgh. 1219— 1232. — In 1219 William the Marshal died. For some years the government was mainly in the hands of Hubert de Burgh, who strenuously main- tained the authority of the king over the barons, whilst at the same time he set himself distinctly at I2ig-t±^2 HUBERT DE BURGH 187 the head of the growing national feeling against the admission of foreigners to wealth and high position in England. As a result of the disturbances of John’s reign many of the barons and of the leaders of the mercenaries had either fortified their own castles or had taken possession of those which belonged to the king. In 1220 Hubert demanded the surrender of these castles as Henry II. had done in the begin- j ning of his reign. In 1221 the Earl of Aumale was forced to surrender his castles, and in 1224 Faukes de Breaute, one of the leaders of John’s mercenaries who had received broad lands in England, was reduced to sub- mission and was banished on his refusal to give up his great castle at Bedford. As long as Hubert ruled, England was to belong to the English. His power was endangered from the very quarter from which it ought to have received most support. In 1227 Henry declared himself of age. He was weak and untrustworthy, always ready to give his confidence to unworthy favourites. His present favourite was Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester. The bishop was a greedy and unscrupulous Poite- vin, who regarded the king’s favour as a means of enriching himself and his Poitevin relatives and friends. Henry was always of William Longesp^e, Earl of Salis- short of monev and wa«; : from his tomb in snort 01 money, ana was per- Salisbury Cathedral: showing armour suaded by Peter that it was '^om from about 1225 to 1250. tIENkY in. Hubert’s fault. In 1232 Hubert was charged with a whole string of crimes and dismissed from office. 4. Administration of Peter des Roches. 1232 — 1234. — Henry was now entirely under the power of Peter des Roches. In 1233 he ordered Hubert to be seized. Though Hubert took sanctuary in a chapel, he was dragged out, and a smith was ordered to put him in fetters. The man refused to obey. “Is not this,” he said, “ that most faithful and high-souled Hubert who has so often saved England from the ravages of foreigners, and has given England back to the Eng- lish ? ” Hubert was thrown into the Tower, and was never again employed in any office of state. As long as Peter des Roches ruled the king it would be hard to keep Eng- land for the English. Poitevins and Bretons flocked over from the Continent, and were appointed to all the influential posts which fell vacant. The barons had the national feeling behind them when they raised complaints against this policy. Their leader was Earl Richard the Marshal, the son of the Earl William who had governed England after the death of John. Without even the semblance of trial Henry declared Earl Richard and his chief supporters guilty of trea- son. At a Great Council held at Westminster some of the barons remonstrated Peter des Roches mass-vestments. replied saucily that there were no peers in England as in France, meaning that in England the barons had no rights against the king. Both Henry and Peter could, however, use their tongues better than their swords. They failed miserably in an attempt to overcome the men whom they had unjustly accused, till in 1234 Peter stirred up some of the English lords in Ireland to seize on Earl Richard’s possessions there. The Earl hurried over to defend his estates. Amongst 1234 EDMUND RICH 189 his followers were many of Peter’s confidants, who, treacherously deserting him in the first battle, left him to be slain by his enemies. Peter at least gained nothing by his villainy. Edmund Rich, a saintly man, who had recently become Archbishop of Canterbury, protested against his misdeeds. All England was behind the Archbishop, Beverley Minster, Yorkshire— the south transept ; built about 1220-1230. and Henry was compelled to dismiss Peter and then to welcome back Peter’s enemies and to restore them to their rights. It was of no slight importance that a man so devoted and unselfish as Edmund Rich had put himself at the head of the movement. It was a good thing, no doubt, to maintain that wealth should be in the hands 190 HENRY III. 1209 rather of natives than of foreigners ; but after all every contention for material wealth alone is of the earth, earthy. No object which appeals exclusively to the selfish instincts can, in the long run, be worth contending for. Edmund Rich’s accession to the national cause was a guarantee that the claims of righteousness and mercy in the management of the national government would not altogether be forgotten, and fortunately there were new forces actively at work in the same direction. The friars, the followers of St. Francis and St. Dominic, had made good their footing in England. 5. Francis of Assisi. — Francis, the son of a merchant in the Tuscan town of Assisi, threw aside the vanities of youth after a serious illness. He was wedded, he declared, to Poverty as his bride. He clothed himself in rags. When his father sent him with a horseload of goods to a neighbouring market, he sold both horse and goods, and offered the money to build a church. His father was enraged, and summoned him before the bishop that he might be deprived of the right of inheriting that which he knew not how to use. Francis stripped himself naked, renouncing even his clothes as his father’s property. “ I have now,” he said, “ but one Father, He that is in heaven.” He wandered about as a beggar, subsisting on alms and devoting himself to the care of the sick and afflicted. In his heroism of self-denial he chose out the lepers, covered as they were with foul and infectious sores^ as the main objects of his tending. Before long he gathered together a brotherhood of men like-minded with himself, who left all, to give not alms but themselves to the help of the poor and sorrowful of Christ’s flock. In 1209 Innocent III. constituted them into a new order, not of monks but of Friars (Fratres or brethren). The special title of the new order, which after ages have known by the name of Franciscans, was that of Minorites {Fratres Minores\ or the lesser brethren, because Francis in his humility declared them to be less than the least of Christ’s servants. Like Francis, they were to be mendicants, begging their food from day to day. Hav- ing nothing themselves, they would be the better able to touch the hearts of those who had nothing. Yet it was not so much the humility of Francis as his loving heart which distinguished him amongst men. Not only all human beings but all created things were dear to him. Once he is said to have preached to birds. He called the sun and the wind his brethren, the moon and the water his sisters. When he died the last feeble words which he breathed were, “-Welcome, sister Death !” 6. St. Dominic. — Another order arose about the same time in 1220-1224 THE FRIARS 191 Spain. Dominic, a Spaniard, was appalled, not by the misery, but by the ignorance of mankind. The order which he instituted was to be called that of the Friars Preachers, though they have in later times usually been known as Dominicans. Like the Franciscans they were to be Friars, or brothers, because all teaching is vain, as much as all charitable acts are vain, unless brotherly kindness be at the root. Like the Franciscans they were to be mendicants, because so only could the world be convinced that they sought not their own good, but to win souls to Christ. 7. The Coming of the Friars. 1220 — 1224. — In 1220 the first Dominicans arrived in England. Four years later, in 1224, the first Franciscans followed them. Of the work of the early Domini- cans in England little is known. They preached and taught, appealing to those whose intelligence was keen enough to appreciate the value of argument. The Franciscans had a different work before them. The misery of the dwellers on the outskirts of Eng- lish towns was appalling. The townsmen had made provision for keeping good order amongst all who shared in the liberties,^ or, as we should say, in the privileges of the town ; but they made no provision for good order amongst the crowds who flocked to the town to pick up a scanty living as best they might. These poor wretches had to dwell in miserable hovels outside the walls by the side of fetid ditches into which the filth of the town was poured. Disease and starvation thinned their numbers. No man cared for their bodies or their souls. The priests who served in the churches within the town passed them by, nor had they any place in the charities with which the brethren of the gilds assuaged the misfor- tunes of their own members. It was amongst these that the Fran- ciscans lived and laboured, sharing in their , misery and their diseases, counting their lives well spent if they could bring comfort to a single human soul. 8. Monks and Friars. — The work of the friars was a new phase in the history of the Church. The monks had made it their object to save their own souls ; the friars made it their object to save the bodies and souls of others. The friars, like the monks, taught by the example of self-denial ; but the friars added active well-doing to the passive virtue of restraint. Such examples could not fail to be attended with consequences of which those who set ^ A phrase which may serve to keep in mind the medieval meaning of ‘ libtrtas ' is to be found in the statement that a certain monastery kept up a pair of stocks 'pro libertate servandA ’ — that is to say, to keep up its franchise of putting offenders into the stocks. 192 HENRY III. 1236 them never dreamed, all the more because the two new orders worked harmoniously towards a common end. The Dominicans quickened the brain whilst the Franciscans touched the heart, and the whole nation was the better in consequence, 9. The King^s Marriage. 1236. — In 1236 Henry married Eleanor, the daughter of the Count of Provence. The immediate consequence was the arrival of her four uncles ^sath a stream of Provencals in their train. Amongst these uncles William, Bishop- elect of Valence, took the lead. Henry submitted his weak mind entirely to him, ana distributed rank and wealth to the Provencals Longthorpe Manor House. Northampton ; built about 1235. Some of the larger windows are later. with as much profusion as he had distributed them to the Poitevins in the days of Peter des Roches. The barons, led now by the king’s brother, Richard of Cornwall, remonstrated when they met in the Great Council, which was gradually acquiring the right of granting fresh taxes, though all reference to that right was dropped out of all editions of the Great Charter issued in the reign of Henry. For some time they granted the money which Henry con- tinually asked for, coupling, however, with their grant the demand that Henry' should confirm the Charter. The king never refused to confirm it He had no difficulty in making promises, but he never troubled himself to keep those which he had made. 1231-1242 SIMON DE MONTFORT 193 10. The Early Career of Simon de Montfort. 1231— 1243.— Strangely enough, Simon de Montfort, the man who was to be the chief opponent of Henry and his foreign favourites, was himself a foreigner. He was sprung from a family established in Normandy, and his father, the elder Simon de Montfort, had been the leader of a body of Crusaders from the north of France, who had poured over the south to crush a vast body of heretics, known by the name of Albigeois, from Albi, a town in which they swarmed. The elder Simon had been strict in his orthodoxy and unsparing in his cruelty to all who were unorthodox. F rom him the younger Simon inherited his unswerving religious zeal and his constancy of purpose. There was the same stern resolution in both, but in the younger man these qualities were coupled with a statesmanlike instinct, which was want- ing to the father. N orman as he was, he had a claim to the earl- dom of Leicester through his grandmother, and in 1231 this claim was acknowledged by Henry. For some time Simon continued to live abroad, but in 1236 he returned to England to be present at the king’s marriage. He was at once taken into favour, and in 1238 married the king’s sister, Eleanor. His marriage was received by the barons and the people with a burst of indignation. It was one more instance, it was said, of Henry’s preference for foreigners over his own countrymen. In 1239 Henry turned upon his brother- in-law, brought heavy charges against him, and drove him from his court. In 1240 Simon was outwardly reconciled to Henry, but he was never again able to repose confidence in one so fickle. In 1242 Henry resolved to undertake an expedition to France to A ship in the reign of Henry III. 0 194 HENRY III. 1243-1244 recover Poitou, which had been gradually slipping out of his hands. At a Great Council held before he sailed, the barons, who had no sympathy with any attempt to recover lost possessions in France, not only rated him soundly for his folly, but, for the first time, absolutely refused to make him a grant of money. Simon told him to his face that the Frenchman was no lamb to be easily subdued. Simon’s words proved true. Henry sailed for France, but in 1243 he surrendered all claims to Poitou, and returned dis- comfited. If he did' not bring home victory he brought with him a new crowd of Poitevins, who were connected with his mother’s second husband. All of them expected to receive advancement in England, and they seldom expected it in vain. 11. Papal Exactions. 1237 — 1243. — Disgusted as were the English landowners by the preference shown by the king to foreigners, the English clergy were no less disgusted by the ex- actions of the Pope. The claim of Innocent III, to regulate the proceedings of kings had been handed down to his successors and made them jealous of any ruler too powerful to be con- trolled. The Emperor Frederick II. had not only succeeded to the government of Germany, and to some influence over the north of Italy, but had inherited Naples and Sicily from his 'iiotner. The Pope thus found himself, as it were, between two fires. There was constant bickering between Frederick and Gregory iX., a fiery old man who became Pope in 1227, and in .238 Gregory excommunicated Frederick, and called on all Europe assist him against the man Whom he stigmatised as the enemy God and the Church. As the king of England was his vassal tn consequence of John’s surrender, he looked to him for aid more than to others, especially as England, enjoying internal peace more than other nations, was regarded as especially wealthy. In 1237, the year before Frederick’s excommunication, Gregory sent Cardinal Otho as his legate to demand money from the English clergy. The clergy found a leader in Robert Grossetete, Bishop of Lincoln, a wise and practical reformer of clerical disorders ; but though they grumbled, they could get no protection from the king, and were forced to pay. Otho left England in 1241, carrying immense sums of money with him, and the promise of the king to present three hundred Italian priests to English benefices before he presented a single Englishman. In 1243 Gregory IX. was succeeded by Innocent IV,, who was even more grasping than his predecessor. 12. A Weak Parliamentary Opposition. 1244. — Against these evils the Great Council strove in vain to make head. It was now 1244-1254 THE RISE OF PARLIAMENT I9S beginning to be known as Parliament, though no alteration was yet made in its composition. In 1244 clergy and barons joined in remonstrating with the king, and some of them even talked about restraining his power by the establishment of a Justiciar and Chancellor, together with four councillors, all six to be elected by the whole of the baronage. Without the consent of the Chancellor thus chosen no administrative act could be done. The scheme was a distinct advance upon that of the barons who, in 1215, forced the Great Charter upon John. The barons had then proposed to leave the appointment of executive officials to the king, and to appoint a committee of twenty-five, who were to have nothing to do with the government of the countiy, but were to compel the king by force to keep the promises which he had made. In 1244 they proposed to appoint the executive officials themselves. It was the beginning of a series of changes which ultimately led to that with which we are now familiar, the appointment of ministers responsible to Parliament. It was too great an innovation to be accepted at once, especially as it was demanded by the barons alone. The clergy, who were still afraid of the disorders which might ensue if power were lodged in the hands of the barons, refused to support it, and for a time it fell to the ground. At the same time Richard of Cornwall abandoned the baronial party. He had lately married the queen’s sister, which may have drawn him over to the king ; but it is also probable that his own position as the king’s brother made him unwilling to consent to a scheme which would practically transfer the government from the king to the barons. On the other hand Earl Simon was found on the side of the barons. He held his earldom by inheritance from his English grandmother, and the barons were willing to forgive his descent from a foreign grandfather when they found him prepared to share their policy. 13. Growing Discontent. 1244—1254. — The clergy had to learn by bitter experience that it was only by a close alliance with the barons that they could preserve themselves from wrong. In 1244 a new envoy from the Pope, Master Martin, travelled over England wringing money from the clergy. Though he was driven out of the country in 1245, the Papal exactions did not cease. The Pope, moreover, continued to present his own nominees to English benefices, and in 1252 Grossetete complained that these nominees drew three times as much income from England as flowed into the royal exchequer. For a time even Henry made complaints, but in 1254 Innocent IV. won him over to his side. Frederick II. had died in 1250, and his illegitimate son, Manfred, a tried warrior and 196 HENRY III. 1254-1255 an able ruler, had succeeded him as king of Sicily and Naples. Innocent could not bear that that crown should be worn by the son of the man whom he had hated bitterly, and offered it to Edmund, the second son of Henry III. Henry lept at the offer, hoping that England would bear the expense of the undertaking. England was, however, in no mood to comply. Henry had been squandering money for years. He had recently employed Earl Simon in Gascony, where Simon had put down the resistance of the nobles with a heavy hand. The Gascons complained to Henry, and Henry quarrelled with Simon more bitterly than before. In 1254 Henry crossed the sea to restore order in person. To meet his expenses he borrowed a vast sum of money, and this loan, which he expected England to meet, was the only result of the expedition. 14. The Knights of the Shire in Parliament. 1254. — During the king’s absence the queen and Earl Rich- ard, who were left ‘as re- gents, and who had to collect money as best they might, gathered a Great Council, to which, for the first time, repre- sentative knights, four from each shire, were summoned. They were A bed in the reign of Henry III. merely Called On tO re- port what amount of aid their constituents were willing to give, and the regents were doubt- less little aware of the importance of the step which they were taking. It was only, to all appearances, an adaptation of the summons calling on the united jury to meet at St. Albans to assess the damages of the clergy in the reign of John. It might seem as if the regents had only summoned a united jury to give evidence of their constituents’ readiness to grant certain sums of money. In reality the new scheme was sure to take root, because it held out a hope of getting rid of a constitutional difficulty which had hitherto proved insoluble — the difficulty, that is to say, of weakening the king’s power to do evil without establishing baronial anarchy in its place. It was certain that the representatives of the free-holders in the counties would not use their influence for the destruction of order. 1$. Fresh Exactions. 1254—1257. — At the end of 1254 Henry re- turned to England, In 1255 a new Pope, Alexander IV., confirmed THE KIHC AND THE POPE 197 f255 his predecessor’s grant of the kingdom of Sicily to Edmund, on condition that Henry should give a large sum of money for the expenses of a war against Manfred. To make it easy for Henry to find the money, Alexander gave him a tenth of the revenues of the English clergy, on the plea that the clergy had always borne their share of the expenses of a crusade, and that to fight for the Pope against Manfred was equivalent to a crusade. Immense sums were wrung from the clergy, who were powerless to resist Pope and king combined. Their indignation was the greater, not only because they knew that religion was not at stake in the Pope’s effort to secure his political power in Italy, but also because the Papal Barn of thirteenth century date at Raunds, Northamptonshire. court was known to be hopelessly corrupt, it being a matter of common talk that all things were for sale at Rome. The clergy indeed were less than ever in a condition to resist the king without support. Grossetete was dead, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the queen’s uncle, Boniface of Savoy, whose duty it was to maintain the rights of the Church, was a man who cared nothing for England except on account of the money he drew from it. Other bishoprics as well were held by foreigners. The result of the weakness of the clergy was that they were now ready to unite with the barons, whom they had deserted in 1244 (seep. 195). Henry’s misgovernment, in fact, had roused all classes against him, as the townsmen and the smaller landowners had been even worse treated than the greater HENRY III. 198 1257-1258 barons. In 1257 one obstacle to reform was removed. Richard of Cornwall, the king’s brother, who was formidable through his wealth and the numbers of his vassals, had for some time taken part against them. In 1257 he was chosen king of the Romans by the German electors, an election which would make him Emperor as soon as he had been crowned by the Pope. He at once left England to seek his fortunes in Germany, where he was well received as long as he had money to reward his followers, but was deserted as soon as his purse was empty. 16. The Provisions of Oxford. 1258. — The crisis in England came in 1258, whilst Richard was still abroad. Though thousands were dying of starvation in consequence of a bad harvest, Henry demanded for the Pope the monstrous sum of one-third of the revenue of all England. Then the storm burst. At a Parliament at West- minster the barons appeared in arms and demanded, first, the expulsion of all foreigners, and, secondly, the appointment of a committee of twenty-four — twelve from the king’s party and twelve from that of the barons — to reform the realm. The king unwil- lingly consented, and the committee was appointed. Later in the year Parliament met again at Oxford to receive the report of the new committee. The Mad Parliament, as it was afterwards called in derision, was resolved to make good its claims. The scheme of reinforcing Parliament by the election of knights of the shire had in- deed been suffered to fall into disuse since its introduction in 1254, yet every tenant-in-chief had of old the right of attending, and though the lesser tenants-in-chief had hitherto seldom or never exercised that right, they now trooped in arms to Oxford to support the barons. To this unwonted gathering the committee produced a set of pro- posals which have gone by the name of the Provisions of Oxford. There was to be a council of fifteen, without the advice of which the king could do no act, and in this council the baronial party had a majority. The offices of state were filled in accordance with the wishes of the twenty-four, and the barons thus entered into pos- session of the authority which had hitherto been the king’s. The danger of the king’s tyranny was averted, but it remained to be seen whether a greater tyranny would not be erected in its stead. One clause of the Provisions of Oxford was not reassuring. The old Parliaments, which every tenant-in-chief had at least the customary right of attending, were no longer to exist. Their place was to be taken by a body of twelve, to be chosen by the barons, which was to meet three times a year to discuss public affairs with the council of fifteen. 1258-1259 the provisions OF OXFORD 199 17. The Expulsion of the Foreigners. 1258. — The first diffi- culty of the new government was to compel the foreigners to sur- render their castles. William de Valence, the king’s half-brother, headed the resistance of the foreigners. The barons swore that no danger should keep them back till they had cleared the land of foreigners and had obtained the good laws which they needed. Earl Simon set the example by surrendering his own castles at Kenilworth and Odiham. The national feeling was with Simon and the barons, and at last the foreigners were driven across the sea. For a time all went well. The committee of twenty-four continued its work and produced a further series of reforms. All persons in authority were called on to swear to be faithful to the Provisions of Oxford, and the king and his eldest son, Edward, complied with the demand. 18. Edward and the Barons. 1259. — Early in 1259 Richard came back to England, and gave satisfaction by swearing to the Provisions. Before long signs of danger appeared. The placing complete authority in the hands of the barons was not likely to be long popular, and Earl Simon was known to be in favour of a wider and more popular scheme. Hugh Bigod, who had been named J usticiar by the barons, gave offence by the way in which he exercised his office. Simon was hated by the king, and he knew that many of the barons did not love him. The sub-tenants — the Knights Bachelors of England as they called themselves — doubting his power to protect them, complained, not to Simon, but to Edward, the eldest son of the King, that the barons had obtained the redress of their own grievances, but had done nothing for the rest of the community. Edward was now a young man of twenty, hot-tempered and impatient of control, but keen-sighted enough to know, what his father had never known, that the royal power would be increased if it could establish itself in the affections of the classes whose interests were antagonistic to those of the barons. He therefore declared that he had sworn to the Provisions, and would keep his oath ; but that if the barons did not fulfil their own pro- mises, he would join the community in compelling them to do so. The warning was effectual, and the barons issued orders for the redress of the grievances of those who had found so high a patron. 19. The Breach amongst the Barons. 1259 — 1261. —Simon had no wish to be involved in a purely baronial policy. He had already fallen out with Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, the leader of the barons who had resisted the full execution of the promises made at Oxford in the interest of the people at large. 200 HENRY III. 1261-1264 “ With such fickle and faithless men,” said Simon to him, “ I care not to have ought to do. The things we are treating of now we have sworn to carry out. And thou, Sir Earl, the higher thou art the more art thou bound to keep such statutes as are wholes some for the land.” The king fomented the rising quarrel, and in 1261 announced that the Pope had declared the Provisions to be null and void, and had released him from his oath to observe them. 20. Royalist Reaction and Civil War. 1261. — Henry now ruled again in his own fashion. Even the Earl of Gloucester discovered that if the king was to be resisted it must be by an appeal to a body of men more numerous than the barons alone. He joined Simon in inviting a Parliament to meet, at which three knights should appear for each county, thus throwing over the unfortunate narrowing of Parliament to a baronial committee of twelve, which had been the worst blot on the Provisions of Oxford. In the summer of 1262 the Earl of Gloucester died, and was suc- ceeded by his son, Earl Gilbert, one of Simon’s warmest personal admirers. In 1263 Simon, now the acknowledged head of the barons and of the nation, finding that the king could not be brought to keep the Provisions, took arms against him. He was a master in the art of war, and gained one fortified post after another. Henry, being, as usual, short of money, called on the Londoners for a loan. On their refusal Edward seized a sum of money which belonged to them, and so exasperated them that, on the queen’s passing under London Bridge, the citizens reviled hei and pelted her with stones. The war was carried on with doubtful results, and by the end of the year both parties agreed to submit to the arbitration of the king of France. 21. The Mise of Amiens. 1264. — The king of France Louis IX., afterwards known as St. Louis, was the justest and most unselfish of men. In 1259 he had surrendered to Henry a considera- ble amount of territory in France, which Henry had been unable to re-conquer for himself ; and was well satisfied to obtain from Henry in return a formal renunciation of the remainder of the lands which Philip II. had taken from John. Yet, well-intentioned as Louis was, he had no knowledge of England, and in France, where the feudal nobility was still excessively tyrannical, justice was only to be obtained by the maintenance of a strong royal power. He therefore thought that what was good for France was also good for England, and in the beginning of 1264 he relieved Henry from all the restrictions which his subjects had sought to place upon THE BARONS' PVARS 201 1264-1265 him. The decision thus taken was known as the Mise, or settlement, of Amiens, from the place at which it was issued. 22. The Battle of Lewes. 1264.— The Mise of Amiens re- quired an unconditional surrender of England to the king. The Londoners and the trading towns were the first to reject it. Simon put himself at the head of a united army of barons and citizens. In the early morning of May 14 he caught the king’s army half asleep at Lewes. Edward charged at the Londoners, against whom he bore a grudge since they had ill-treated his mother, and cleared them off the field with enormous slaughter. When he returned the battle was lost. Henry himself was captured, and Richard, king of the Romans, was found hiding in a windmill. Edward, in spite of his success, had to give himself up as a prisoner. A fight between armed and mounted knights of the timie of Henry III, 23. Earl Simon’s Government. 1264 — 1265. — Simon followed up his victory by an agreement called the Mise of Lewes, according to which all matters of dispute were again to be referred to arbitration. In the meantime there were to be three Electors, Earl Simon himself, the Earl of Gloucester, and the Bishop of Chichester. These were to elect nine councillors, who were to name the ministers of state. To keep these councillors within bounds a Parliament was called, in which with the barons, bishops, and abbots there sat not only chosen knights for each shire, but also for the first time two representatives of certain towns. This Parliament met in 1265. It was not, indeed, a full parliament, as only Simon’s partisans amongst the barons were summoned. 202 HENRY in. 1265 but it was the fullest representation of England as a whole which had yet met, and not a merely baronial committee like that pro- posed in 1258. The views of Simon were clearly indicated in an argumentative Latin poem written after the battle of Lewes by one of his supporters. In this poem the king’s claim to do as he likes with his own is met by a demand that he shall rule according to law. Such a demand was made by others than the poet. “ The king,” a great lawyer of the day had said, “ is not subject to any mans but to God and the law.” The difficulty still remained of Seal of Robert Fitzwalter, showing a mounted knight in complete mail armour. Date, about 1265. ascertaining what the law was. The poet did not, indeed, anticipate modem theories, and hold that the law was what the representatives of the people made it to be ; but he held that the law consisted in the old customs, and that the people themselves must be appealed to as the witnesses of what those old customs were. “ Therefore,” he wrote, “ let the community of the kingdom advise, and let it be known what the generality thinks, to whom their own laws are best known. Nor are all those of the country so igno- rant that they do not know better than strangers the customs of their own kingdom which have been handed down to them by THE OVERTHROW OF EARL SIMON 203 1265 their ancestors.’’ * The poet, in short, regarded the Parliament as a national jury, whose duty it was to give evidence on the laws and cus- toms of the nation, in the same way that a local jury gave evidence on local matters. 24. The Battle of Evesham. 1265. — Simon’s constitution was premature. Men wanted a patriotic king who could lead the nation in- stead of one who, like Henry, used it for his own ends. The new rulers were sure to quarrel with one another. If Simon was still Simon the Righteous, his sons acted tyran- nically. The barons began again to distrust Simon himself, and the young Earl of Gloucester, like his father before him, put himself at the head of the dissatisfied barons, and went over to the king. Edward escaped from confinement, by urging his keepers to ride races with one another, and then galloping off when their horses were too tired to follow him. Edward and Gloucester com- bined forces, and, falling on Earl Simon at Evesham, defeated him utterly. Simon was slain in the fight and his body barbarously mu- tilated ; but his memory was trea- sured, and he was counted as a saint by the people for whom he had worked. Verses have been pre- served in which he is compared to ^ ‘ ‘ Igitur communitas regni consulatur ; Et quid universitas sentiat, sciatur, Cui leges propriae maxime sunt notae. Nec cuncli provinciae sic sunt idiotae, Quin sciant plus caeteris regni sui mores, Qucs relinquunt posteris hii qui sunt priores.” Effigy of a knight at Gosperton, showing armour worn from about 1250 to 1300. Date, about 1270 204 mmy ///. 1265-1272 Archbishop Thomas, who had given himself as a sacrifice for the Church, as Simon had given himself as a sacrifice for the nation. 25. The Last Years of Henry III. 1265—1272. — The storm which had been raised was some time in calming down. Some of Earl Simon’s followers continued to hold out against the king. When at last they submitted, they were treated leniently, and in 1267, at a Parliament at Marlborough, a statute was enacted embodying most of the demands for the redress of grievances made by the earlier reformers. The kingdom settled down in peace, be- Building operations in the reign of Henry III., with the king giving directions to the architect cause Henry now allowed Edward to be the realhead of the govern- ment. Edward, in short, carried on Earl Simon’s work in ruling justly, with the advantage of being raised above jealousies by his position as heir to the throne. In 1270 England was so peaceful that Edward could embark on a crusade. At Acre he very nearly fell a victim to a fanatic belonging to a body which counted assassi- nation a religious duty. His wife, Eleanor of Castile, who was tenderly attached to him, had to be led out of his tent, lest her bitter grief should distract him during an operation which the surgeons held to be necessary. In 1272 Henry III. died, and T272 DAYS OF HENRY ITT £ast end of Westminster Abbey Church ; begun by Henry Ul- m 1245. HENRY IIL *272 ms son, though m a distant land, was quietly accepted as his successor. Nave of Salisbury Cathedial Church, looking west. Date, between 1240 and 1250. 26. General Progress of the Country. — In spite of the turmoils of Henry’s reign the country made progress in many ways. Men busied themselves with replacing the old round-arched churches by 1216-1272 architecture and language 209 large and more beautiful ones, in that Early English style of which Lincoln Cathedral was the first example on a large scale. In 1220 it was followed by Beverley Minster (see p. 189). The nave of Salisbury Cathedral was begun in 1240 (see p. 206), and a new Westminster Abbey grew piecemeal under Henry’s own supervision during the greater part of the reign (see p. 205). Mental activity accompanied material activity. At Oxford there were reckoned 1 5,000 scholars. Most remarkable was the new departure taken by Walter de Merton, Henry’s Chancellor. Hitherto each scholar had shifted for himself, lived where he could, and been subjected to little or no discipline. In founding Merton College, the first college which existed in the University, Merton proposed not only to erect a building in which the lads who studied might be boarded and placed under supervision, but to train them with a view to learning for its own sake, and not to prepare them for the priesthood. The eagerness to learn things difficult was accompanied by a desire to increase popular knowledge. For the first time since the Chronicle came to an end, which was soon after the accession of Henry II., a book — Layamon’s Brut — appeared in the reign of John in the English language, and one at least of the songs which witness to the interest of the people in the great struggle with Henry III. was also written in the same language. Yet the great achievement of the fifty-six years of Henry’s reign was — to use the language of the smith who refused to put fetters on the limbs of Hubert de Burgh (see p. 188) — the giving of England back to the English A king and labourers In the reign of Henry III. 208 HENRY III. 1216-1272 In 1216 it was possible for Englishmen to prefer a French-bom Louis as their king to an Angevin John. In 1272 England was indeed divided by class prejudices and conflicting interests, but it was nationally one. The greatest grievance suffered from Henry III. was his preference of foreigners over his own countrymen. In resistance to foreigners Englishmen had been welded together into a nation, and in their new king Edward they found a leader who would not only prove a wise and thoughtful ruler, but who was every inch an Englishman. Genealogy o/yohns Sons and Grandsons. John, 1199-1216 Henry III. = Eleanor of Richard, Eleanor=Simon de Mont- 1216-1272 I Provence Earl of Cornwall fort I and King of the Romans Edward I. Edmund, titular King of Sicily 1272-1307 CHAPTER XIV EDWARD I. AND EDWARD II. EDWARD I., 1272—1307. EDWARD II., I307— 1327 LEADING DATES Accession of Edward 1 1272 Death of Alexander III 1285 The Award of Norham 1292 The Model Parliament 1295 The First Conquest of Scotland 1296 Confirmatio Cartarum 1297 Completion of the Second Conquest of Scotland . . 1304 The Incorporation of Scotland with England . . . 1305 The Third Conquest of Scotland 1306 Accession of Edward II. ... .... 1307 Execution of Gaveston . 1312 Battle of Bannockburn 13x4 Execution of Lancaster 1322 Deposition of Edward II X327 I. The First Years of Edward I. 1272—1279 — Edward I., though he inherited the crown in 1272, did not return to England till 1274, being able to move in a leisurely fashion across Europe without fear of disturbances at home. He fully accepted those articles of John’s EDWARD AS A LEGISLATOR 209 1274 Great Charter which had been set aside at the beginning of the reign of Henry III., and which required that the king should only take scutages and aids with the consent of the Great Council or Parliament. The further requirement of the barons that they should name the ministers of the crown, was allowed to fall asleep. Edward was a capable ruler, and knew how to appoint better ministers than the barons were likely to choose for him. Great Seal of Edward I. It was Edward’s peculiar merit that he stood forward not only as a ruler but as a legislator. He succeeded in passing one law after another, because he thoroughly understood that useful legislation is only possible when the legislator on the one hand has an intelligent perception of the remedies needed to meet existing evils, and on the other hand is willing to content himself with such remedies as those who are to be benefited by them are p 210 EDWARD I. 1276-1284 ready to accept. The first condition was fulfilled by Edward’s own skill as a lawyer, and by the skill of the great lawyers whom he employed. The second condition was fulfilled by his determination to authorise no new legislation without the counsel and consent of those who were most affected by it. He did not, indeed, till late in his reign call a whole Parliament together, as Earl Simon had done. But he calle d the barons together in any matter which affected the barons, and he called the representatives of the townsmen together in any matter which affected the townsmen, and so on with the other classes. 2. Edward I. and Wales. 1276 — 1284. — Outside England Edward’s first difficulty was with the Welsh, who, though their Princes had long been regarded by the English Kings as vassals, had practically maintained their independence in the mountainous region of North Wales of which Snowdon is the centre. Between them and the English Lords Marchers, who had been established to keep order in the marches, or border-land, there was nothing but hostility. The Welshmen made forays and plundered the English lands, and the English retorted by slaughtering Welshmen whenever they could come up with them amongst the hills. Naturally the Welsh took the side of any enemy of the English kings with whom it was possible to ally themselves. Llewelyn, Prince of Wales, had joined Earl Simon against Henry HI., and had only done homage to Henry after Simon had been defeated. After Henry’s death he refused homage to Edward till 1276. In 1282 he and his brother David renewed the war, and Edward, determined to put an end to the independence of such troublesome neighbours, marched against them. Before the end of the year Llewelyn was slain, and David was captured and executed in 1283. Wales then came fully under the dominion of the English kings. Edward’s second son, after- wards King Edward II., was born at Carnarvon in 1284, and soon afterwards, havingbecome heir to the throne upon the death of his elder brother, was presented to the Welsh as Prince of Wales, a title from that day usually bestowed upon the king’s eldest son. At the same time, though Edward built strong castles at Conway and Carnarvon to hold the Welsh in awe, he made submission easier by enacting suitable laws for them, under the name of the Statute of Wales, and by establishing a separate body of local officials to govern them, as well as by confirming them in the possession of their lands and goods. 3. Customs Duties. 1275. — Though Edward I. was by no means extravagant, he found it impossible to meet the expenses of govern- 1275 THE ENGLISH WOOL TRADE 211 merit without an increase of taxation. In 1275 he obtained the consent of Parliament to the increase of the duties on exports and imports which had hitherto been levied without Parliamentary sanction. He was now to receive by a Parliamentary grant a fixed export duty of 6i“. %d. on every sack of wool sent out of the country, and of a corresponding duty on wool-fells and leather. Under ordinary circumstances it is useless for any government to attempt to gain a revenue by export duty, because such a duty only raises the price abroad of the products of its own country, and foreigners will therefore prefer to buy the articles which they need from some country which does not levy export duties, and where, therefore, the articles are to be had more cheaply. England, however, was, in Edward’s time, and for many years afterwards, an exception to the rule. On the Continent men could not pro- duce much wool or leather for sale, be- cause private wars were constantly oc- curring, and the fighting men were in the habit of driving off the sheep and the cattle. In England there were no private and cattle could be bred in safety. There were now growing up manufactures of cloth in the fortified towns of Flanders, and the manufacturers there were obliged to come to England for the greater part of the wool which they used. They could not help paying not only the price of the wool, but the king’s export duty as well, because if they refused they could not get sufficient wool in any other country. wars, and under the king’s protection sheep 212 EDWARD I. 1279-1290 4. Edward’s Judicial Reforms. 1274 — 1290. — Every king of England since the Norman Conquest had exercised authority in a twofold capacity. On one hand he was the head of the nation, on the other hand he was the feudal lord of his vassals. Edward laid more stress than any former king upon his national headship. Early in his reign he organised the courts of law, completing the division of the Curia Regis into the three courts which existed till recent times : the Court of King’s Bench, to deal with criminal offences reserved for the king’s judgment, and with suits in which he was himself concerned ; the Court of Exchequer, to deal with all matters touching the king’s revenue ; and the Court of Common Pleas, to deal with suits between subject and subject. Edward took care that the justice administered in these courts should as far as possible be real justice, and in 1289 he dismissed two Chief Justices and many other officials for corruption. In 1285 he improved the Assize of Arms of Henry II. (see p. 154), so as to be more sure of securing a national support for his government in time of danger. 5. Edward’s Legislation. 1279 — 1290. — It was in accordance with the national feeling that Edward, in 1290, banished from England the Jews, whose presence was most profitable to him- self, but who were regarded as cruel tyrants by their debtors. On the other hand, Edward took care to assert his rights as a feudal lord. In 1279, by the statute De religiosis^ commonly known as the Statute of Mortmain, he forbade the gift of land to the clergy', because in their hands land was no longer liable to the feudal dues. In 1290, by another statute. Quia emptores, he forbade all new sub-infeudation. If from henceforth a vassal wished to part with his land, the new tenant was to hold it, not under the vassal who gave it up, but under that vassal’s lord, whether the lord was the king or anyone else. The object of this law was to increase the number of tenants-in-chief, and thus to bring a larger number of land-o^vners into direct relations with the king. 6. Edward as a National and as a Feudal Ruler. — In his govern- ment of England Edward had sought chiefly to strengthen his position as the national king of the whole people, and to depress legally and without violence the power of the feudal nobility. He was, however, ambitious, with the ambition of a man conscious of great and beneficent aims, and he was quite ready to enforce even unduly his personal claims to feudal obedience whenever it served his purpose to do so. His favourite motto, ‘ Keep troth ’ {Pactum serzm), revealed his sense of the inviolability of a personal engage- ment given or received, but his’ legal mind often led him into 213 1276-1290 NATIONALITY AND FEUDALITY construing in his own favour engagements in which only the letter of the law was on his side, whilst its spirit was against him. It was chiefly in his relations with foreign peoples that he fell into Nave ot Lichfield Cathedral, looking east. Built about 1280. 214 BDWARD /. 12S5-1290 this error, as it was here that he was most strongly tempted to lay stress upon the feudal tie which made for him, and to ignore the importance of a national resistance which made against him. In dealing with Wales, for instance, he sent David to a cruel death, because he had broken the feudal tie which bound him to the king of England, feeling no sympathy with him as standing up for the independence of his own people. 7. The Scottish Succession. 1285 — 1290. — In the earlier part of Edward’s reign Alexander III. was king of Scotland. Alex- ander’s ancestors, indeed, had done homage to Edward’s ancestors, but in 1189 William the Lion had purchased from Richard I. the abandonment of all the claim to homage for the crown of Scotland which Henry II. had acquired by the treaty of Falaise (see pp. 1 54, 1 59). William’s successors, however, held lands in England, and had done homage for them to the English kings. Edward would gladly have restored the old practice of homage for Scotland itself, but to this Alexander had never given way. To Edward there was something alluring in the prospect of being lord of the whole island, as it would not only strengthen his own personal posi- tion, but would bring twO nations into peaceful union. Between the southern part of Scotland, indeed, and the northern part of England there was no great dissimilarity. On both sides of the border the bulk of the population was of the same Anglian stock, whilst, in consequence of the welcome offered by the Scottish kings to persons of Norman descent, the nobility was as completely Norman in Scotland as it was in England, many of the nobles indeed possessing lands on both sides of the border. A prospect of effecting a union by peaceful means offered itself to Edward in 1285, when Alexander III. was killed by a fall from his horse near Kinghorn. Alexander’s only descendant was Margaret, a child of his daughter and of King Eric of Norway. In 1290 it was agreed that she should marry the Prince of Wales, but that the two kingdoms should remain absolutely independent of one another. Unfortunately, the Maid of Norway, as the child was called, died on her way to Scotland, and this plan for establishing friendly relations between the two countries came to naught. If it had succeeded three centuries of war and misery might possibly have been avoided. 8. Death of Eleanor of Castile. 1290. — Another death, which happened in the same year, brought sorrow into Edward’s domestic life. His wife Eleanor died in November. The corpse was brought for burial from Lincoln to Westminster, and the 1291 J DISPUTED CP own 2*5 bereaved husband ordered the erection of a memorial cross at each place where the body rested. 9. The Award of Norham. 1291 — 1292, — Edward, sorrow- ing as he was, was unable to neglect the affairs of State. On the death of the Maid of Norway there was a large num- ber of claimants to the Scottish crown. The hereditary prin- ciple, which had long before been adopted in regard to the succession to landed property, was gradually being adopted in most kingdoms in regard to the succession to the crown There were still, however, differences of opinion as to the manner in which heredi- tary succession ought to be reckoned, and there were now many claimants, of whom at least three could make out a plausible case. David, Earl of Huntingdon, a brother of Wil- liam the Lion, had left three daughters. The grandson of the eldest daughter was John Balliol ; the son of the second was Robert Bruce ; the grand- son of the third was John Hast- ings. Balliol maintained that he ought to succeed as being descended from the eldest : Bruce urged that the son of a younger daughter was nearer to the common ancestor, David, than the grandson of the elder : whilst Hastings asked that Scotland should be divided Effigy of Eleanor of Castile, queen of Edward I., in Westminster Abbey. 2i6 S.DWARD /. 1291-1293 into three parts — according to a custom which prevailed in feudal estates in which the holder left only daughters — amongst the repre- sentatives of David’s three daughters.’ Every one of these three claimaints was an English baron, and Bruce held large estates in both countries. The only escape from a desolating civil war seemed to be to appeal to Edward’s arbitration, and in 1291 Edward sum- moned the Scots to meet him at Norham. He then demanded as the price of his arbitration the acknowledgment of his position as lord paramount of Scotland, in virtue of which the Scottish king, when he had once been chosen, was to do homage to himself as king of England. Edward, who might fairly have held that, in spite of the abandonment of the treaty of Falaise by Richard, he had a right to the old vague overlordship of earlier kings, appears to have thought it right to take the opportunity of Scotland’s weakness to renew the stricter relationship of homage which had been given up by Richard. At all events, the Scottish nobles and clergy accepted his demand, though the commonalty made some objection, the nature of which has not been recorded. Edward then investigated carefully the points at issue, and in 1292 decided in favour of Balliol. If he had been actuated by selfish motives he would certainly have adopted the suggestion of Hastings that Scotland ought to be divided into three kingdoms. 10. Disputes with Scotland and France. 1293 — 1295. — The new king of Scotland did homage to Edward for his whole kingdom. If Edward could have contented himself with enforcing the ordinary obligations of feudal superiority all might have gone well. Unfor- tunately for all parties, he attempted to stretch them by insisting in 1293 that appeals from the courts of the king of Scotland should lie ’ Genealogy of the claimants of the Scottish throne William THE Lion 1165-1214 David, Earl of Huntingdon Margaret m, Alan, Lord of Galloway Ada fn. Henry Hastings Margaret m. Eric, king of Norway Margaret, The Maid of Norway Margaret nt. John, the Black Comyn Robert Bruce Hastings I John Robert Bruce Hastings, 1306 13^9 til® AN ElEANOk CROSS 217 Cross erected near Northampton by Edward I. in memory of Queen Eleanor ; built between 1291 and 1294. EDWARD I. 1293-1^5 ?t8 to the courts of the king of England. Suitors found that their rights could not be ascertained till they had undertaken a long and costly journey to Westminster. A national feeling of resistance was roused amongst the Scots, and though Edward pressed his claims courteously, he continued to press them. A temper grew up in Scotland which might be dangerous to him if Scotland could find an ally, and an ally was not long in presenting himself. Philip IV. now king of France, was as wily and unscrupulous as Philip II. had been in the days of John. Edward was his vassal in Guienne and Gascony, and Philip knew how to turn the feudal relation- ship to account in France as well as Edward knew how to turn it to account in Scotland. The Cinque Ports* along the south-eastern shore of England swarmed with hardy and practised mariners, and there had often been sea-fights between French and English sailors quite independently of the two kings. In 1293 there was a great battle in which the French were worsted. Though Edward was ready to punish the offenders, Philip summoned him to appear as a vassal before his lord’s court at Paris. In 1294, however, an agreement was made between the two kings. Edward was for mere form’s sake to surrender his French fortresses to Philip in token of submission, and Philip was then to return them. Philip, having thus got the fortresses into his hands, refused to return them. In 1295 a league was made betw^een France and Scotland, which lasted for more than three hundred years. Its permanence was owing to the fact that it was a league between nations more than a league between kings. II. The Model Parliament 1295. — Edward, attacked on two sides, threw himself for support on the English nation. Towards the end of 1295 he summoned a Parliament which was in most respects the model for all succeeding Parliaments. It was attended not only by bishops, abbots, earls, and barons, by tw’o knights from every shire, and two burgesses from every borough, but also by representa- tives of the chapters of cathedrals and of the parochial clergy. It can- not be said with any approach to certainty, w’hether the Parliament thus collected met in one House or not. As, how-ever, the barons and knights offered an eleventh of the value of their movable goods, the clergy a tenth, and the burgesses a seventh, it is not unlikely that there was a separation into what in modem times would be called three Houses, at least for purposes of taxation. At all events, * Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney, Hastings ; to which were added VVinchelsea and Rye as 'ancient towns,’ besides several ‘limbs’ or depen- dencies. 1296 219 JOHN BALLIOL DEPOSED the representatives of the clergy subsequently refused to sit in Parliament, preferring to vote money to the Crown in their own convocations. 12. The first Conquest of Scotland. 1296. — In 1296 Ed- ward turned first upon Scotland. After he crossed the border Balliol sent to him renouncing his homage. “ Has the felon fool done such folly ? ” said Ed- ward. “ If he will not come to us, we will go to him.” He won a decisive victory over the Scots at Dunbar. Balliol surrendered his crown, and was carried off, never to reappear in Scotland. Edward set up no more vassal kings. He declared himself to be the immediate king of Scot- land, Balliol having forfeited the crown by treason. The Scottish nobles did homage to him. On his return to England he left behind him the Earl of Surrey and Sir Hugh Cressingham as guardians of the kingdom, and he carried off from Scone the stone of destiny on which the Scottish kings had been crowned, and concerning which there had been an old prophecy to the effect that wherever that stone was Scottish kings should rule. The stone was placed, where it still remains, under the coro- nation-chair of the English kings in Westminster Abbey, and there were those long after- wards who deemed the prophecy fulfilled when the Scottish King Sir John d’Abernoun, died 1277 : from his brass at Stoke Dabernon : showing armour worn from about 1250 to 1300. 220 EDWARD AND THE CLERGY 1296-1297 James VI. came to take his seat on that chair as James I. of England. 13. The Resistance of Archbishop Winchelsey. 1296 — 1297. — The dispute with France and the conquest of Scotland cost much money, and Edward, finding his ordinary revenue insufficient, had been driven to increase it by unusual means. He gathered as- semblies of the merchants, and persuaded them without the leave of Parliament to increase the export duties, and he also induced the clergy in the same way to grant him large sums. The clergy were the first to resist, In 1296 Boniface VIII., a Pope who pushed to the extreme the Papal claims to the independence of the Church, issued the Bull, Clericis laicos^ in which he declared that the clergy were not to pay taxes without the Pope’s consent; and when at the end of the year Edward called on his Parliament to grant him fresh sums, Winchelsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, refused, on the ground of this Bull, to allow a penny to be levied from the clergy. Edward, instead of arguing with him, directed the chief justice of the King’s Bench to announce that, as the clergy would pay no taxes, they would no longer be protected by the king. The clergy now found themselves in evil case. Anyone who pleased could rob them or beat them, and no redress was to be had. They soon therefore evaded their obligation to obey the Bull, and paid their taxes, under the pretence that they were making presents to the king, on which Edward again opened his courts to them. In the days of Henry I. or Henry II. it would not have been possible to treat the clergy in this fashion. The fact was, that the mass of the people now looked to the king instead of to the Church for protection, and therefore respected the clergy less than they had done in earlier days. 14. The ‘ Confirmatio Cartarum.’ 1297. — In 1297 Edward, having subdued the Scots in the preceding year, resolved to conduct one army to Flanders, and to send another to Gascony to maintain his rights against Philip IV. He therefore called on his barons to take part in these enterprises. Amongst those ordered to go to Gascony were Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and Humfrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford. They declared that they were only bound to follow the king himself, and that as Edward was not going in person to Gascony they would not go. “ By God, Sir Earl,” said the king to one of them, “ you shall either go or hang.” “ By God,” was the reply, “ I will neither go nor hang.” The two earls soon found support. The barons were sore because Edward’s reforms had diminished their authority. The clergy were sore because of their recent treatment. The merchants were sore because of the exac- WILLIAM WALLACE 221 1297-1298 tions to which they had been subjected. Archbishop Winchelsey bound the malcontents together by asking Edward to confirm Magna Carta and other charters granted by his predecessors, and by adding other articles now proposed for the first time, so as to preclude him from demanding taxes not granted by Parliament. Edward found that the new articles restricted his action more than it had been restricted by the older charters. He was deeply vexed, as he thought that he deserved to be trusted, and that, though he had exacted illegal payments, he had only done so out of necessity. He saw, however, that he must yield, but he could not bring himself to yield in person, and he therefore crossed the sea to Flanders, leaving the Prince of Wales to make the required concession. On October 10, 1297, the Confinnatio Cartarum^ as it was called, was issued in the king’s name. It differed from Magna Carta in this, that whereas John had only engaged not to exact feudal revenue from his vassals without consent of Parliament, Edward I. also engaged not to exact customs duties without a Parliamentary grant. From that time no general revenue could be taken from the whole realm without a breach of the law, though the king still continued for some time to raise tallages, or special payments, from the tenants of his own demesne lands. 15. Wallace’s Rising. 1297 — 1304. — Whilst Edward was con- tending with his own people his officers had been oppressing the Scots. They had treated Scotland as a conquered land, not as a country joined to England by equal union. Resistance began in 1297, and a rising was headed by Wallace, a gentle- man of moderate fortune in the western lowlands. Wallace’s bold and vigorous attacks gained him the confidence of the lesser gentry and the people, though the nobles, mostly of Norman descent, supported the English government, and only joined Wal- lace when it was dangerous to stand aloof. In the autumn, an English army advancing into Scotland reached the south bank of the Forth near Stirling. Wallace, who showed on that day that he was skilful as well as brave, drew up his army on the north bank at some little distance from the narrow bridge over which the English must come if they were to attack him. When half of them had crossed, he fell upon that half before the troops in the rear could advance to its succour. Wallace’s victory was complete, and he then invaded England, ravaging and slaughtering as far as Hexham. 16. The Second Conquest of Scotland. 1298 — 1304. — In 1298 Edward, who had been unsuccessful on the Continent, made a truce with Philip. Returning to England, he marched against Wallace, 222 EDWARD I. 1298-1305 and came up with him at Falkirk. The battle which ensued, like William’s victory at Senlac (see p. 96), was a triumph of inven- tive military skill over valour content to rest upon ancient methods. The Scots were hardy footmen, drawn up in three rings, and pro- vided with long spears. Against such a force so armed the cavalry of the feudal array would dash itself in vain. Edward, however, had marked in his Welsh wars the superiority of the long-bow drawn to the ear — not, as in the case of the shorter bows of older times, to the breast of the archer — and sending its cloth-yard shaft with a strength and swiftness hitherto unknown. He now brought with him a large force of bowmen equipped in this fashion. At Falkirk the long-bow was tried for the first time in any considerable battle. The effect was overwhelming : a shower of arrows poured upon a single point in the ring of the spearmen soon cleared a gap. Edward’s cavalry dashed in before the enemy had time to close, and the victory was won. Wallace had had scarcely one of the Scottish nobles with him either at Stirling or at Falkirk, and unless all Scotland combined he could hardly be expected to succeed against such a warrior as Edward. Wallace’s merit was that he did not despair of his country, and that by his patriotic vigour he prepared the minds of Scotsmen for a happier day. He himself fled to France, but Scotland struggled on without him. Some of the nobles, now that Wallace was no longer present to give them cause of jealousy, took part in the resistance, and only in 1304 did Edward after repeated campaigns complete his second conquest of the country. 17. The Incorporation of Scotland with England. 1305. — In 1305 Wallace, who had returned from France, but had taken no great part in the late resistance, was betrayed to the English. His barbarity in his raid on Northumberland in 1297 (see p. 221) had marked him out for vengeance, and he was executed at Tyburn as a traitor to the English king of Scotland, whose right he had never acknowledged. Edward then proceeded to incorporate Scot- land with England. Scotland was to be treated very much as Wales had been treated before. There was to be as little harsh- ness as possible. Nobles who had resisted Edward were to keep their estates on payment of fines, the Scottish law was to be observed, and Scots were to be chosen to represent the wishes of their fellow-countrymen in the Parliament at Westminster. On the other hand, the Scottish nobles were to surrender their castles, and the country was to be governed by an English Lieutenant, who, together with his council, had power to amend the laws. 18. Character of Edward’s Dealings with Scotland. — Edward’s EDWARD /. AND SCOTLAND. 223 1305-1306 dealings with Scotland, mistaken as they were, were not those of a self-willed tyrant. If it be once admitted that he was really the lord paramount of Scotland, everything that he did may be justified upon feudal principles. First, Balliol forfeited his vassal crown by breaking his obligations as a vassal. Secondly, Edward, through the default of his vassal, took possession of the fief which Balliol had forfeited, and thus became the immediate lord of Balliors vassals. Thirdly, those vassals rebelled — so at least Edward would have said — against their new lord. Fourthly, they thereby forfeited their estates to him, and he was therefore, according to his own view, in the right in restoring their estates to them — if he restored them at all — under new conditions. Satisfactory as this argument must have seemed to Edward, it was weak in two places. The Scots might attack it at its basis by retorting that Edward had never truly been lord paramount of Scotland at all ; or they might assert that it did not matter whether he was so or not, because the Scottish right to national independence was superior to all feudal claims. It is this latter argument which has the most weight at the present day, and it seems to us strange that Edward, who had done so much to encourage the national growth of England, should have entirely ignored the national growth of Scotland. All that can be said to palliate Edward’s mistake is that it was, at first, difficult to perceive that there was a Scottish nationality at all. Changes in the political aspect of affairs grow up unobserved, and it was not till after his death that all classes in Scotland were completely welded together in resistance to an English king. At all events, if he treated the claim of the Scots to national independence with contempt, he at least strove, according to his own notions, to benefit Scots and English alike. He hoped that one nation, justly ruled under one government, would grow up in the place of two divided peoples. 19. Robert Bruce. 1306. — It was better even for England that Edward’s hopes should fail. Scotland would have been of little worth to its more powerful neighbour if it had been cowed into subjection ; whereas when, after struggling and suffering for her independence, she offered herself freely as the companion and ally of England to share in common duties and common efforts, the gift was priceless. That Scotland was able to shake off the English yoke was mainly the work of Robert Bruce, the grandson of the Robert Bruce who had been one of the claimants of the Scottish crown at Norham. The Bruces, like Balliol, were of Norman descent, and as Balliol’s rivals they had attached them- selves to Edward. The time was now come when all chances of 224 EDWARD I. 1306-1307 Balliol’s restoration were at an end, and thoughts of gaining the crown stirred in the mind of the younger Bruce. After Edward’s last settlement of Scotland it was plain that there was no longer room for a Scottish vassal king, and Bruce was therefore driven to connect his own aspirations with those of the Scottish nation. He had, however, one powerful rival amongst the nobles. John Comyn — the Red Comyn, as he was called — had been one of the many claimants of the throne who appeared before Edward at Norham, and he still looked with a jealous eye upon all who disputed his title. He was, however, persuaded in 1306 to meet Bruce in the Grey Friars Church at Dumfries. As Bruce pleaded his own right to the crown, Comyn denounced him as a traitor to Edward. Bruce answered by driving his dagger into him. “ I doubt,” cried Bruce, as he rushed from the church, “ that I have slain the Red Comyn.” “ I will mak sicker ” {make sure)^ said Kirkpatrick, who was in atten- dance upon him, and, going in, completed the murder. Bruce made for Scone and was crowned king of Scotland in the presence of many of the chief nobility. 20. Edward’s Last March on Scotland and Death. 1306 — 1307. Edward, to whom Bruce was but a rebel and a murderer, despatched against him the Earl of Pembroke who routed his forces at Methven. The revolt was suppressed and Bruce’s supporters were carried off to English prisons, and their lands divided amongst English noblemen. The Countess of Buchan, who had taken a prominent part in Bruce’s coronation, was subjected to an imprison- ment of great severity in the castle of Berwick. Bruce almost alone escaped. He knew now that he had the greater part of the nobility as well as the people at his side, and even in his lonely wanderings and hairbreadth escapes he was, what neither Balliol nor Wallace had been, the true head of the Scottish nation. Before the end of 1306 he reappeared in Carrick, where his own possessions lay, and where the whole population was on his side, and inflicted heavy losses on the English garrisons. Early in July 1307 Edward, who himself had tarried in Cumberland, once more set out to take the field in person ; but he was now old and worn out, and he died at Burgh on Sands, a few miles on the English side of the border. 21. Edward II. and Piers Gaveston. 1307 — 1312. — The new king, Edward II., was as different as possible from his father. He was not wicked, like William II. and John, but he detested the trouble of public business, and thought that the only advantage of being a king was that he would have leisure to amuse himself. During his father’s life he devoted himself to Piers Gaveston, a 1307-1310 PIERS GAVESTON 225 Gascon, who encouraged him in his pleasures and taught him to mistrust his father. Edward I. banished Gaveston ; Edward IL, im- mediately on his accession, not only recalled him, but made him regent when he himself crossed to France to be married to Isabella, the daughter of Philip IV. The barons, who were already in- clined to win back some of the authority of which Ed- ward I. had deprived them, were very angry at the place taken over their heads by an upstart favourite, especially as Gaveston was ill-bred enough to make jests at their expense. The barons found a leader in Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the son of that Edmund, the brother of Ed- ward I., who had received the title of king of Sicily from the Pope (see p. 197). Thomas of Lancaster had very large estates. He was an ambitious man, who tried to play the part which had been played by Earl Simon without any of Simon’s qualifications for the position. In 1308 the king yielded to the barons so far as to send Gaveston out of the country to Ireland as his Lieutenant. In 1309 he recalled him. The barons were exasperated, and in the Parliament of 1310 they brought forward a plan for Edward II. ; from his monument in Gloucester Cathedral. 9 226 EDWARD II. 1310-1314 taking the king’s government out of his hands, very much after the fashion of the Provisions of Oxford. Twenty-one barons were ap- pointed Lords Ordainers, to draw up ordinances for the govern- ment of the country. In 1311 they produced the ordinances. Gaveston was to be banished for life. The king was to appoint officers only with the consent of the barons, without which he was not to go to war nor leave the kingdom. The ordinances may have been justified in so far as they restrained the authority of a king so incapable as Edward II. Constitutionally their acceptance was a retrograde step, as, like the Provisions of Oxford, they placed power in the hands of the barons, passing over Parliament as a whole. Edward agreed to the ordinances, but refused to surrender Gaveston. The barons took arms to enforce their will, and in 1312, having captured Gaveston, they beheaded him near Warwick with- out the semblance of a trial. 22. Success of Robert Bruce. 1307 — 1314. — Whilst Edward and the barons were disputing Bruce gained ground rapidly. In 1313 Stirling was the only fortress of importance in Scotland still garrisoned by the English, and the English garrison bound itself to surrender on June 24, 1314, if it had not been previously relieved. Even Edward II. was stirred by this doleful news, and in 1314 he put himself at the head of an army to relieve Stirling. Lancaster, how- ever, and all whom he could influence refused to follow him, on the ground that the king had not, in accordance with the ordinances, received permission from the barons to go to war. On June 24 Edward reached Bannockburn, within sight of Stirling. Like his father, he brought with him English archers as well as English horsemen, but he foolishly sent his archers far in advance of his horsemen, where they would be entirely unprotected. Bruce, on the other hand, not only had a small body of horse, which rode down the archers, but he strengthened the defensive position of his spearmen by digging pits in front of his line and covering them with turf. Into these pits the foremost horses of the English cavalry plunged. Edward’s whole array was soon one mass of confusion, and before it could recover itself a body of gillies, or camp-followers, appearing over a hill was taken for a fresh Scottish army. The vast English host turned and fled. Stirling at once surrendered, and all Scotland was lost to Edward. Materially, both England and Scotland suffered grievously from the result of the battle of Bannockburn. English invasions of southern Scotland and Scottish invasions of northern England spread desolation far and wide, stifling the germs of nascent civilisation. Morally, both nations were in the SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE 227 »3M end the gainers. The hardihood and self-reliance of the Scottish character is distinctly to be traced to those years of struggle against a powerful neighbour. England, too, was the better for being balked of its prey. No nation can suppress the liberty of another without endangering its own. 228 EDWARD II, 1314-1323 23. Lancaster’s Government. 1314 — 1322. — Edward was thrown by his defeat entirely under the power of Lancaster, who took the whole authority into his hands and placed and displaced ministers at his pleasure. Lancaster, however, was a selfish and incompetent ruler. He allowed the Scots to ravage the north of England with- out venturing to oppose them, and as he could not even keep order at home, private wars broke out amongst the barons. In 1318 Bruce took Berwick, the great border fortress against Scotland. It was rather by good luck than by good management that Edward was at last able to resist Lancaster. Edward could not exist without a per- sonal favourite, and he found one in Hugh le Despenser. Despenser was at least an Englishman, which Gaveston had not been, and his father, Hugh le Despenser the elder, did his best to raise up a party to support the king. In 1321, however. Parliament, under Lancaster’s influence, declared against them and sentenced them to exile. Edward took arms for his favourites, and in 1322 defeated Lancaster at Boroughbridge, and then had him tried and beheaded at Pontefract. 24. A Constitutional Settlement. 1322. — Favourites as they were, the Despensers had at least the merit of seeing that the king could not overpower the barons by the mere assertion of his personal authority. At a Parliament held at York in 1322, the king obtained the revocation of the ordinances, and a declaration that ‘ matters to be established for the estate of our lord the king and of his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and of the people, shall be treated, accorded, and established in Parliaments by our lord the king, and by the consent of the prelates, earls and barons, and commonalty of the realm, according as hath been hitherto accustomed.’ Edward I. had in 1295 gathered a full Parliament, in- cluding the commons. But there was no law to prevent him or his successors excluding the commons on some future occasion. Edward II. by this declaration, issued with consent of Parliament, confirmed his father’s practice by a legislative act. Unless the law were broken or repealed, no future statute could come into exist- ence without the consent of the commons. 25. The Rule of the Despensers. 1322—1326. — For some years after the execution of Lancaster, Edward, or rather the Despensers, retained power, but it was power which did not work for good. In 1323 Edward made a truce with Scotland, but the cessation of foreign war did not bring with it a cessation of troubles at home. Edward was entirely unable to control his favourites. The elder Despenser was covetous and the younger 1325-1327 DEPOSITION OP EDWARD II. 229 Despenser haughty, and they both made enemies for themselves and the king. Queen Isabella was alienated from her husband, partly by his exclu- sive devotion to the Despensers and partly by the contempt which an active woman is apt to feel for a husband without a will of his own. In 1325 she went to F ranee, and was soon followed by her eldest son, named Edward after his father. From that moment she conspired against her husband. In 1326 she landed, accompanied by her paramour, Robert Mortimer, and bringing with her foreign troops. The barons rose in her favour. London joined them, and all resistance was speedily beaten down. The elder Despenser was hanged by the queen at Bristol. The younger was hanged, after a form of trial, at Hereford. 26. The Deposition and Murder of Edward II. 1327. — Early in 1327 a Parliament met at Westminster. It was filled with the king’s enemies, and under pressure from the queen and Mortimer Edward 1 1, was com- pelled to sign a declaration of his own wrong-doing and incompetency, after which he formally resigned the crown. He was allowed to live for eight months, at the end of which he was brutally murdered in Berkeley Castle. The deposition of Edward II. — for his enforced resignation was practically nothing less than that— was the work of a faithless wife and of unscrupulous partisans, but at least they clothed their vengeance in the forms of Parlia- mentary action. It was by the action of Parliament in loosing the feudal ties by which vassals were bound to an Sir John de Creke ; from his brass at^ Westley Waterless, Cam- bridgeshire : showing armour worn between 1300 and 1335 or 1340. Date, about 1325. 230 BDIVARD //. 132 ^ unworthy king, that it rose to the full position of being the represen- tative of the nation, and at the same time virtually proclaimed that Howden Church, Yorkshire— the west front ; built about 1310-1320 The tower was built between 1390 and 1407. the wants of the nation must be satisfied at the expense of the feudal claims of the king. The national headship of the king would 1327-1336 MORTIMER AND ISABELLA 231 from henceforward be the distinguishing feature of his office, whilst his feudal right to personal service would grow less and less important every year. CHAPTER XV FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD III. TO THE TREATY OF BRETIGNI 1327—1360 LEADING DATES Reign of Edward III., 1327—1377 Accession of Edward III 1327 Beginning of ihe War with France 1337 Battle of Cre9y 1346 The Black Death 1348 Battle of Poitiers 1356 Treaty of Bretigni 1360 I. Mortimer’s Government. 1327—1330. — Edward III. was only fifteen at his accession. For three years power was in the hands of his mother’s paramour, Mortimer. Robert Bruce, though old and smitten with leprosy, was still anxious to wring from Eng- land an acknowledgment of Scottish independence, and, in spite of the existing truce, sent an army to ravage the northern counties of England. Edward led in person against it an English force far superior in numbers and equipment ; but the English soldier needed many things, whilst the Scot contented himself with a little oat- meal carried on the back of his hardy pony. If he grew tired of that he had but to seize an English sheep or cow and to boil the flesh in the hide. Such an army was difficult to come up with. Fighting there was none, except once when the Scots broke into the English camp at night and almost succeeded in carrying off the young king. Mortimer was at his wits’ end, and in 1328 agreed to a treaty acknowledging the complete independence of Scotland. It was a wise thing to do, but no nation likes to acknowledge failure, and Mortimer became widely unpopular. He succeeded indeed in breaking up a conspiracy against himself, and in 1330 even executed Edmund, Earl of Kent, a brother of Edward II. The discon- tented barons found another leader in the king, who, young as he was, had been married at fifteen to Philippa of Hainault. Though EDWARD lit 1328-13^2 he was already a father, he was still treated by Mortimer as a child, and was virtually kept a prisoner. At Nottingham he introduced a body of Mortimer’s enemies into the castle through a secret passage in the rock on which it stood. His mother pleaded in vain for her favourite : “ Fair son, have pity on the gentle Mortimer.” Mor- timer was hanged, and Queen Isabella was never again allowed to take part in public affairs. 2. The French Succession. 1328 — 1331. — Isabella’s three brothers, Louis X., Philip V., and Charles IV., had successively reigned in France. Louis X. died in 1316, leaving behind him a daughter and a posthumous son, who died a week after his birth. Then Philip V. seized the crown, his lawyers asserting that, accord- ing to the Salic law, ‘ no part of the heritage of Salic land can fall to a woman,’ and that therefore no woman could rule in France. As a matter of fact this was a mere quibble of the lawyers. The Salic law had been the law of the Salian F ranks in the fifth century, and had to do with the inheritance of estates, not with the inheri- tance of the throne of F ranee, which was not at that time in exist- ence. The quibble, however, was used on the right side. What Frenchmen wanted was that France should remain an independent nation, which it was not likely to do under a queen who might marry the king of another country. The rule thus laid down was permanently adopted in France. When Philip V. died in 1322 the throne passed, not to his daughter, but to his brother, Charles IV., and when Charles died in 1328, to his cousin, Philip of Valois, who reigned as Philip VI. At that time England was still under the control of Mortimer and Isabella, and though Isabella, being the sister of Charles IV., thought of claiming the crown, not for herself, but for her son, Mortimer did not press the claim. In 1329 he sent Edward to do homage to Philip VI. for his French possessions, but Edward only did it with certain reservations, and in 1330 prepara- tions for war were made in England. In 1331, after Mortimer’s fall, when Edward was his own master, he again visited France, and a treaty was concluded between the two kings in which he abandoned the reservations on his homage. 3. Troubles in Scotland. 1329 — 1336.— On his return, Edward looked in another direction. In 1329 Robert Bruce died, leaving his crown to his son, David II., a child five years old. Certain English noblemen had in the late treaty (seep. 231) been promised restoration of the estates of their ancestors in Scotland, and in 1332 some of them, finding the promise unfulfilled, offered English forces to John Balliol’s son, Edward, to help him to the Scottish crown. Effigies of Edward III. and Queen Philippa ; irom their tombs in Westminster Abb^y. 234 £:DlVAkD ///. 1332-1337 Aided by his English allies, Edward Balliol landed in Scotland, defeated the Scottish army at Dupplin, and was crowned king. Before the end of the year he was surprised at Annan, and fled to England to appeal to Edward for help. Though Edward had all the love of enterprise of his grandfather, Edward I., yet there was a marked contrast between the deliberate calculation of Edward I. and the almost accidental way in which Edward III. involved himself in an attempt to regain the lordship of Scotland. In 1333 he laid siege to Berwick, then in the hands of the Scots. The Scots advanced into England, and their spearmen crossed a marsh to attack the English array of knights and archers posted on the slope of Halidon Hill. The arrows poured like rain on their struggling columns. The Scots were thrown into confusion, and their whole army was almost destroyed. Berwick was regained, and Bannockburn, it seemed, was avenged. Edward not only set up Balliol as his vassal, but compelled him to yield all Scotland south of the Forth to be annexed to England. Such a settlement could not last. Balliol was as weak as his father had been, and the Scots, recovering courage, drove him out in 1334. Edward invaded Scotland again and again. As long as he was in the country he was strong enough to keep his puppet on the throne, but whenever he returned to England David Bruce’s supporters regained strength. The struggle promised to be lengthy unless help came to the Scots. 4. Dispute with France. 1336—1337. — Philip VI., like Philip IV. in the days of Edward I. (see p. 218), had his own reasons for not allowing the Scots to be crushed. He pursued the settled policy of his predecessors in attempting to bring the great fiefs into his power, and especially that part of Aquitaine which was still held by the most powerful of his vassals, the king of England. Whilst Edward was doing his best to bring Scotland into subjec- tion by open war, Philip was doing his best to disturb Edward in his hold upon Aquitaine by secret intrigues and legal chicanery. Ill-feeling increased on both sides. Philip welcomed David Bruce and gave him protection in F ranee, and in 1336 F rench sailors attacked English shipping and landed plunderers in the Isle of Wight. In 1337 Edward determined to resist, and the long war roughly known ^as the Hundred Years’ War began. It was in reality waged to discover by an appeal to arms whether the whole of Aquitaine was to be incorporated with France and whether Scotland was to be incorporated with England. That which gave it its peculiar bitterness was, however not so much the claims RDWARb'^S DIPLOMACY * 337 - 133 ^^ 235 of the kings, as the passions of their subjects. The national antagonism aroused by the plunderings of French sea-rovers would be invigorated by the plunderings of Englishmen in the fields of France. 5. Edward’s Allies. 1337—1338. — To Edward it was merely a question of defending, first England, and then Aquitaine, against aggression. He won over, with large offers of money, the alliance of the princes of the Empire whose lands lay round the French frontier to the north and east, and even gained the support of the Emperor Lewis the Bavarian. His relations with Flanders were even more important. In Flanders there had sprung up great manufacturing towns, such as Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres, which worked up into cloth the wool which was the produce of English sheep. These wealthy towns claimed political independence, and thus came into collision with their feudal lord, the Count of Flanders. Early in the reign of Philip VI., the Count, who held the greater part of his lands from the king of France, had appealed to Philip for support, and Philip, who, unlike his wiser predecessors, despised the strength which he might gain from the goodwill of citizens in a struggle against their lords, took the part of the Count, and for a time crushed the citizens at the battle of Cassel. After a while the cities recovered themselves, and formed an alliance under the leadership of Jacob van Arteveldt, a Flemish nobleman, who had ingratiated himself with them by enrolling himself amongst the brewers of Ghent, and who was now successful in urging his countrymen to enter into friendship with Edward. 6. Chivalry and War. — In the long run Edward’s cause would be found a losing one, but there were circumstances which made it prevail for a time. In France there was a broad distinction be- tween gentlemen on the one side and citizens and peasants on the other. The gentlemen despised all who were not of their own class. In earlier days there had sprung up a view of life known as chivalry, which taught that the knight was bound to observe the laws of honour, to fight fairly, to treat with courtesy a de- feated enemy, and to protect women and all - who were unable to help themselves. Ennobling as the idea was, it had been narrowed by the refusal of the gentlemen to extend the rules of chivalry beyond their own order, and they were, therefore, ready to exercise cruelty upon those who were not gentlemen, whilst proffering the most high-flown compliments to those who were. In France, too, this broad distinction of ranks told upon the military strength of the crown. The fighting force of the F rench king was tityWARb tn. 236 * 33 ^ his feudal array of armour-protected cavalry, composed entirely of gentlemen, and aiming at deciding battles in the old fashion by the rush of horsemen. If foot soldiers were brought at all into the field they were, for the most part, ill armed and ill trained peasants, ex- posed to be helplessly slaughtered by the horsemen. 7. Commerce and War.— In England, on the other hand, the various orders of society had been welded together into a united people. The king and his vassals indeed still talked the language of chivalry, but they were wise enough to seek strength elsewhere. War had become in England the affair of the nation, and no longer A knight - Sir Geoflfrey Luttrell, who died 1345 - receiving his helm and pennon from his wife. Another lady holds his shield. the affair of a class. It must be waged with efficient archers as well as with efficient horsemen, the archers being drawn from the class of yeomen or free landed proprietors of small plots of land, which was entirely wanting in France. Such an army needed pay, and the large sums required for the purpose could only be extracted from a nation which, like the English, had grown comparatively rich because it was at peace within its own borders. Edward was compelled, if he wanted to fight, to encou- rage trade, though it is only fair to remember that he showed him- self ready to encourage trade without any such ulterior object. He brought Flemish weavers into England, and did his best to improve the feeble woollen manufacture of the Eastern counties. TRADE AND WAR 237 1338 His great resource, however, for purposes of taxation, was the export of wool to the Flemish manufacturing towns. Some- times he persuaded Parliament to raise the duties upon exported wool ; sometimes he raised them, by an evasion of the law, after making a private compact with the merchants without consult- ing Parliament at all ; sometimes he turned merchant himself and bought wool cheaply in England to sell it dear in Flanders. It was said of a great minister of later times that he made trade flourish by means of war.^ It might be said with greater truth of Edward III. that he made war flourish by means of trade. 8. Attacks on the North of France. 1338 — 1340. — Great as was Edward’s advantage in having a united nation at his back, it hardly seemed in the first years of the war as though he knew how to use it. Though he had declared war against Philip in 1337, he did not begin hostilities till the following year. In 1338, after landing at Ant- werp, he obtained from the Emperor Lewis the title of Im- perial Vicar, which gave him a right to the military services of the vassals of the Empire. Crowds of German and Low Country lords pressed into his ranks, but they all wanted high ’ See the inscription on the monu- ment to the elder Pitt in the Guild- hall. in the City of London. William of Hatfield, second son of Edward III. ; from his tomb in York Minster : showing rich costume worn by the youth of the upper classes about 1340. I he embroidery on the tunic has been partly ^V9rn off on the effigy. 238 EDWARD m ‘338 York Minster The nave, looking west, built during the first half of the fourteenth centurj’. The west window was completed and glazed in i33«. 1339-1340 THE FRENCH CROWN CLAIMED 239 pay, and his resources, great as they were, were soon exhausted, and he had to pawn his crowns to satisfy their needs. These lords proved as useless as they were expensive. In 1339 Edward crossed the French frontier, but he could not induce Philip to fight, and being deserted by his German allies, he was obliged to return to England. He then attempted to fall back on the support of the Flemings, but was told by them that unless he formally took the title of king of F ranee, which he had only occasionally done before, they could not fight for him, as the king of France, whoever he might be, was their superior lord, and as such had a claim to their services. After some hesitation, in the be- ginning of 1340, Edward satisfied their scruples by reviving the claim which he had formerly abandoned, declaring himself to be, in right of his mother, the law- ful king of France ; and quartering the French arms with his own. A third territorial question was thus added to the other two. Practically Edward’s answer to Philip’s effort to absorb all Aquitaine in France was a counter- demand that all France should be absorbed in England. 9. Battle of Sluys. 1340. — Edward had not yet learnt to place confidence in those English archers who had served him so well at Halidon Hill. In 1340, however, he found himself engaged in a conflict which should have taught him where his true strength lay. The French navy held the Channel, and had burnt South- ampton. The fleet of the Cinque Ports was no longer sufficient to cope with the enemy. Edward proudly announced that he, like his progenitors, was the lord of the English sea on every side, and called out every vessel upon which he could lay hands. The result was a naval victory at Sluys, in which well-nigh the whole French fleet was absolutely destroyed. It was by the English archers that Royal arms of Edward III., adopted in 1340 and used till about 1405. From the tomb of Edward III. 240 EDWARD III. 1341-1346 the day was won. So complete was the victory that no one dared to tell the ill news to Philip, till his jester called out to him, “ What cowards those English are ! ” “ Because,” he explained, “they did not dare to leap into the sea as our brave Frenchmen did.” 10. Attacks on the West of France. 1341 — 1345. — If Edward was to obtain still greater success, he had but to fight with a national force behind him on land as he had fought at sea ; but he was slow to learn the lesson. Personally he was as chivalrous as Philip, and thought that far more could be done by the charge of knights on horseback than by the cloth -yard shafts of the English bowmen. For six more years he frittered away his strength. There was a disputed succession in Brittany, and one of the claimants, John of Montfort, ranged himself on the side of the English. There was fighting in Brittany and fighting on the borders of Edward’s lands in Aquitaine, but up to the end of 1345 there was no decisive result on either side. In Scotland, too, things had been going so badly for Edward that in 1341 David Bruce had been able to return, and was now again ruling over his own people. 11. The Campaign of Cre^y. 1346. — Surprising as Edward’s neglect to force on a battle in France appears to us, it must be remembered that in those days it was far more difficult to bring on an engagement than it is in the present day. F ortified towns and castles were then almost impregnable, except when they were starved out ; and it was therefore seldom necessary for a com- mander — on other grounds unwilling to fight — to risk a battle in order to save an important post from capture. Edward, however, does not appear to have thought that there was anything to be gained by fighting. In 1346 he led a large English army into Nor- mandy, taking with him his eldest son, afterwards known as the Black Prince, at that time a lad of sixteen. It had been from Normandy and Calais that the fleets had put out by which the coasts of England had been ravaged, and Edward now deliberately ravaged Nor- mandy. He then marched on, apparently intending to take refuge in Flanders. As the French had broken the bridges over the Seine, he was driven to ascend the bank of the river almost to Paris be- fore he could cross. His burnings and his ravages continued till Philip, stung to anger, pursued him with an army more than twice as numerous as his own. Edward had the Somme to cross on his way, and the bridges over that river had been broken by the F rench, as those over the Seine had been broken ; and but for the opportune discovery of a ford at Blanche Tache Edward would have been 1346 CREQY 241 obliged to fight with an impassable river at his back. When he was once over the Somme he refused — not from any considerations of generalship, but from a point of honour — to continue his retreat further. He halted on a gentle slope near the village of Cre9y facing eastwards, as Philip’s force had swept round to avoid diffi- culties in the ground, and was approaching from that direction. 12. The Tactics of Crecy. 1346. — Great as was Edward’s advantage in possessing an army so diverse in its composition as that which he commanded, it would have availed him little if he had not known how to order that army for battle. At once it appeared that his skill as a tactician was as great as his weak- ness as a strategist. His experience at Halidon Hill (see p. 234) had taught him that the archers could turn the tide of battle against any direct attack, however violent. He knew, too, from the tra- dition of Bannockburn (see p. 226), that archers could readily be crushed by a cavalry charge on the flank ; and he was well aware that his own horsemen were in too small numbers to hold out against the vast host of the French cavalry. He therefore drew up his line of archers between the two villages of Cre^y and Vadi court, though his force was not large enough to extend from one to the other. He then ordered the bulk of his horsemen to dismount and to place themselves with levelled spears in bodies at Intervals in the line of archers. The innovation was thoroughly reasonable, as spearmen on foot would be able to check the fiercest charge of horse, if only the horse could be exposed to a shower of arrows. The English army was drawn up in three corps, two of them in the front line. The Black Prince was in command of one of the two bodies in front, whilst the king bimself took charge of the third corps, which acted as a reserve in the rear. 242 EDWARD III. 1346-1347 13. The Battle of Cre^y. August 26, 1346.— When Philip drew nigh in the evening his host was weary and hungry. He ordered his knights to halt, but each one was thinking, not of obeying orders, but of securing a place in the front, where he might personally dis- tinguish himself. Those in the rear pushed on, and in a few minutes the whole of the French cavalry became a disorganised mob. Then Philip ordered 1 5,000 Genoese crossbowmen to advance against the enemy. At the best a crossbow was inferior to the English long-bow, as it was weaker in its action and consumed more time between each shot. To make matters worse, a heavy shower of rain had wetted the strings of the unlucky Genoese, rendering their weapons useless. The English had covers for their bows, and had kept them dry. The thick shower of their arrows drove the Genoese back. Philip took their retreat for cowardice. “ Kill me those scoundrels ! ” he cried, and the French knights rode in amongst them, slaughtering them at every stride. Then the French horsemen charged the English lines. Some one amongst the Black Prince’s retinue took alarm, and hurried to the king to conjure him to advance to the son’s as- sistance. Edward knew better. “ Is he dead ?” he asked, “ or so wounded that he cannot help himself?” “ No, sire, please God,” was the reply, “ but he is in a hard passage of arms, and he much needs your help.” “ Return,” answered the king, to those that sent you, and tell them not to send to me again so long as my son lives ; I command them to let the boy win his spurs.” The French were driven off with terrible slaughter, and the victory was won. It was a victory of foot soldiers over horse soldiers — of a nation in which all ranks joined heartily together over one in which all ranks except that of the gentry were despised. Edward III. had contributed a high spirit and a keen sense of honour, but it was to the influence of Edward I. — to his wide and far-reaching statesmanship, and his innovating military genius — that the victory of Cregy was really due. 1 4. Battle of Nevill’s Cross, and the Siege of Calais. 1346—1347. — Whilst Edward was fighting in France, the Scots invaded Eng- land, but they were defeated at Nevill’s Cross, and their king, David. Bruce (David II.), taken prisoner. Edward, when the news reached him, had laid siege to Calais. In this siege cannon,^ which had been used in earlier sieges of the war, were employed, but they were too badly made and loaded with too little gunpowder to do much damage. I It has been said that they were used at Crc9y, but this is uncertain. 1337-1347 SURRENDER OF CALAIS In 1347 Calais was starved into surrender, and Edward, who re- garded the town as a nest of pirates, ordered six of the principal bur- gesses to come out with ropes round their necks, as a sign that they were to be put to death. It was only at Queen Phi- . lippa’s intercession that he spared their lives, but he drove every F renchman out of Calais, and peopled it with his own subjects. A truce with Philip was agreed on, and Edward returned to England. 15. Constitutional Progress. 1337 — 1347 - — Edward III. had be- gun his reign as a con- stitutional ruler, and on the whole he had no reason to regret it. In his wars with France and Scotland he had the popular feeling with him, and he showed his reliance on it when, in 1340, he consented to the abolition of his claim to impose tallage on his demesne lands (see p. 221) — the sole frag- ment of unparliamen- tary taxation legally re- tained by the king after the Con^rmatio Carta- rum. In 1341 the two 344 EDWARD III. 134I Houses of Parliament finally separated from one another, and when Edward picljed a quarrel with Archbishop Stratford, the Lords suc- Gloucester Cathedral. The choir, looking east : built between 1340 and 1350. cessfully insisted that no member of their House could be tried ex- cepting by his peers. The Commons, on the other hand, were striving TH^: HOUSE OF COMMONS 1341 US — not always successfully — to maintain their hold upon taxation. In 1341 they made Edward a large money grant on condition of his yielding to their demands, and Edward (whose constitutional inten- tions were seldom proof against his wish to retain the power of the purse) shamelessly broke his engagement after receiving the money. On other occasions the Commons were more successful ; yet, after all, the composition of their House was of more importance than The upper chamber or solar at Sutton Courtenay manor-house. Date, about 1350. any special victory they might gain. In it the county members — or knights of the shire — sat side by side with the burgesses of the towns. In no other country in Europe would this have been pos- sible. The knights of the shire were gentlemen, who on the Continent were reckoned amongst the nobility, and despised townsmen far too much to sit in the same House with them. In England there was the same amalgamation of classes in Parliament kDWAkb tn. 54^ as on the battle-field. When once gentlemen and burgesses formed part of the same assembly, they would come to have common interests; and, in any struggle in which the merchants were engaged, it would be a great gain to them that a class of men trained to arms would be inclined to take their part. 16. Edward’s Triumph. 1347. — Edward’s return after the sur- render of Calais was followed by an outburst of luxury. As the sea-rovers of Normandy and Calais had formerly plundered Eng- Interlor of the Hall at Penshurst, Kent : showing the screen with minstrels’ gallery over it, and the brazier for fire in the middle : built about 1340. lishmen, English landsmen now plundered Normandy and Calais. There was no woman who had not gotten garments, furs, feather- beds, and utensils from the spoils.” Edward surrounded himself with feasting and jollity. About this time he instituted the Order of the Garter, and his tournaments were thronged with gay knights and gayer ladies in gorgeous attires. The very priests caught the example, and decked themselves in unclerical garments. Even architecture lent itself to the prevailing taste for magnificence. The beautiful Decorated style which had come into use towards the 1272-1360 DECORATED AND RERPENDICULAR STYLES 2^ end of the reign of Edward I.— and which may be seen ’ in the central tower of Lincoln Cathedral (see p. 227), in the west front of Howden Church (seep. 230), and in the nave of York Minster (see p. 238)— A small house or cottage at Meare, Somerset. Built about 1350. Norborough Hall, Northamptonshire. A manor-house built about 1350. The dormer windows and addition to the left are of much later date. was, in the reign of Edward III., superseded by the Perpendicular style, in which beauty of form was abandoned for the sake of breadth, as in the choir of Gloucester and the nave of Winchester (see pp. 244, I Lichfield Cathedral (p. 213) is transitional. kt)WARD IIT. 134-1349 276). Roofs become wide, as in the Hall of Penshurst (see p. 246), and consequently halls were larger and better adapted to crowded gatherings than those at Meare and Norborough (p. 247). 17. The Black Death. 1348. — In the midst of this luxurious society arrived, in 1348, a terrible plague which had been sweeping over Asia and Europe, and which in modern times has been styled the Black Death. No plague known to history was so destruc- tive of life. Half of the population certainly perished, and some think that the number of those who died must be reckoned at two-thirds. 18. The Statute of Labourers. 1351.— This enormous destruc- tion of life could not fail to have important results on the economic condition of the country. The process of substituting money rents for labour service, which had begun some generations before (see p. 168), had become very general at the accession of Edward III. so that the demesne land which the lord kept in his own hands was on most estates cultivated by hired labour. Now, when at least half of the labourers had disappeared, those who remained, having less competition to fear, demanded higher wages, whilst at the same time the price of the produce of the soil was the same or less than it had been before. The question affected not merely 240 1349 lABOt/R AND IVAGES the great lords but the smaller gentry as well. The House of Commons, which was filled with the smaller gentry and the well- to-do townsmen — who were also employers of labour — was there- fore as eager as the House of Lords to keep down wages. In 1351 Reaping. the Statute of Labourers was passed, fixing a scale 01 wages at the rates which had been paid before the Black Death, and ordering punishments to be inflicted on those who demanded more. It is not necessary to suppose that the legislators had any 2S0 EDWARD ITT. l349-t35* tyrannical intentions. For ages all matters relating to agricul- ture had been fixed by custom ; and the labourers were outrage- ously violating custom. Custom, however, here found itself in opposition to the forces of nature, and though the statute was often renewed, with increasing penalties, it was difficult to secure obe- dience to It in the teeth of the opposition of the labourers. The chief result of the statute was that it introduced an element of discord between two classes of society. 19. The Statute of Treasons. 1352. — In 1352 was passed the Statute of Treasons, by which the offences amounting to treason were defined, the chief of them being levying war against the POniERS 251 1350-1356 king. As no one but a great nobleman was strong enough even to think of levying war against the king, this statute may be regarded as a concession to the wealthier landowners rather than to the people at large. 20. The Black Prince in the South of France. 1355. — In 1350 Philip VI. of France died, and was succeeded by his son John. The truce (see p. 243) was prolonged, and it was not till 1355 that war was renewed. Edward himself was recalled to England by fresh troubles in Scotland, but the Black Prince landed at Bordeaux and marched through the south of France, plundering as he went. Neither father nor son seems to have had any idea of gaining their ends except by driving the French by ill-treatment into submission. “You must know,” wrote a contemporary in describing the con- dition of southern Languedoc, “ that this was, before, one of the fat countries of the world, the people good and simple, who did not know what war was, and no war had ever been waged against them before the Prince of Wales came. The English and Gascons found the country full and gay, the rooms furnished with carpets and draperies, the caskets and chests full of beautiful jewels ; but no- thing was safe from these robbers.” The Prince returned to Bor- deaux laden with spoils. 21. The Battle of Poitiers. 1356. — In 1356 the Black Prince swept over central France in another similar plundering expedition. He was on his way back with his plunder to Bordeaux with no more than 8,000 men to guard it when he learnt as he passed near Poitiers that King John was close to him with 50,000. He drew up his little force on a rising ground amidst thick vineyards, with a hedge in front of him behind which he could shelter his archers. As at Cre^y, the greater part of the . English horsemen were dismounted, and John, thinking that therein lay their secret of success, ordered most of his horsemen to dismount as well, not having discovered that though spearmen on foot could present a formidable resistance to a cavalry charge, they were entirely useless in attacking a strong position held by archers. Then he sent forward 300 knights who retained their horses, bidding a strong body of dismounted horsemen to support them. The horsemen, followed by the footmen, charged at a gap in the hedge, but the hedge on either side was lined with English bowmen, and men and horses were struck down. Those who survived fled and scattered their countrymen behind. Seeing the disorder, the Black Prince ordered the few knights whom he had kept on horseback to sweep round and to fall upon the confused crowd in the flank. The ^52 BdWARD 111 . 135^1359 archers advanced to second them, and, gallantly as the F rench fought, their unhorsed knights could accomplish nothing against the combined efforts of horse and foot. King John was taken prisoner and the battle was at an end. 22. The Courtesy of the Black Prince. — The Black Prince had been cruel to townsmen and peasants, but he was a model of chivalry, and knew how to deal with a captive king. At supper he stood behind John’s chair and waited on him, praising his bravery. “ All on our side,” he said, “ who have seen you and your knights, are agreed about this, and give you the prize and the chaplet if you will wear it.” After the astounding victory of Poitiers, the Black Prince, instead of marching upon Paris, went back to Bordeaux. In 1357 he made a truce for two years and returned to England with his royal captive. 23. Misery of France. 1356 — 1359. — In 1356, the year in which the Black Prince fought at Poitiers, his father ravaged Scotland. Edward, however, gained nothing by this fresh attempt at conquest. In his retreat he suffered heavy loss, and in 1357, changing his plan, he replaced David Bruce (see p. 242) on the throne, and strove to win the support of the Scots instead of exasperating them by violence. In the meanwhile the two years’ truce brought no good to France. The nobles wrung from the peasants the sums needed to redeem their relatives, who were prisoners in England, and the disbanded soldiers, French and English, formed themselves into free companies and plundered as mercilessly as the Black Prince had done in time of war. Worn down with oppression, the French peasants broke into a rebellion known as the Jacquerie, from the nickname of Jacques- Bonhomme, which the gentry gave to them. After committing unheard-of cruelties the peasants were repressed and slaughtered. An attempt of the States- General — a sort of F rench Parliament which occasionally met — to improve the govern- ment failed. Peace with England was talked of, but Edward’s terms were too hard to be accepted, and in 1359 war began again. 24. Edward’s Last Invasion. 1359 — 1360. — So miserably de- vastated was F ranee that Edward, when he invaded the country in 1359, had to take with him not only men and munitions of war, but large stores of provisions. He met no enemy in the field, but the land had been so wasted that his men suffered much from want of food, in spite of the supplies which they had taken with them. “ I could not believe,” wrote an Italian who revisited France after an absence of some years, “ that this was the same DESOLATION OF FRANCE 253 i3®o kingdom which I had once seen so rich and flourishing. Nothing presented itself to my eyes but a fearful solitude, an extreme poverty, land uncultivated, houses in ruins. Even the neighbour- hood of Paris manifested everywhere marks of destruction and conflagration. The streets were deserted ; the roads overgrown with weeds ; the whole a vast solitude.” In the spring of 1360 Edward moved on towards the banks of the Loire, hoping to find sustenance there. Near Chartres he was overtaken by a terrible storm of hail and thunder, and in the roar of the thunder he thought West front of Edington Church, Wilts : built about 1360. An example of the transition from the Decorated style to the Perpendicular. that he heard the voice of God reproving him for the misery which he had caused. He abated his demands and signed the treaty of Bretigni. 25. The Treaty of Bretigni. 1360. — By the treaty of Bretigni John was to be ransomed for an enormous sum ; Edward was to surrender his claim to the crown of France and to the provinces north of Aquitaine, receiving in return the whole of the duchy of Aquitaine together with the districts round Calais and Ponthieu, all of them to be held in full sovereignty, without any feudal obliga- 254 EDWARD III . 1360-1364 tion to the king of France. Probably it cost Edward little to abandon his claim to the French crown, which had only been an after-thought ; and it was a clear gain to get rid • of those feudal entanglements which had so frequently been used as a pretext of aggression against the English kings. It was hardly likely, how- ever, that England would long be able to keep a country like Aquitaine, which was geographically part of France and in which French sympathies were constantly on the increase. “ We will obey the English with our lips,” said the men of Rochelle, when their town was surrendered, “ but our hearts shall never be moved towards them.” CHAPTER XVI REIGN OF EDWARD III. AFTER THE TREATY OF BRETIGNI 1360—1377 LEADING DATES Reign of Edward III., 1327-1377. Battle of Navarrete 1367 Renewal of war with France 1369 Truce with France 1375 The Good Parliament 1376 Death of Edward III 1377 1. The First Years of Peace. 1360 — 1364. — To hold his new provinces the better, Edward sent the Black Prince to govern them in 1363 with the title of Duke of Aquitaine. King John had been liberated soon after the making of the peace, and had been allowed to return to France on payment of part of his ransom, and on giving hostages for the payment of the remainder. In 1363 one of the hostages, his son, the Duke of Anjou, broke his parole and fled, on which John, shocked at such perfidy, returned to England to make excuses for him, and died there in 1364. If honour, he said, were not to be found elsewhere, it ought to be found in the breasts of kings. 2. The Spanish Troubles. 1364 — 1368. — John’s eldest son and successor, Charles V., known as the Wise, or the Prudent, was less chivalrous, but more cautious than his father, and soon found an opportunity of stirring up trouble for the Black Prince without ex- posing his own lands to danger. Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, who had for some time been the ally of England, had murdered 25S 1364-1368 THE BLACK PRINCE IN SPAIN his wife, tyrannised over his nobles, and contracted an alliance with the Mohammedans of Granada. The Pope having excom- municated him, his own illegitimate brother, Henry of Trastamara, claimed the crown, and sought aid of the king of France. Charles V. sent Bertrand du Guesclin, a rising young commander, to his help. Du Guesclin’s army was made up of men of the Free Com- panies (seep. 252), which still continued to plunder France on their own account after the Peace of Bretigni. In this way Charles got rid of a scourge of his own country at the same time that he at- tacked an ally of the English. In 1366 Du Guesclin entered Spain. The tyrannical Pedro took refuge at Bayonne, where he begged the Black Prince to help him. The Gascon nobles pleaded with the Prince to reject the monster, but the Prince was not to be held back. “It is not a right thing or reasonable,” he said, when they A gold noble of Edward III., struck between a.d. 1360 and 1369. urged him to keep aloof from the unjust undertaking to which he in- vited them, “ that a bastard should hold a kingdom, and thrust out of it, and of his heritage, a brother and heir of the land by legal marriage. All kings and sons of kings should never agree nor consent to it, for it is a great blow at the royal state.” In 1367 the Black Prince entered Spain, and with the help of his English archers thoroughly defeated Henry at Navarrete. Then vengeance overtook him on the side on which he had sinned. Pedro was as false as he was cruel, and refused to pay the sums which he had engaged to furnish to the Prince’s troops. Sickness broke out in the English ranks, and the Black Prince returned to Bordeaux with only a fifth part of his army, and with his own health irretrievably shattered. In 1368 Henry made his way back to Spain, defeated and slew Pedro, and undid the whole work of the Black Prince to the south of the Pyrenees. EDWARD III. 2«;6 1368-1369 Effigy of Edward the Black Prince, from his tomb at Canterbury : showing the type of armour worn from 1335 to 1^00. 3. The Taxation of Aqui- taine. 1368—1369. — Worse than this was in store for the Black Prince. As his soldiers clamoured for their wages, he levied a hearth tax to supply their needs. The Aquitanian Parliament de- clared against the tax, and appealed to the king of F ranee to do them right. In 1369 Charles, who knew that the men of Aquitaine would be on his side, summoned the Black Prince, to Paris to de- fend his conduct, on the pre- text that, as there had been some informality in the treaty of Bretigni, he was himself still the feudal superior of the Duke of Aquitaine. “ Wil- lingly,” replied the Black Prince when he received the summons, “ we will go to the court of Paris, as the king of France orders it; but it shall be with helmet on head and sixty thousand men with us.” 4. The Renewed War. 1369—1375. — Edward, by the advice of Parliament, re- sumed the title of King of France, and war broke out afresh in 1369. The result of the first war had been owing to the blunders of the French in attacking the English archers with the feudal cavalry. Charles V. and his commander, Du Guesclin, resolved to fight no battles. Their troops hung about the 1370-1375 MILITARY FAILURES ■ 257 English march, cut off stragglers, and captured exposed towns. The English marched hither and thither, plundering and burning, but their armies, powerful as they were when attacked in a defensive position, could not succeed in forcing a battle, and were worn out without accomplishing anything worthy of their fame. The Black Prince, soured by failure and ill-health, having succeeded in 1370 in recapturing Limoges, ordered his men to spare no one in the town. “It was great pity,” wrote the chronicler F roissart, “ for men, women, and children threw themselves on their knees before the Prince, crying ‘ Mercy ! mercy ! gentle Sire !’” The Prince, who had waited at table behind a captive king, hardened his heart. More than three thousand — men, women and children — were butchered on that day. Yet the spirit of chivalry was strong within him, and he spared three gentlemen who fought bravely merely in order to sell their lives dearly. In 1371 the Black Prince wag back in England. His eldest surviving brother, John of Gaunt — or Ghent — Duke of Lancaster, continued the war in France. In 1372 the English lost town after town. In 1373 John of Gaunt set out from Calais. He could plunder, but he could not make the enemy fight. “ Let them go,” wrote Charles V. to his com- manders ; “ by burning they will not become masters of your heritage. Though storms rage over a land, they disperse of them- selves. So will it be with these English.” When the English reached the hilly centre of France food failed them. The winter came, and horses and men died of cold and want. A rabble of half-starved fugitives was all that reached Bordeaux after a march of six hundred miles. Aquitaine, where the inhabitants were for the most part hostile to the English, and did everything in their power to assist the French, was before long all but wholly lost, and in 1375 a truce was made which put an end to hostilities for a time, leaving only Calais, Cherbourg, Brest, Bayonne, and Bordeaux in the hands of the English. 5. Anti-Papal Legislation. 1351—1366. —The antagonism be« tween England and France necessarily led to an antagonism between England and the Papacy. Since 1305 the Popes had fixed their abode at Avignon, and though Avignon was not yet incorporated with France, it was near enough to be under the control of the king of F ranee. D uring the time of this exile from Rome, known to ardent churchmen as the Babylonian captivity of the Church, the Popes were regarded in England as the tools of the French enemy. The Papal court, too, became distinguished for luxury and vice, and its vast expenditure called for supplies which England was increasingly $ EDWARD III, 1353-1362 258 loth to furnish. By a system of provisions, as they were called, the Pope provided— or appointed beforehand — his nominees to English benefices, and expected that his nominees would be allowed to hold the benefices to the exclusion of those of the patrons. In 1351 the Statute of Provisors ^ attempted to put an end to the system, but it was not immediately successful, and had to be re-enacted in later years. In 1353 a Statute of Prcemunire^ was passed, in which, though the Pope’s name was not mentioned, an attempt was made to stop suits being carried before foreign courts — in other words, before the Papal court at Avignon. Another claim of the Popes was to the 1,000 marks payable annually as a symbol of John’s vassal- age, a claim most distasteful to Englishmen as a sign of national humiliation. Since 1333, the year in which Edward took the government into his own hands, the payment had not been made, and in 1366 Parliament utterly rejected a claim made by the Pope for its revival. 6. Predominance of the English Language. — The national spirit which revealed itself in an armed struggle with the French and in a legal struggle with the Papacy showed itself in the increasing predominance of the English language. In 1362 it supplanted French In the law courts, and in the same year Parliament was opened with an English speech. French was still the language of the court, but it was becoming a foreign speech, pronounced very differently from the ‘ French of Paris.’ 7. Piers the Plowman. 1362.— Cruel as had been the direct results of the English victories in France, they had indirectly con- tributed to the overthrow of that feudalism which weighed heavily upon France and upon all Continental Europe. The success of the English had been the success of a nation strong in the union of classes. The cessation of the war drove the thoughts of English- men back upon themselves. The old spiritual channels had been, to a great extent, choked up. Bishops were busy with the king’s affairs ; monks had long ceased to be specially an example to the world ; and even the friars had fallen from their first estate, and had found out that, though they might personally possess nothing, their order might be wealthy. The men who won victories in France came home to spend their booty in show and luxury. Yet, for all the splendour around, there was a general feeling tha^ the times were out of joint, and this feeling was strengthened by a fresh in- 1 Provisors are the persons provided or appointed to a benefice. 2 So called from the first words of the writs appointed to be issued under it, Prcemunire facias ; the first of these two words being a corruption of Prccmoneri, PIEJ^S THE PLOWMAN 2^9 1362-1377 road of the Black Death in 1361. To the prevalent yearning for a better life, a voice was given by William Langland, whose Vision of Piers the Plowman appeared in its first shape in 1362. In the opening of his poem he shows to his readers the supremacy of the Maiden Meed — bribery — over all sorts and conditions of men, lay and clerical. Then he turns to the purification of this wicked world. They who wish to eschew evil and to do good inquire their way to Truth — the eternal God — and find their only guide in ‘ Piers the Plowman.’ The simple men of the plough, who do honest work and live upright lives, know how to find the way to Truth. That way lies not through the inventions of the official Church, the pardons and indulgences set up for sale. “ They who have done good shall go into eternal life, but they who have done evil into eternal fire.” Langland’s teaching, in short, is the same as that of the great Italian poet, Dante, who, earlier in the century, had cried aloud for the return of justice and true religion. He stands apart from Dante and from all others of his time in looking for help to the despised peasant. No doubt his peasant was ideal- ised, as no one knew better than himself ; but it was honesty of work in the place of dishonest idleness which he venerated. It was the glory of England to have produced such a thought far more than to have produced the men who, heavy with the plunder of un- happy peasants, stood boldly to their arms at Cre^y and Poitiers. He is as yet hardly prepared to say what is the righteousness which leads to eternal life. It is not till he issues a second edition in 1377 that he can answer. To do well, he now tells us, is to act right- eously to all in the fear of God. To do better is to walk in the way of love : “ Behold how good a thing it is for brethren to dwell in unity.” To do best is to live in fellowship with Christ and the Church, and in all humility to bring forth the fruits of the Divine communion. 8. The Anti-Clerical Party. 1371.— Langland wished to improve, not to overthrow, existing institutions, but for all that his work was profoundly revolutionary. They who call on those who have left their first love to return to it are seldom obeyed, but their voice is often welcomed by the corrupt and self-seeking crowd which is eager, after the fashion of birds of prey, to tear the carcase from which life has departed. A large party was formed in England, especially amongst the greater barons, which was anxious to strip the clergy of their wealth and power, without any thought for the better fulfil- ment of their spiritual functions. In the Parliament of 1371 bishops were declared unfit to hold offices of state. Amongst others who 26 o EDWARD III. 1371-1374 were dismissed was William of Wykeham, the Bishop of Win- chester. He was a great architect and administrator, and having been deprived of the Chancellorship used his wealth to found at Winchester the first great public school in England. By this time a Chancellor was no longer what he had been in earlier days (see p. 127), a secretary to the king. He was now beginning to exercise equitable jurisdiction — that is to say, the right of deciding suits ac- cording to equity, in cases in which the strict artificial rules of the ordinary courts stood in the way of justice. 9. The Duke of Lancaster. 1374 — 1376. — In 1374, as soon as the Duke of Lancaster returned from his dis- astrous campaign (see p. 257), he put himself at the head of the baronial and anti-clerical party. He was selfish and unprincipled, but he had enormous wealth, having secured the vast estates of the Lancaster family by his marriage with Blanche, the granddaughter of the brother of Thomas of Lancaster, the opponent of Edward II. Rich as he was he wished to be richer, and he saw his opportunity in an attack upon the higher clergy, which might end in depriving them not only of political power, but of much of their ecclesias- tical property as well. His accession to the baronial party was of the greater importance because he was now prac- tically the first man in the state. The king was suffering from softening of ‘he brain, and had fallen under the his tomb at Winchester. influence of a greedy and unscrupu- lous mistress, Alice Ferrers, whilst the Black Prince was disqualified by illness from taking part in the management of affairs. A bargain was struck between the Duke and Alice Ferrers, who was able to obtain the consent of the help- less king to anything she pleased. She even sat on the bench with the judges, intimidating them into deciding in favour of the suitors who had bribed her most highly. It seemed as if Langland^s tVYCLlPPM LANCASTER 1366-1376 d6i Meed (see p. 259) had appeared in person. The king’s patronage was shared between her and Lancaster. 10. John Wycliffe. 1366 — 1376. — If Lancaster’s character had been higher, he might have secured a widespread popularity, as the feeling of the age was adverse to the continuance of a wealthy clergy. Even as things were, he had on his side John Wycliffe, the most able reasoner and devoted reformer of his age, who, like others before and after him, imagined that a high spiritual enterprise could be achieved with the help of low and worldly politicians. Wycliffe had distinguished himself at Oxford, and had attracted Lancaster’s notice by the ability of his argument against the Pope’s claim to levy John’s tribute (see p. 258). In 1374 he had been sent to Bruges to argue with the representatives of the Pope on the question of the provisions, and by 1376 had either issued, or was preparing to issue, his work On Civil Lordship^ in which, by a curious adaptation of feudal ideas, he declared that all men held their possessions direct from God, as a vassal held his estate from his lord ; and that as a vassal was bound to pay certain military services, failing which he lost his estate, so everyone who fell into mortal sin failed to pay his service to God, and forfeited his right to his worldly possessions. In this way dominion, as he said, was founded on grace — that is to say, the continuance of man’s right to his possessions depended on his remaining in a rtate of grace. It is true that Wycliffe qualified his argument by alleging that he was only announcing theoretical truth, and that no man had a right to rob another of his holding because he believed him to be living in sin. It is evident, however, that men like Lancaster would take no heed of this distinction, and would welcome Wycliffe as an ally in the work of despoiling the clergy for their own purposes. 11. Lancaster and the Black Prince. 1376. — Ordinary citizens, who cared nothing for theories which they did not understand, were roused against Lancaster by the unblushing baseness of his rule. Nor was this all. The anti-clerical party was also a baronial party, and ever since the Knights Bachelors of England had turned to the future Edward I. to defend them against the barons who made the Provisions of Oxford (see p. 199), the country gentry and townsmen had learnt the lesson that they would be the first to suffer from the unchecked rule of the baronage. They now had the House of Commons to represent their wishes, but as yet the House of Commons was too weak to stand alone. At last it was rumoured that when the Black Prince died his young son Richard was to be set aside, and that Lancaster was to claim the inheritance of the 262 EDWARD ///. crown, as an earlier John had claimed it in the place of the youthful Arthur. The Black Prince awoke from his lethargy, and stood forward as the leader of the Commons. 12. The Good Parliament. 1376. — A Parliament, known as the Good Parliament, met in 1376, and, strong through the Black Prince’s support, the Commons refused to grant supply till an account of the receipts and expenditure had been laid before them. “What,” cried Lancaster, “ do these base and ignoble knights attempt ? Do they think they be the kings and princes of the land ? I think they know not what power I am of. I will therefore, early in the morning, appear unto them so glorious, and will show such power among them, and with such vigour I will terrify them that neither they nor theirs shall dare henceforth to provoke me to wrath.” Lan- caster soon found that his brother was stronger than he. The Commons obtained a new Council, in which Wykeham was included and from which Lancaster was shut out. They then proceeded to accuse before the House of Lords Richard Lyons and Lord Latimer of embezzling the king’s revenue. Lyons, ac- customed to the past ways of the court, packed 1,000/. in a barrel and sent it to the Black Prince. The Black Prince returned the barrel and the money, and the Lords condemned Lyons to im- prisonment. Latimer was also sentenced to imprisonment, but he was allowed to give bail and regained his liberty. These two cases are the first instances of the exercise of the right of impeach- ment— that is to say, of the accusation of political offenders by the Commons before the Lords. Alice Perrers was next driven from court. 13. The Last Year of Edward III. 1376 — 1377. — Whilst Par- liament was still sitting the Black Prince, worn out by his exertions, died. His son, young Richard, was at once recognised as heir to the throne. Lancaster, however, regained his influence over his doting father. Alice Perrers and Lord Latimer found their way back to court. The Speaker of the House of Commons was thrown into prison. Frivolous charges were brought against Wykeham, who was deprived of his temporalities and banished from the court. In 1377 a new Parliament, elected under Lancaster’s influence, reversed all the proceedings of the Good Parliament, and showed how little sympathy the baronial party had with the people by imposing a poll tax of 4^. a head on all except beggars, thus making the payment of a labourer and a duke equal. The bishops, unable to strike at Lancaster, struck at Wycliffe, as his creature. Wycliffe was summoned to appear before an ecclesias- 1^7^ WYCLIFFE AT S7\ PA UTS 263 tical court at St. Paul’s, presided over by Courtenay, the Bishop of London. He came supported by Lancaster and a troop of Lan- caster’s followers. Hot words were exchanged between them and Tomb of tdwarU 111. in Wcstmmi.ter Abbey. the Bishop. The London crowd took their Bishop’s part and the Duke was compelled to fiee for his life. In the summer of 1377 264 EDWARD III. 1171-1315 Edward III. died, deserted by everyone, Alice Perrers making off, after robbing him of his finger-rings. 14. Ireland from the Reign of John to that of Edward II. — When England was gradually losing its hold on France, what hold it had had on Ireland was gradually slipping away. Henry II. had been quite unable to effect in Ireland the kind of conquest which William the Conqueror had effected in England. William had succeeded because he had been able to secure order by placing himself at the head of the conquered nation. In Ireland, in the first place, the king was a perpetual ab- sentee ; and, in the second place, there was no Irish na- tional organisation at the head of which he could have placed himself, even if he had from time to time visited the island. There were separate tribes, each one attached to its own chief and to its own laws and customs. They were unable to drive out their feudal con- querors ; but in the outlying parts of the country, they were able to absorb them, just as the English in their own country absorbed their Norman con- querors. The difference was that in England the conquerors were absorbed into a nation : in Ireland they were absorbed into the several tribes. The few who retained the English laws and habits were, for the most part, confined to the part of Ireland in the neighbourhood of Dublin, which was specially accessible to English influences. In 1315 Edward Bruce, the brother of Robert Bruce, Figures of Edward, the Black Prince, and Lionel, Duke of Clarence, from the tomb of Edward III.; illustrating the ordinary costume of gentlemen at the end of the fourteenth century. 1315-1377 ENGLAl^D AND IRELAND 265 invaded Ireland, and, though he was ultimately defeated and slain, he did enough to shatter the power of the English nobility ; and it was mainly in consequence of his partial success that the authority of the English government was, for some time to come, limited to a certain district round Dublin, known about a century later as the English Pale, the extent of which varied from time to time. 15. The Statute of Kilkenny. 1367. — As long as the French wars lasted the attention of the English Government was diverted from Ireland. In 1361, however, the year after the Treaty of Bretigni, the king’s son, Lionel Duke of Clarence, was sent to ex- tend English rule. In 1367 he gathered a Parliament of the English colonists. This Parliament passed the Statute of Kil- kenny, by which the relations between the two races were defined. Within the Pale English laws and customs were to prevail, and even Irishmen living there were to be debarred from the use of their own language. Beyond the Pale the Irish were to be left to themselves, communication between the two peoples being cut off as much as possible. The idea of conquering Ireland was abandoned, and the idea of maintaining a colony on a definite part of Irish soil was substituted for it. The Statute of Kilkenny was, in short, a counter- part of the Treaty of Bretigni. In both cases Edward III. pre- ferred the full maintenance of his authority over a part of a country to its assertion over the whole. 16. Weakness of the English Colony. 1367—1377 It takes two to make a bargain, and the Irish were not to be prevented from encroaching on the English because the English had re- solved no longer to encroach upon them. The renewal of the war with France in 1369 made it impossible to send help from England, and during the latter part of the reign of Edward III. the Irish pillaged freely within the English territoiy, constantly winning ground from their antagonists. Genealogy of the more important Sons of Edward III. Edward III. d. 1377 Edward, Lionel, John of Gaunt, Edmund, Thomas, the Black Duke of Duke of Duke of Duke of Prince, Clarence, Lancaster, York, Gloucester, d. 1376 d. 1368 d. 1399 d. 1402 d. 1397 m CHAPTER XVII RICHARD II. AND THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION 1377—1381 LEADING DATES Reign of Richard II., 1377-1399 Accession of Richard II. . ' 1377 The peasants’ revolt 1381 1. The First Years of Richard II. 1377 — 1378. — “Woe to the land,” quoted Langland from Ecclesiastes, in the second edition of Piers the Plowman^ “when the king is a child.” Richard was but ten years of age when he was raised to the throne. The French plundered the coast, and the Scots plundered the Borders. In the presence of such dangers Lancaster and Wykeham forgot their differences, and as Lancaster was too generally distrusted to allow of his acting as regent, the council governed in the name of the young king. Lancaster, however, took the lead, and renewed the war with France with but little result beyond so great a waste of money as to stir up Parliament to claim a control ov’er the expenditure of the Crown. 2. Wycliffe and the Great Schism. 1378 — 1381. — In 1378 began the Great Schism. For nearly half a century from that date there were two Popes, one at Avignon and one at Rome. Wycliffe had been gradually losing his reverence for a single Pope, and he had none left for two. He was now busy with a translation of the Bible into English, and sent forth a band of “poor priests,” to preach the simple gospel which he found in it. He was thus brought into collision with the pretensions of the priesthood, and was thereby led to question the doctrines on which their authority was based. In 1381 he declared his disbelief in the doctrine of transubstan- tiation, and thereby denied to priests that power “ of making the body of Christ,” which was held to mark them off from their fellow- men. In any case, so momentous an announcement would have cost Wycliffe the hearts of large numbers of his supporters. It was the more fatal to his influence as it was coincident with social disorders, the blame for which was certain, rightly or wrongly, to be laid at his door. 267 1379 IfMAVY TAXATION 3. The Poll-taxes. 1379— 1381-— The disastrous war with France made fresh taxation unavoidable. In 1379 a poll-tax was imposed by Parliament on a graduated scale, reaching from Ae 6 /. 13.?. 4^. required of a duke, to the groat or 4 ^-> representing 268 RICHARD II 1380-1381 in those days at least the value of 4«f. at the present day, required of the poorest peasant. A second poll-tax in 1380 exacted no less than three groats from every peasant, and from every one of his unmarried children above the age of fifteen. In 1381 a tiler of Dartford in Kent struck dead a collector who attempted to in- vestigate his daughter’s age in an indecent fashion. His neighbours took arms to protect him. In an incredibly short time the peasants of the east and south of England rose in insurrection. 4. The Peasants’ Grievances. — The peasants had other griev- ances besides the weight of taxation thrown on them by a Parlia- ment in which they had no representatives. The landlords, finding it impossible to compel the acceptance of the low wages provided for by the Statute of Labourers (see p. 248), had attempted to help themselves in another way. Before the Black Death the bodily service of villeins had been frequently commuted into a payment of money which had been its fair equivalent, but which, since the rise of wages consequent upon the Black Death, could not com- mand anything like the amount of labour surrendered. The land- lords in many places now declared the bargain to have been unfair, and compelled the villeins to render once more the old bodily service. The discontent which prevailed everywhere was fanned not merely by the attacks made by Wycliife’s poor priests upon the idle and inefficient clergy, but by itinerant preachers unconnected with Wycliffe, who denounced the propertied classes in general. One of these, John Ball, a notorious assailant of the gentry, had been thrown into prison. His favourite question was — When Adam delved and Eve span Who was then a gentleman ? 5. The Peasants’ Revolt. 1381. — From one end of England to another the revolt spread. The parks of the gentry were broken into, the deer killed, the fish-ponds emptied. The court-rolls which testified to the villeins’ services were burnt, and lawyers and all others connected with the courts were put to death without mercy. From Kent and Essex 100,000 enraged peasants, headed by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, released John Ball from gaol and poured along the roads to London. They hoped to place the young Richard at their head against their enemies the gentry. The boy was spirited enough, and in spite of his mother’s entreaties insisted on leaving the Tower, and being rowed across the Thames to meet the in* surgents on the Surrey shore. Those who were with him, how- ever, refused to allow him to land. The peasants had sympathisers THE PEASANTS^ EE VOLT 269 1381 in London itself, who allowed them to break into the city. Lan- caster’s palace of the Savoy and the houses of lawyers and officials were sacked and burnt. All the lawyers who could be found were murdered, and others who were not lawyers shared their fate. The mob broke into the Tower, and beheaded Simon of Sudbury, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, who had, as Chancellor, proposed the ob- noxious taxes to Parliament. . . 6. The Suppression of the Revolt.— The boy-king met the mob at Mile-End, and promised to abolish villeinage in England. Charters of manumission were drawn out and sealed, and a great part of the insurgents returned contentedly home. About 30,000, however, remained behind. When Richard came amongst them at Smithfield, Wat Tyler threatened him, and Walworth, the Mayor of London, slew Wat Tyler with his dagger. A shout for venge- ance was raised. With astonishing presence of mind Richard rode forward. “ I am your king,” he said ; “ I will be your leader.” His boldness inspired the insurgents with confidence, and caused them to desist from their threats and to return to their homes. In the country the gentry, encouraged by the failure of the insurgents in London, recovered their courage. The insurrection was every- where vigorously suppressed. Richard ordered the payment of all services due, and revoked the charters he had granted. The judges on their circuits hanged the ringleaders without mercy. When Parliament met it directed that the charters of manumission should be cancelled. Lords and Commons alike stood up for the rich against the poor, and the boy-king was powerless to resist them, and it is possible that he did not wish to do so. 7. Results of the Peasants’ Revolt. — The revolt of the pea- sants strengthened the conservative spirit in the country. The villeinage into which the peasants had been thrust back could not, indeed, endure long, because service unwillingly rendered is too expensive to be maintained. Men were, however, no longer in a mood to listen to reformers. Great noblemen, whose right to the services of their villeins had been denied, now made common cause with the great churchmen. The propertied classes, lay and clerical, instinctively saw that they must hang together. Wyclifife’s attack on transubstantiation find- ing little response, he was obliged to retire to his parsonage at Lutterworth, where he laboured with his pen till his death in 1384. His followers, known by the nickname of Lollards,^ 1 The name is said to have been derived from a low German word, lollen, to sing, from their habit of singing, but their clerical opponents derived it from 270 RICHARD II. 1381-1399 were, however, for some time still popular amongst the poorer classes. 8. Chaucer’s ‘ Canterbury Tales.’ — A combination between the great nobles and the higher clergy might, at the end of the four- teenth century, meet with temporary success ; but English society was too diversified, and each separate portion of it was too closely linked to the other to make it possible for the higher classes to tyrannise over the others for any long time. What that society was like is best seen in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Chaucer was in many ways the exact oppo- site of Langland, and was the precursor of modern literature as Wycliffe was the precursor of modern religion. He was an inimitable story-teller, with an eye which nothing could escape. He was ready to take men as he found them, having no yearn- ing for the purification of a sin- ful world. Heroic examples of manly constancy and of womanly purity and devotion, are mingled in his pages with coarse and ribald tales ; still, coarse and ribald as some of his narratives are, Chaucer never attempts to make vice attractive. He takes it rather as a matter of course, calling, not for reproof, but for laughter, whenever those who are doing Portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer. place themselves in ridicu- lous situations. 9. The Prologue of the ‘ Canterbury Tales.’ — Whilst, however, there is not one of the Canterbury Tales which fails to bring vividly before the reader one aspect or another of the life of Chaucer’s day, it is in the prologue that is especially found evidence of the close connection which existed between different ranks of society. Men and women of various classes are there represented as riding the Latin lolium (tares), as if they were the tares in the midst of the wheat which remained constant to the Church. THE CANTERBURY TALES 271 1381-1399 together on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas of Canter- bury, and beguiling the way by telling stories to one another. No baron, indeed, takes part in the pilgrimage, and the villein class is represented by the reeve, who was himself a person in authority, the mere cultivator of the soil being excluded. Yet, within these limits, the whole circle of society is admirably re- presented. The knight, just re- turned from deeds of chivalry, is on the best of terms with the rough-spoken miller and the reeve, whilst the clerk of Oxford, who would gladly learn and gladly teach, and who fol- lowed in his own life those pre- cepts which he commended to his parishioners, has no irrecon- cilable quarrel with the begging friar or with the official of the ecclesiastical courts, whose only object is to make a gain of godliness. a gentleman riding out with his hawk : 10. Chaucer and the Clergy. Luttreii Psalter. — In his representation of the clergy, Chaucer shows that, like Langland, he had no reverence for the merely official clergy. His “poor parson of a town,” indeed, is a model for all helpers and teachers. The parson is regardless of his own comfort, ever ready to toil with mind and body for his parishioners, and, above all, re- solved to set them an example, knowing That if gold ruste, what schulde yren doo ? For if a prest be foul, on whom we truste, No wondur is a lewid man to ruste. ^ The final character given to him is A bettre preest I trowe ther nowher non is. He waytud after no pompe ne reverence, Ne maked him a spiced conscience ; 2 But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve. He taught, and ferst he folwed^ it himselve. The majority amongst Chaucer’s clergy are, however, of a very different kind. There is the parish clerk, who, when he is waving J i.e., if a priest, who is like gold, allow himself to rust, or fall into sloth or Bin, how can he expect the * lewid man ’ or layman, who is as iron to him, to be free from these faults ? A nice conscience ; to see offence where there is none. ® Followed. RICHARD II. 272 1381-1399 the censer in church thinks more of the pretty women there than of his duty ; the monk who loves hunting, and hates work and reading ; the friar who is ready to grant absolution to any one who will give money to the friars ; who has a word and a jest for every man, and presents of knives and pins for the women ; who takes a farthing where he cannot get a penny, but turns aside from those who have not even a farthing to give ; the pardoner, who has for sale sham relics — a piece of the sail of the ship which carried St. Peter on the sea of Galilee, and a glass of pigs’ bones, which he was ready to sell as bones of saints, if he could thereby extract something even from the poorest widow. He would not, he said, work with his hands like the apostles. He wanted to have Carrying corn— a cart going uphill ; from the Luttrell Psalter. money, wool, cheese, and wheat at other people’s expense. Though Wycliffe had failed to reform the Church there was evidently much room for a reformer. I I. Roads and Bridges. — Such men as these latter did not go on pilgrimages through pure religious zeal. Villeins, indeed, were .bound to the soil,” and lived and died on land which they tilled ; but the classes above them moved about freely, and took pleasure in a pilgrimage, as a modem Englishman takes pleasure in a railway excursion. It was considered to be a pious work to make or repair roads and bridges, and the existence of many bridges especially was owing to the clergy. The most famous bridge in England, London Bridge, had been begun in the place of an old wooden one in 1176— in the reign of Henry II.— by a 273 1381-1399 BRIDGES, HORSES, AND CARRIAGES priest, Peter Colechurch, who obtained gifts for the purpose from notable people of all kinds. It was completed in 1209, houses being built upon it in order that their rents might pay for keeping it in good condition. Local taxes were sometimes levied to maintain the roads and bridges, and in default of these, it was held to be the duty of the owners of land to keep the communications open. 12. Modes of Con- veyance. — In spite of these precautions, roads were often neglected, so that those who were not obliged to go on foot travelled almost entirely on horseback, women almost always riding astride like men. It was only at the end of the fourteenth century that a few ladies rode sideways. Kings and queens and exceedingly great people occasionally used lum- bering but gorgeously ornamented carriages ; but this was to enable them to appear in splen- dour, as this way of travelling must, at least in fine weather, have been far less agreeable than the ordinary ride. The only other wheeled ve- X State carriage of the fourteenth century' ; Irom the Luttrell Psalter. 274 RICHARD II. 381-1399 hides in existence were the peasants’ carts on two wheels, roughly made in the form of a square box either of boards or of a lighter framework. It was one of the gne vances of the peasants that when the king moved from one manor to another his purveyors seized their carts to carry his property, and that though the purveyors were bound by frequently repeated statutes to pay for their hire, these statutes were often broken, and the carts sent back without payment for their use. The same purveyors often took com and other agri- cultural produce, for which they paid little or nothing. 13. Hospitality and Inns. — When the king arrived in the evening at a town his numerous attendants were billeted upon the townsmen, without asking leave. Monasteries were always ready to offer hospitality to himself or to any great person, and even to provide rougher fare for the poorest stranger in a special guest-house provided for the purpose. In castles, the owner was usually glad to see a stranger of his own rank. The halls were still furnished with movable tables, as in the days before the Conquest (see p. 76), and at night mattresses were placed for persons of inferior rank on the floor, which was strewn with rushes ; whilst a stranger of high rank had usually a bed in the solar (see p. 245) with the lord of the castle. Travellers of the middle class were not thought good enough to be welcomed in monasteries and castles, and were not poor enough to be received out of charity ; and for them inns were provided. These inns pro- vided beds, of which there were several in each room, and the guests then bought their provisions and fuel from the host, instead of being charged for their meals as is now the custom. From a manual of French conversation, written at the end of the four- teenth century for the use of Englishmen, it appears that clean- liness was not always to be found in these inns. “ William,” one traveller is supposed to say to another, “ undress and wash your legs, and rub them well for the love of the fleas, that they may not leap on your legs ; for there is a peck of them lying in the dust under the rushes. . . Hi ! the fleas bite me so, and do me great harm, for I have scratched my shoulders till the blood flows.” 14. Alehouses. — By the roadside were alehouses for temporary refreshment, known by a bunch of twigs at the end of a pole, from which arose the saying that “ Good wine needs no bush.” The ale of the day was made without hops, which were still un- known in England, and ale would therefore only keep good for about five days. 15. Wanderers. — Besides the better class of travellers the POPULAR AMUSEMENTS 275 1381-1399 roads were frequented by wanderers of all kinds, quack doctors, minstrels, jugglers, beggars, and such like. Life in the country was dull, and even great lords took pleasure in amusements which are now only to be heard of at country fairs. Any one who could play or sing was always welcome, and the verses sung were often exceedingly coarse. A tumbler who could stand on his head or balance a heavy article at the end of a stick balanced on his chin, or the leader of a performing bear, was seldom turned away from the door, whilst the pedlar went from place to place, supplying the wants which are now satisfied in the shop of the village or the neighbouring town. Bear-baiting ; from the Luttrell Psalter. 16. Robbers and Criminals. — The roads, indeed, were not always safe. Outlaws who had escaped from the punishment due to their crimes took refuge in the broad tracts of forest land which occupied much of the soil which has since been cultivated, shot the king’s deer, and robbed merchants and wealthy travellers, leaving the poor untouched, like the legendary Robin Hood of an earlier date. Such robbers were highly esteemed by the poor, as the law from which they suffered was cruelly harsh, hanging being the penalty for thefts amounting to a shilling. Villeins who fled from service could be reclaimed by their masters, unless they could succeed in passing a year in a town, and consequently were often found amongst vagabonds who had to live as best they might, often enough by committing fresh crimes. Prisons, in which even persons guilty of no more than harmless vagabondage were 276 RICHARD II. 1381-1399 West end of the nave of Winchester Cathedral : begun by Bishop Edington (who built the great window) between is&a and 1366 : carried on by Bishop William of Wykeham from 1394 to 1416, and finally completed after his death. t 38 i-i 399 CRIME AMD PUNISHMENT ±*l*l confined, reeked with disease, and those who were, as wanderers or drunkards, put in the stocks, had, if an unpleasant, at least a less dangerous experience than the prisoner. One means of escape, indeed, was available to some, at least, of these un- fortunates. They could take refuge in the sanctuaries to be found in churches, from which no officer of the law could take them, and, though the Church preserved some guilty ones from just punish- ment, she also saved many who were either innocent or who were exposed to punishments far too severe for their slight offences. 17. Justices of the Peace. — Even harshness is less dangerous than anarchy, and from time to time measures were taken to pro- vide against anarchy. Before the Conquest order had been kept by making either the kindred or the township liable to produce offenders, and this system was maintained by the Norman kings. In the time of Richard I. all men were required to swear to keep the peace, to avoid crime, and to join in the hue and cry in pursuit of criminals. In the time of Henry III. persons called guardians of the peace were occasionally appointed to see that order was kept, and at the accession of Edward III. these officials were established for a time by Act of Parliament as conservators of the peace. In 1360, the year of the Treaty of Bretigni, they were permanently continued, and the name of Justices of the Peace was given to them. They were to keep the peace in each county, and their number was to be made up of a lord, three or four gentlemen, and a lawyer, who was in those days always a cleric.^ They wbre to seize and imprison, and even to try persons accused of crime. The king named these justices, but he had to name all of them except the lawyer from amongst the local landowners. In every way, in the fourteenth century, the chief local landowners were becoming pro- minent. The kings attempted to govern with their help, both in Parliament and in the counties. ^ Many clerics took one of the minor orders so as to secure the immunities of tlie clergy, without any intention of being ordained a deacon or a priest. 27S CHAPTER XVIII RICHARD II. AND THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION 1382—1399 LEADING DATES Reign of Richard II., 1377—1399 The impeachment of Suffolk The Merciless Parliament Richard begins his constitutional government . Richard’s coup-d’^tat Deposition of Richard 1386 1388 1389 1397 1399 1. Progress of the War with France. 1382 — 1386. — In 1382 Richard at the early age of fifteen was married to Anne of Bohemia. Though he was a young husband he was at all events old enough to be accused of disasters which he could not avoid. Not only was the war with France not prospering, but English influence was declining in Flanders. In 1382 Philip van Arteveldt, who like his father Jacob (see p. 235) headed the resistance of Ghent against the Count of Flanders, was defeated and slain at Roosebeke by Charles VI., the young king of France. In 1383 an English expedition led by Henry Spencer, Bishop of Noi^vich, under the pretext of a crusade against the French as the followers of the Pope of Avignon, ended in complete failure, and Flanders, the great purchaser of English wool, fell under the control of France. In 1385 Richard, indeed, invaded Scotland, ravaged the country and burnt Edinburgh, though without producing any permanent result. In 1386 a French fleet and army was gathered at Sluys, and an invasion of England was threatened. 2. Richard’s growing Unpopularity. 1385— 1386.— When the king returned from Scotland in 1385 he made a large creation of peers. He raised his two younger uncles to the Dukedoms of York and Gloucester ; his Chancellor, Michael de la Pole, to the earldom of Suffolk, and his favourite, Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, to the marquisate of Dublin, making him not long afterwards Duke of Ireland. Suffolk was an able and apparently an honest adminis- trator, who upheld the king’s prerogative against the encroachments of Parliament. Oxford was a gay and heedless companion of 1386- 1388 A BARONIAL GOVERNMEN'f 279 Richard’s pleasures, who encouraged him in unnecessary expense, and thereby provoked to resistance those who might have put up with an extension of the royal authority. That resistance, however, was to a great extent due to causes not of Richard’s own making. Though the French in 1386 abandoned their attempt at invasion, the preparations to resist them had been costly, and Englishmen were in an unreasonable mood. Things, they said, had not gone so in the days of Edward III. A cry for reform and retrenchment, for more victories and less expense, was loudly raised. 3. The Impeachment of Suffolk and the Commission of Regency. 1386. — The discontented found a leader in Gloucester, the youngest of the king’s uncles. Wealthy, turbulent, and am- bitious, he put himself at the head of all who had a grievance against the king. Lancaster had just sailed for Spain to prosecute a claim in right of his second wife to the throne of Castile, and as York was without ambition, Gloucester had it all his own way. Under his guidance a Parliament demanded the dismissal of Richard’s ministers, and, on his refusal, impeached Suffolk. Suffolk, though probably innocent of the charges brought against him, was condemned and driven from power, and Commissioners of regency were appointed for a year to regulate the realm and the king’s household, as the Lords Ordainers had done in the days of Edward II. (see p. 226). 4. The Lords Appellant and the Merciless Parliament. 1387 — 1388. — In one way the Commissioners of regency satisfied the desire of Englishmen. In 1387 they sent the Earl of Arundel to sea, and Arundel won a splendid victory over a combined fleet of French, Flemings, and Spaniards. Richard, on the other hand, fearing that they would prolong their power when their year of office was ended, consulted upon the legality of the commission with the judges in the presence of Suffolk and others of his principal supporters, amongst whom was the Duke of Ireland. With one voice the judges declared that Parliament might not put the king in tutelage. Richard then made preparations to prevent by force the renewal of the commission, and to punish as traitors those who had originated it. His intention got abroad, and five lords, the Duke of Gloucester, the Earls of Arundel, Nottingham, Wanvick, and Derby, the latter being the son of the absent Lancaster, appeared at the head of an ovenvhelming force against him. The five lords appellant, as they were called, appealed, or accused of treason five of Richard’s councillors before a Parliament which met at Westminster in 1388, by flinging down 280 RICHARD II. 1388-1390 their gloves as a token that they were ready to prove the truth of their charge in single combat. The Duke of Ireland, attempting resistance, was defeated by Derby at Radcot Bridge, and finally escaped to Ireland. The Parliament, called by its admirers the Wonderful, and by its opponents the Merciless Parliament, was entirely subservient to the lords appellant, who, instead of meeting their antagonists in single combat, accused them befoie the House of Lords. The Duke of Ireland, Suffolk, Chief Justice Tresilian, and Brember, who had been Mayor of London, were condemned to be hanged. The two first-named had escaped to the Continent, but the others were put to death. The fifth councillor, the Archbishop of York, escaped with virtual de- privation by the Pope. Four other knights, amongst them Sir Simon Burley, a veteran soldier and trusted companion of the Black Prince, were also put to death. Richard was allowed nominally to retain the crown, but in reality he was subjected to a council in which Gloucester and his adherents were supreme. 5. Richard’s Restoration to Power. 1389. — Richard’s entire submission turned the scale in his favour. England had been dis- satisfied with him, but it had never loved the rule of the great feudal lords. Gloucester’s council was no more popular than had been the Committees named in the Provisions of Oxford in the reign of Henry III., or the Lords Ordainers in the reign of Edward II., and it fell more easily than any government, before or afterwards. Sud- denly, on May 3, 1389, Richard asked his uncle in full council how old he was. “ Your highness,” replied Gloucester, “ is in your twenty-second year.” “ Then,” said Richard, “ I must be old enough to manage my own affairs, as every heir is at liberty to do when he is twenty-one.” No attempt having been made to confute this argu- ment, Richard dismissed the council, and ruled once more in person. 6. Richard’s Constitutional Government. 1389 — 1396. — This sudden blow was followed by seven years of constitutional govern- ment. It seemed as if Richard had solved the problem of the relations between Crown and Parliament, which had perplexed so many generations of Englishmen. In 1389 he appointed ministers at his own pleasure, but when Parliament met in 1390 he com- manded them to lay down their offices in order that no one should be deterred from bringing charges against them ; and it was only upon finding that no one had any complaint to bring against them that he restored them to their posts. Nor did he show any signs of irritation against those by whom he had been outraged. Not only did he forbear to recall Suffolk and his other exiled 1390 GOVERNMENT BY THE KING 281 favourites, but after a little time he admitted Gloucester and his supporters to sit in council alongside of his own adherents. 7. Livery and Maintenance. 1390. — During the fourteenth cen- tury the importance of the House of Commons had been steadily growing, and the king on the one hand and the great nobles on the other had been sorely tempted to influence the elections un- duly. The means of doing so had come with a change in civil relationships, the natural result of that change in military relation- ships which had given a new character to the wars of Edward III. (see p. 236). Just as the king now fought wiih paid soldiers of every rank instead of fighting with vassals bound by feudal tenure, so the great nobles surrounded themselves with retainers instead of vassals. The vassal had been on terms of social equality with his lord, and was bound to follow him on fixed terms. The retainer was an inferior, who was taken into service and pro- fessed himself ready to fight for his lord at all times and in all causes. In return his lord kept open house for his retainers, supplied them with coats, known as liveries, marked with his badge, and undertook to maintain them against all men, either by open force or by supporting them in their quarrels in the law courts ; and this maintenance, as it was called, was seldom limited to the mere payment of expenses. The lord, by the help of his retainers, could bully witnesses and jurors, and wrest justice to the profit of the wrongdoer. As yet, indeed, the practice had not attained the pro- portions which it afterwards assumed, but it was sufficiently deve- loped to draw down upon it in 1390 a statute prohibiting mainte- nance and the granting of liveries. Such a statute was not merely issued in defence of private persons against intimidation ; it also helped to protect the Crown against the violence of the great lords. The growth of the power of the House of Commons was a good thing as long as the House of Commons represented the wishes of the community. It would be a bad thing if it merely represented knots of armed retainers who either voted in their own names according to the orders of their lords, or who frightened away those who came to vote for candidates whom their lords opposed. 8. Richard’s Domestic Policy. 1390 — 1391. — It was therefore well for the community that there should be a strong and wise king capable of making head against the ambition of the lords. F or some years Richard showed himself wise. Not only did he seek, by opening the council to his opponents, to win over the lords to take part in the peaceable government of the country instead of dis- turbing it, but he forwarded legislation which carried out the general 282 klCHARb ti. ij90-ij9? wishes of the country. The Statute of Provisors (see p. 258) was re-enacted and strengthened in 1390, the Statute of Mortmain (see p. 212) in 1391, and the Statute of Praemunire (see p. 258) in 1393. 9. Richard’s Foreign Policy. 1389—1396. — Richard’s foreign policy was based upon a French alliance. In 1389 he made a truce with France for three years. Negotiations for a permanent peace were frustrated because the French would make no peace unless Calais were surrendered to them, and English feeling was against the surrender of the claims sanctioned by the Treaty of Bretigni. The truce was, however, prolonged from time to time, and in 1396, when Richard, who was by that time a widower, married Isabella, the daughter of Charles VI., a child of eight, it was prolonged for twenty-eight years. Wise as this policy was, it was distasteful to Englishmen, and their dissatisfaction rose when they learnt that Richard had surrendered Brest and Cherbourg to the French. It was true that these places had been pledged to him for money, and that he had only given them up as he was bound to do when the money was paid, but his subjects drew no fine distinctions, and fancied that he was equally ready to surrender Calais and Bordeaux. 10. Richard’s Coup d’Etat. 1397. — Richard knew that Glou- cester was ready to avail himself of any widespread dissatisfaction, and that he had recently been allying himself with Lancaster against him. To please Lancaster, who had married his mistress, Catherine Swynford, as his third wife, Richard had legitimatised the Beauforts, his children by her, for all purposes except the succession of the crown, thus giving personal offence to Gloucester. Lancaster’s son Derby, and Nottingham, another of the lords appellant (see p. 279), were now favourable to the king, and when rumours reached Richard that Gloucester was plotting against him, he resolved to anticipate the blow. He arrested the three of the lords appellant whom he still distrusted, Gloucester, Warwick, and Arundel, and charged them before Parliament, not with recent malpractices, of which he had probably no sufficient proof, but with the slaughter of his ministers in the days of the Merciless Parliament. Warwick was banished to the Isle of Man, Arundel was executed, and Gloucester imprisoned at Calais, where he was secretly murdered, as was generally believed by the order of the king. Archbishop Arundel, brother of the Earl of Arundel, was also banished. In such contradiction was this sudden outburst of violence to the prudence of Richard’s recent conduct, that it has sometimes been supposed that, he had been dissimulating all the time. It is more probable that, without being actually insane, his mind had to some extent given way. He was RICHARD'' S ABSOLUTISM 1397-1399 2^3 always excitable, and in his better days his alertness of mind carried him forward to swift decisions, as when he met the mob at Smith- field, and when he vindicated his authority from the restraint of his uncle. Signs had not been wanting that his native energy was no longer balanced by the restraints of prudence. In 1394 he had actually struck Arundel in Westminster Abbey. In 1397 there was much to goad him to hasty and ill-considered action. The year before complaints had been raised against the extravagance of his household. The peace which he had given to his country was made the subject of bitter reproach against him, and he seems to have believed that Gloucester was plotting to bring him back into the servitude to which he had been subjected by the Com- missioners of regency. 11. The Parliament of Shrewsbury. 1398.— Whether Richard was mad or not, he at all events acted like a madman. In 1398 he summoned a packed Parliament to Shrewsbury, which declared all the acts of the Merciless Parliament to be null and void, and announced that no restraint could legally be put on the king. It then delegated all parliamentary power to a committee of twelve lords and six commoners chosen from the king’s friends. Richard was thus made an absolute ruler unbound by the necessity of gathering a Parliament again. He had freed himself not merely from turbulent lords but also from all constitutional restraints. 12. The Banishment of Hereford and Norfolk. 1398. — Richard had shown favour to the two lords appellant who had taken his side. Derby became Duke of Hereford, and Nottingham Duke of Norfolk. Before long Hereford came to the king with a strange tale. Norfolk, he said, had complained to him that the king still distrusted them, and had suggested that they should guard them- selves against him. Norfolk denied the truth of the story, and Richard ordered the two to prove their truthfulness by a single com- bat at Coventry. When the pair met in the lists in full armour Richard stopped the fight, and to preserve peace, as he said, banished Norfolk for life and Hereford for ten years, a term which was soon reduced to six. There was something of the unwise cunning of a madman in the proceeding. 13. Richard’s Despotism. 1398 — 1399. — Richard, freed from all control, was now, in every sense of the word, despotic. He extorted money without a semblance of right, and even compelled men to put their seals to blank promises to pay, which he could fill up with any sum he pleased. He too, like the lords, gathered round him a vast horde of retainers, who wore his badge and ill- 284 klCllARD //. * 39 ^ treated his subjects at their pleasure. He threatened the Percies, the Earl of Northumberland and his son, Harry Hotspur, with exile, and sent them off discontented to their vast possessions in the North. Early in 1399 the Duke of Lancaster died. His son, the banished Hereford, was now Duke of Lancaster. Richard, however, seized the lands which ought to have descended to him from his father. Every man who had property to lose felt that Lancaster’s cause was his own. Richard at this inopportune moment took occasion to sail to Ireland. He had been there once before in 1394 in the vain hope of protecting the English colonists (see p. 265). His first expedition had been a miserable failure : his second expedition was cut short by bad news from England. 14. Henry of Lancaster in England. 1399.— Lancaster, with a small force, landed at Ravenspur, in Yorkshire, a harbour which has now disappeared in the sea. At first he gave out that he had come merely to demand his own inheritance. Then he alleged that he had come to redress the wrongs of the realm. Northumberland brought the Percies to his help. Armed men flocked to his support *399 RICHARD'^S ABDICATION 285 in crowds. The Duke of York, who had been left behind by Richard as regent, accepted this statement and joined him with all his forces. When Richard heard what had happened, he sent the Earl of Salisbury from Ireland to Wales to summon the Welshmen to his aid. The Welshmen rallied to Salisbury, but the king was long in following, and when Richard landed they had all dispersed. Richard found himself almost alone in Conway Castle, whilst Lancaster had a whole kingdom at his back. 15. The Deposition of Richard and the Enthronement of Henry IV. 1399. —By lying promises Lancaster induced Richard to place himself in his power at Flint. “ My lord,” said Lancaster to him, “ I have now come before you have sent for me. The reason is that your people commonly say you have ruled them very rigorously for twenty or two and twenty years ; but, if it please God, I will help you to govern better.” The pretence of helping the king to govern was soon abandoned. Richard was carried to London and thrown into the Tower. He consented, probably not till after he had been threatened with the fate of Edward II., to sign his abdication. On the following morning the act of abdication was read in Parliament. The throne was empty. 286 RICHARD II, 1399 Then Lancaster stepped forward. “In the name,” he said, “of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, Henry of Lancaster, challenge this realm of England, and the crown with all its members and appurtenances, as I am descended by right line of the blood coming from the good lord King Henry the Third,^ and through that right God of his grace hath sent me, with help of my kin and of my friends, to recover it, the which realm was in point to be undone for default of governance and undoing of the good laws.” The assent of Parliament was given, and Lancaster took his seat in Richard’s throne as King Henry IV. 16. Nature of the Claim of Henry IV. — The claim which Henry put forward would certainly not bear investigation. It laid stress on right of descent, and it has since been thought that Henry intended to refer to a popular belief that his ancestor Edmund, the second son of Henry III., was in reality the eldest son, but had been set aside in favour of his younger brother, Edward I., on account of a supposed physical deformity from which he was known as Edmund Crouchback. As a matter of fact the whole story was a fable, and the name Crouchback had been given to Edmund not because his back was crooked, but because he had worn a cross on his back as a crusader (see p. 197). That Henry 1 Genealogy of the claimants of the throne in 1399 : — Henry III. 1216-1272 Edward I. 1272-1307 Edward II. Thomas, 1307-1327 Earl of Lancaster Edward III 1327-1377 I _L I Edward, Lionel, the Black Prince Duke of Clarence R ICH AK d 1 1 . Philippa = Edmund Mortimer, 1377-1399 Earl of March Roger Mortimer, Earl of March Henry, Earl of Lancaster Henry, Duke of Lancaster Blanche = John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster Henry IV. 1399-1413 Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March *399 A PARLIAMENTARY REVOLUTION 287 should have thought it neces- sary to allude to this story, if such was really his meaning, shows the hold which the idea of hereditary succession had taken on the minds of English- men. In no other way could he claim hereditary right as a descendant of Henry III. Richard had selected as his heir Roger Mortimer, the son of the daughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the next son of Edward III., after the Black Prince, who lived to be old enough to have children. Roger Mortimer, indeed, had recently been killed in Ireland, but he had left a boy, Edmund Mortimer, who, on hereditary principles, was heir to the king- dom, unless the doctrine an- nounced by Edward III. that a claim to the crown descended through females was to be set aside. In fact the real import- ance of the change of kings lay not in what Henry said, but in what he avoided saying. It was a reversion to the old right of election, and to the prece- dent set in the deposition of Edward II. Henry tacitly an- nounced that in critical times, when the wearer of the crown was hopelessly incompetent, the nation, represented by Par- liament, might step in and change the order of succession. The question at issue was not merely a personal one between I^ichard and Henry. It was Effigy of a knight at Clehonger, showing development of plate armour. Date, about 1^00, 288 RICHARD IT. a question between hereditary succession leading to despotism on the one side, and to parliamentary choice, perhaps to anarchy, on the other. That there were dangers attending the latter solu- tion of the constitutional problem would not be long in appearing. Books recom7nended for further study of Part III. Green, J. R. History of the English People. Vol. i. pp. 189-520. Stubbs, W. (Bishop of Oxford). Constitutional History of England. Vol. i. chap, xii. sections 151-155 ; vol. ii. chaps, ix. and x. The Early Plantagenets, 129-276. Norgate, Miss K. England under the Angevin Kings. Vol. ii. p. 390, Michelet, J, History of France (Middle Ages). Translated by G. H. Smith. Longman, W. The History of the Life and Times of Edward HI. Gairdner, James. The Houses of Lancaster and York, pp, 1-64. Rogers, James E. Thorold. A History of Agriculture and Prices in England. Vols. i. and ii. Cunningham, W. Growth of English Industry and Commerce in the Early and Middle Ages, pp. 172-365. Wakeman, H. O. and Hassall, A, (Editors). Essays Introductory to the Study of English Constitutional History. Ashley, W. J. An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory. Vol. i. Jusserand, j. j. English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages. Translated by Lucy Toulmin Smith (Miss). Browne, M. Chaucer's England. Jessopp, a.. Dr. The Coming of the Friars, and other Historic Essays. Oman, C. W. C. The Art of War in the Middle Ages. Adams, G. B The Political History of England. Vol. ii. From the Norman Conquest to the Death of John (1066-1216). Tout, T. F. The Political History of England. Vol. iii. From the Acces- sion of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377). Oman, C. The Political History of England. Vol. iv. From the Accession of Richard II. to the Death of Richard III. (1377-1485). 289 PART IV LANCASTER, YORK, AND TUDOR. 1399—1509 CHAPTER XIX HENRY IV. AND HENRY V. HENRY IV., 1399 — 1413 . HENRY V., I 413— 1422 LEADING DATES Accession of Henry IV Statute for the burning of heretics . Battle of Shrewsbury Fight at Bramham Moor .... Succession of Henry V Battle of Agincourt Treaty of Troyes Death of Henry V 1399 1401 1403 1408 1413 1415 1420 1422 I. Henry’s First Difficulties. 1399 — 1400. — Henry IV. fully understood that his only chance of maintaining himself on the throne was to ’ rule with due consideration for the wishes of Parliament. His main difficulty, like that of his predecessor, was that the great lords preferred to hold their own against him individually with the help of their armies of retainers, instead of exercising political power in Parliament. In his first Parliament an angry brawl arose. The lords who in the last reign had taken the side of Gloucester flung their gloves on the floor of the House as a challenge to those who had supported Richard when he compassed Gloucester’s death ; and though Henry succeeded in keeping the peace for the time, a rebellion broke out early in 1400 in the name of Richard. Henry, like the kings before him, found his support against the turbulent nobles in the townsmen and the yeomen, and he was thus able to suppress the rebellion. Some of the noblemen who were caught by the excited de- fenders of the throne were butchered without mercy and without law. U 290 HENRY IV, 1399-14OC Henry IV. and his queen, Joan of Navarre : from their tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. ^ 1400 A CONSERVATIVE ALLIANCE 2gt 2. Death of Richard II. 1400.— A few weeks after the sup- pression of this conspiracy it was rumoured that Richard had died in prison at Pontefract. According to Henry’s account of the matter he had voluntarily starved himself to death. Few, however, doubted that he had been put to death by Henry’s orders. To prove the untruth of this story, Henry had the body brought to St. Paul’s, where he showed to the people only the face of the corpse, as if this could be any evidence whatever. After Richard’s death, if hereditary succession had been regarded, the person having a claim to the crown in prefer- ence to Henry was the young Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, the descen- dant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence (see p. 287). Henry there- fore took care to keep the boy under custody during the whole of his reign. 3. Henry IV. and the Church. — Be- sides seeking the support of the com- monalty, Henry sought the support of the Church. Since the rise of the friars at the beginning of the thirteenth cen- tury (see p. 191) the Church had produced no new orders of monks or friars. In the thirteenth and fourteenth she produced the schoolmen, a succession of great thinkers who systematised her moral and religious teaching. Imagining that she had no more to learn, she now attempted to strengthen herself by persecuting those who disbelieved her teaching, and after the suppression of the revolt of the peasants, made common cause with the landlords, who feared pecuniary loss from the emancipation of the villeins. This conservative alliance against social and religious change was the more easily made because many of the bishops were now members of 292 HENRY IV. 1400-140I noble families, instead of springing, as had usually been the case in the better days of the mediaeval Church, from poor or middle- class parentage. In the reign of Richard II. a Courtenay, a kinsman of the Earl of Devonshire, had become first Bishop of London (see p. 263), and then Archbishop of Canterbury. He was succeeded in his arch- bishopric by an Arundel, brother of the Earl of Arundel who had been executed by Richard, and Archbishop Arundel was in the days of Henry IV. the spokesman of the clergy. 4. The Statute for the Burning of Heretics. 1401. — In 1401 the clergy cried aloud for new powers. The ecclesiastical courts could condemn men as heretics, but had no power to burn them. Bishops and abbots formed the majority of the House of Lords, and though the Commons had not lost that craving for the wealth of the Church which had distin- guished John of Gaunt’s party, they had no sympathy with heresy. Ac- cordingly the statute for the burning of heretics {De hceretico comburendo)^ the first English law for the suppres- sion of religious opinion, was passed with the ready consent of the king and both Houses. The first victim was William Sawtre, a priest who held, amongst other things, “that after the words of consecration in the Eu- charist the bread remains bread, and nothing more.” He was burnt by a special order from the king and council even before the new law had been enacted. 5. Henry IV. and Owen Glen- dower. 1400 — 1402. — If Henry found it difficult to maintain order in England, he found it still more difficult to keep the peace on the Thomas Cranley, Archbishop of Dublin, 1397. 1417 : from his brass at New College, Oxford. Showing the archiepiscopal mass-vestments and the cross and pall. Date, about 1400. 1400-1403 TROUBLES IN WALES AND THE NORTH 293 borders of Wales. In 1400 an English nobleman, Lord Grey of Ruthyn, seized on an estate belonging to Owen Glendower, a power- ful Welsh gentleman. Owen Glendower called the Welsh to arms, ravaged Lord Grey’s lands, and proclaimed himself Prince of Wales. For some years Wales was practically independent. English towns- men and yeomen were ready to support Henry against any sudden attempt of the nobility to crush him with their retainers, but they were unwilling to bear the burden of taxation needed for the steady performance of a national task. In the meanwhile Henry was con- stantly exposed to secret plots. In 1401 he found an iron with four spikes in his bed. In the autumn of 1402 he led an expedition into Wales, but storms of rain and snow forced him back. His English followers attributed the disaster to the evil spirits which, as they fully believed, were at the command of the wizard Glendower. 6. The Rebellion of the Percies. 1402—1404. — The Scots were not forgetful of the advantages to be derived from the divisions of England. They had amongst them some one — whoever he may have been — whom they gave out to be King Richard, and when Henry marched against Wales in 1402 they invaded England. They were met by the Percies and defeated at Homildon Hill. The Percies had still something of the enormous power of the feudal barons of the eleventh century. Their family estates stretched over a great part of Northumberland, and as they were expected to shield England against Scottish invasions they were obliged to keep up a military retinue which might be employed against the king as well as in his service. It was mainly through their aid that Henry had seated himself on the throne. Their chief, the Earl of Nor- thumberland, and his brother, the Earl of Worcester, were aged men, but Northumberland’s son, Henry Percy — Harry Hotspur as he was usually called— was of a fiery temper, and disinclined to submit to insult. Hotspur’s wife was a Mortimer, and her brother^ Sir Edmund Mortimer, the uncle of the young Earl of March, had been taken prisoner by Glendower. It was noticed that Henry, who had ransomed other prisoners, took no steps to ransom Mor- timer, and it was believed that he was in no hurry to set free one whose hereditary claim to the crown, like that of the Earl of March, came before his own. Other causes contributed to irritate the Percies, and in 1403, bringing with them as allies the Scottish prisoners whom they had taken at Homildon Hill, they marched southwards against Henry. Southern England might not be ready adequately to support Henry in an invasion of Wales, but it was in no mood to allow him to be dethroned by the Percies It rallied to HENRY ly. 1404 his side, and enabled him signally to defeat the Percies at Shrews- bury. Hotspur was killed in the fight, and his uncle, the Earl of Worcester, being captured, was beheaded without delay. Northum- I'he battle of Shrewsbury : from the “ Life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick ” ; drawn by John Rous about 1485. berland, who was not present at the battle, was committed to prison in 1404, but was pardoned on promise of submission. 7. The Commons and the Church. 1404. — After such a deliverance the Commons could not but grant some supplies. In the autumn of 1404, however, they pleaded for the confiscation of the revenues of the higher clergy, which were sufficient, as they alleged, to support 15 earls, 1,500 knights, 6,200 esquires, and 100 hospitals as well. The King refused to listen to the proposal, and money was voted in the ordinary way. It was the first deliberate attempt to meet the growing expenditure of the Crown by the con- fiscation of ecclesiastical revenue. t4oS i^RAMCE AMD SCO rl AMD m 8. The Capture of the Scottish Prince. 1405.— Early in 1405 Henry was threatened with a fresh attack. Charles VI. of France was now a confirmed lunatic, and his authority had mainly fallen into the hands of his brother Louis, Duke of Orleans, a profligate and unscrupulous man who was regarded by the feudal nobility ot France as their leader. The Duke of Orleans refused to consider himself bound to Henry by the truce which had been made with Richard, and, forming an alliance with Owen Glendower, prepared to send a fleet to his aid. When there was war between England and France the Scots seldom remained quiet, but this time Henry was freed from that danger by an unexpected occurrence. The reigning King of Scotland was Robert III., whose father, Robert II., had been the first king of the House of Stuart, and had as- cended the throne after the death of David Bruce, as being the son of his sister Margaret.^ Robert III., weakly in mind and body, had committed to the custody of his brother, the Duke of Albany, his eldest son, the Duke of Rothesay, who had gained an evil name by his scandalous debauchery. Rothesay died in the prison in which his uncle had confined him, and popular rumour alleged that Albany had murdered him to clear the way to the throne. Robert now sent young James, his only surviving son, to be educated in France in order to save him from Albany’s machinations. On his way the prince was captured by an English ship, and delivered to Henry, who kept him under guard as a hostage for the peaceful behaviour of his countrymen. The prince, he said, should have been sent to him to be educated, as he could talk French as well as the king of France. When Robert died soon afterwards the 1 Genealogy of the kings of Scotland from Robert Bruce to James I. : — Robert I. , Bruce (1306-1329) David II. (1329-1370) Margaret = Walter Stewart RO] ;ewart or Stuart Robert III. (1390-1406) Robert, Duke of Albany David, James I. Duke of Rothesay (1406-1437) James I. 296 HENRY IV. I405-140S captive became King James I. ; but he was not allowed to return home, and Albany ruled Scotland as regent in his name. 9. The Execution of Archbishop Scrope. 1405. — The capture of such a hostage as James was the more valuable to Henry as at that very moment there was a fresh rising in the North, in which Scrope, the Archbishop of York, took a leading part. The in- surgents were soon dispersed, and both Archbishop Scrope and Mowbray, the Earl Marshal, were captured. Henry had them both beheaded, though neither were tried by their peers, and ecclesiastics were not punishable by a secular court. Knowing that the insur- rection had been contrived by Northumberland, Henry gave him- self no rest till he had demolished the fortifications of his castles of Alnwick, Warkworth, and Prudhoe. Northumberland himself •escaped to Scotland. 10. France, Wales, and the North. 1405 — 1408. — In 1405, whilst Henry was in the North, a French fleet landed a force in Wales and seized Carmarthen. In 1406 the Duke of Orleans at- tacked the possessions still held by the English in Guienne, but though he plundered the country he could do no more. Once again fortune relieved Henry of a dangerous enemy. The Duke of Orleans had a rival in his cousin John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, who, in addition to his own duchy and county of Burgundy, was ruler of Flanders through his mother. His wise and firm government attached the manufacturing towns of Flanders to him, and the example of his government in Flanders won him favour in Paris and other French towns, especially in the north of France. He was, however, personally brutal and unscrupulous, and having entered into a competition for power with the Duke of Orleans, he had him murdered in 1407 in the streets of Paris. At once a civil war broke out between the Burgundian party, supported by the towns, and the Orleans party, which rested on the feudal nobility, and was now termed the party of the Armagnacs, from the Count of Armagnac, its chief leader after the murder of the Duke of Orleans. Henry had no longer to fear invasion from France. In 1408 he was freed from yet another enemy. The old Earl of North- umberland, who had wandered from Scotland to Wales, now wandered north again to try his fortunes in his own country. As he passed through Yorkshire he was met by the sheriff of the county, and defeated and slain on Bramham Moor. At the same time South Wales fell again under the power of the king, and though Owen Glendower still continued to hold out in the moun- tainous region round Snowdon, his power rapidly declined. 1409 yOUm OF HFNRY V. 297 II. Henry, Prince of Wales. 1409 — 1410. — No one had been more helpful to the king in these wars than his son, Henry, Prince of Wales. He had fought at Shrewsbury and in Wales, and had learnt to command as well as to fight. Young as he was — in 1409 OOOOOOOOOCOOOOOO'OOOOOOO O Q GO QQOOOOOOOQ{ in lifts with poleax Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and ^ Henry IV.: from the “ Life of Richard Earl of Warwick; drawn by John Rous about 1485. ’ he was but twenty-two— he was already seen to be a man born to have the mastery. He took his place in his father’s council as well as in his armies in the field. He was skilful, resolute, always knowing his own mind, prompt to act as each occasion arose. He 2gS HENRY IV. 1410-1413 was, moreover, unfeignedly religious. It seemed as if a king as great as Edward I. was about to ascend the throne. Yet between the character of Edward I. and the character of Prince Henry there was a great difference. Edward I. worked for the future as well as for the present. His constructive legis- lation served his coimtry for generations after his death. Even his mistaken attempt to unite England and Scotland was, to some extent at least, an anticipa- tion of that which was done by the Act of Union foiu* hundred years after his death. The young Henry had no such power of building for the future. He worked for the present alone, and his Avork crumbled away almost as soon as he was in his grave. His ideas were the ordinary ideas of his age, and he never originated any of his OAvn. In 1410, Avhen a heretic, Badby, AA^as led to be burnt, the Prince in vain urged him to recant. As the flames blazed up, the poor Avretch, stung by the torment, cried for mercy. The Prince bade the exe- cutioners drag aAvay the blazing faggots, and offered Badby support for his life- time if he would abandon his heresy. Badby refused, and the Prince sternly ordered the executioners to push the faggots back and to finish their cruel work. In that very year the House of Commons, which Avas again urging the king to confiscate the revenues of the clergy, even urged him also to soften the laws against the Lollards. The king r refused, and he had no opposition to Gassy, Chief Baron of the fear from the Prince of Wales. &e'ShiS. 12. The Last Years of Henry IV. 1411 — 1413. — It was not long before a bitter quarrel broke out betAveen Henry IV. and his son, which lasted till the death of the old man. In later times stories Avere told hoAV Prince Henry gave himself up to the society of Ioav and debauched companions, hoAv he amused himself by robbing the Costume of a judge, about 1400 ; from the brass of Sir John A NEW KING 2^9 1413 receivers of his own rents, and how, having struck Chief Justice Gascoigne for sitting in judgment on one of his unruly followers, he was sent to prison for contempt of court. There is no real evidence in support of these stories ; but there is good reason to believe that, though they were certainly exaggerated, they were not altogether without foundation. Since 1410 the Prince kept house in the heart of London, and, as a young and active man sud- denly called from service in the field to live in the midst of the temptations of a city, he may very well have developed a taste for boisterous amusements, even if he did not fall into grosser forms of dissipation. It is certain that during this period of his life he ran deeply into debt, and was no longer on good terms with his father. Yet even the story about the Chief Justice goes on to say that the Prince took his punishment meekly and offered no resistance, and that his father thanked God that he had so upright a judge and so obedient a son. Political disagreement probably widened the breach between the King and the Prince. Henry IV. had grown accustomed to live from hand to mouth, and had maintained himself on the throne rather because Englishmen needed a king than because he was himself a great ruler. In his foreign policy he was swayed by the interests of the moment. In 1411 he helped the Burgundians against the Armagnacs. In 1412 he helped the Armagnacs against the Burgundians. Prince Henry already aimed at a steady alli- ance with the Burgundians, with a view to a policy more thorough- going than that of keeping a balance between the French parties. The king, too, was subject to epileptic attacks, and to a cutaneous disorder which his ill-willers branded by the name of leprosy. It has even been said that in 1412 the Prince urged his father to abdicate in his favour. If so, he had not long to wait for the crown. In 1413 Henry IV. died, and Henry V. sat upon his throne. 13. Henry V. and the Lollards. 1413 — 1414. — Henry V. was steadied by the duties which now devolved upon him. He indeed dismissed from the chancellorship Archbishop Arundel, who had supported his father against himself, and gave it to his half-uncle, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, one of the legitimated sons of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swynford (see p. 282), but he allowed no plans of vengeance to take possession of his mind. His first thought was to show that he had confidence in his own title to the crown. He liberated the Earl of March, and transferred the body of Richard II. to a splendid tomb at Westminster, as if he had nothing to fear from any competitor. If there was one thing on which, as far as England was concerned, his heart was set| It 300 HENRY V. was on strengthening the religion of his ancestors. He founded three friaries and he set himself to crush the Lollards. Sir John Oldcastle, who bore the title of Lord Cobham in right of his wife, was looked up to by the Lollards as their chief supporter. Oldcastle was brought before Archbishop Arundel. Both judge and accused played their several parts with dignity. Arundel without angry reviling asserted the necessity of accepting the teaching of the Church. Oldcastle with modest firmness maintained the falsity of many of its doctrines. In the end he was excommunicated, but of the Lollards to play an historical part. The Lollards continued to exist in secret, especially in the towns, but there was never again any one amongst them who combined religious fervour with culti- vated intelligence. 14. Henry’s Claim to the throne of France. 1414. — Henry V. was resolved to uphold the old foreign policy of the days of Edward III. as Wbjll as the old religion. In 1414, whilst he amused the French court by offers of friendship, he was in reality prepar- ing to demand the crown of France as the right of the king of England, leaving out of sight the consideration that if the claim ot Henry V. : from an original painting belongii g to the Society of Antiquaries. before any further action could be taken he es- caped, and was nowhere to be found. His fol- lowers were so exaspe- rated as to form a plot against the king’s life. Early in 1414 Henry fell upon a crowd of them in St. Giles’s Fields. Most escaped, but of those who were taken the greater part were hanged or burnt. The result was a statute giving fresh powers to the king for the punishment of the Lollards. Every book written by them was to be confiscated. Three years later (1417) Old- castle was seized and burnt. He was the last 1413-1415 BURGUNDIANS AND ARMAGNACS 301 Edward III. had been worth anything at all, it would have de- scended to the Earl of March and not to himself. Everything seemed to combine to make easy an attack on F ranee. Burgun- dians and Armagnacs were engaged in a death-struggle. In 1413 a riotous Burgundian mob had made itself master of Paris and the Government. Then the Armagnacs had got the upper hand, and the Duke of Burgundy was driven back to his own dominions. Henry now made an alliance with the Duke of Burgundy against the ruling powers, and prepared to invade the distracted land. Thus far he proceeded in imitation of Edward III., who had attacked Philip VI. in alliance with the Flemings. With Edward III., however, the claim to the French crovm had always been a secondary consideration. He went to war because French sailors plundered English ports and the F rench king assisted the Scots. Henry had no such reason to urge. He went to war be- cause he was young and warlike, because the enterprise was easy, and because foreign conquest would unite all Englishmen round his throne. When once the war was begun he was certain to carry it on in a different spirit from that of Edward III. Edward had gone to weaken the plunderers by plundering in return, and to fight battles only when they happened to come in his way. Henry went with the distinct resolution to conquer France and to place the French crown on his own head. Every step which he took was calculated with skill for the attainment of this end. Of imme- diate, perhaps of lifelong, success Henry was as nearly certain as it was possible to be. Yet, if he had remembered what had been the end of campaigns adorned by the brilliant victories of Cregy and Poitiers, he might have known that all that he could do would end in ultimate failure, and that the day must come when divided France would unite to cast out, if not himself, at least his heirs. It was significant that when his Chancellor, Beaufort, announced to Parliament the king’s intention, he took for his text, after the manner of political speakers in those days, ‘ Let us work while it is called to-day.’ Henry was not inclined, as Edward I. had been, to take thought for a distant morrow. 15. The Invasion of France. 1415. — In 1415 Henry openly made his claim and gathered his army at Southampton. He there detected a conspiracy to place the Earl of March on the throne, which had been formed by Lord Scrope and Sir Thomas Grey, in combination with March’s brother-in-law, the Earl of Cambridge, a son of the Duke of York (see genealogy at p. 327), the son of Edward III. All three were executed, and then Henry sailed 302 HENRY V. 141S for France. He landed at the mouth of the Seine and besieged Harfleur. Harfleur fell after an heroic defence, and the Seine valley lay open to Henry.^ Over two-thirds of his army, however, had perished from dysentery and fever, and with no more, even at the highest calculation, than 15,000 men, he was unable to take advantage of the opportunity to march upon Paris. His brother, the Duke of Clarence, urged him to return to England, but Henry knew that if he went back with baffled hopes his throne would hardly stand the shock. He resolved to march to Calais. It might be that he would find a Cregy on the way. 16. The March to Agincourt. 1415. — Not a Frenchman could be found who would take seriously Henry’s claim to be the true king of France. When he reached the Somme he found the bridges over the river broken, and he was only able to cross it by ascend- ing it almost to its source. Then, bending to the left, he pushed on towards Calais. His own army was by this time scarcely more than 10,000 strong, and he soon learnt that a mighty French host of at least 50,000 men blocked the way at Agincourt. Though his little band was worn with hunger, he joyfully prepared for battle. He knew that the Duke of Burgundy had kept aloof, and that the Armagnac army opposed to him was a feudal host of the same character as that which had been defeated at Cregy. There were no recognised commanders, no subordination, no notion of the superior military power of the English archers. 17. The Battle of Agincourt, October 25, 1415. — In the early morning, mass was said in the English army, and Henry’s scanty followers prayed earnestly that their king’s right, as they believed it to be, might be shown on that day. Henry’s own prayers were long and fervid. He was told that it was the hour of prime, the first hour of prayer. “ Now,” he said, “ is good time, for all England prayeth for us, and, therefore, be of good cheer.” He then went forth to marshal his army. To a knight who wished that every brave Englishman now at home were there, he replied that he would not have one man more. Few as they were, they were in the hands of God, who could give them the victory. Henry’s tactics were those of Cre9y. He drew up his archers between thick woods which defended their flanks, and with sharp stakes planted in the ground to defend them in front, placing his dismounted horsemen at intervals between the bodies of archers. The French, however, showed no signs of attacking, and Henry, knowing that unless he cut his way through his soldiers would starve, threw 1 Havre de Grice was not yet in existence. 1415-1417 AG INCOURT 303 tactics to the winds and ordered his archers to advance. He had judged wisely. The French horsemen were on ploughed ground soaked with rain, and when at last they charged, the legs of their horses stuck fast in the clinging mud. The English arrows played thickly on them. Immovable and helpless, they were slaught'^red as they stood. In vain their dismounted horsemen pushed forward in three columns upon the English knights. Their charge was vigorously resisted, and the archers, overlapping each column, drew forth the heavy leaden mallets which each man carried, and fell upon the helpless rout with blows which crashed through the iron headpieces of the Frenchmen. Such as could escape fled hastily to the rear, throwing into wild confusion the masses of their country- men who had not as yet been engaged. The battle was won, but unfortunately the victory was stained by a cruel deed. Some French plunderers had got into the rear to seize upon the baggage, and Henry, believing that a fresh enemy was upon him, gave orders, which were promptly carried out, to slay the prisoners. The loss of the French was enormous, and fell heavily on their nobility, always eager to be foremost in fight. Amongst the prisoners who were spared was the young Duke of Orleans. 18. Henry’s Diplomacy. 1416 — 1417. — If Henry had not yet secured the crown of France, he had at least made sure of the crown of England. When he landed at Dover he was borne to land on the shoulders of the multitude. He entered London amidst wild enthusiasm. There was no fear of any fresh conspiracy to place the Earl of March on the throne. In 1416 he sent his brother, the Duke of Bedford, to secure Harfleur against a French attack, whilst he himself was diplomatically active in an attempt to win over to his side the Duke of Burgundy and Sigismund, King of the Romans, who actually visited him in England. Sigismimd promised much, but had little power to fulfil his promises, whilst the Duke shifted backwards and forwards, looking out for his own advantage and giving no real help to either side. In 1417 the quarrels in France reached a head. The Count of Armagnac, getting into his possession the Dauphin Charles, a boy of fourteen, established a reign of terror in Paris, and the Duke of Burgundy, summoned by the frightened citizens to their help, levied war against the Armagnacs and marched to Paris. 19. Henry’s Conquest of Normandy. 1417 — 1419. — Henry seized the opportunity and landed in Normandy. Caen was taken by storm, and in a few weeks all Normandy except Rouen had submitted to Henry. There had been a terrible butchery when 304 HENRY V. 1417-141^ Caen was stormed, but when once submission was secured Henry took care that justice and order should be enforced, and that his soldiers should abstain from plunder and outrage. In Paris affairs were growing worse. The citizens rose against the Ar- magnacs and imprisoned all of them on whom they could lay hands. Then the mob burst into the prisons and massacred the prisoners, the Count of Annagnac himself being one of the number.' Henry’s army in the meanwhile closed round Rouen. The magis- trates, to prolong the defence, thrust out the poorer inhabitants. Henry, who knew not pity when there was a practical object to be gained, thrust them back. During five months the poor wretches wandered about half starved, dy- ing off day by day. On Christmas Day, in honour of Christ’s nativity, Henry sent some food to the few who were left. Famine did its work within as well as without the walls, and on January 19, 1419, Rouen, the old ducal capital of the Norman kings, surren- dered to Henry. 20. The Murder of the Duke of Burgundy and the Treaty of Troyes. 1419 — 1420. — In the summer of 1419 English troops swept the country even up to the walls of Paris. Henry, however, gained more by the follies and crimes of his enemies than by his own skill. Terrified at the pro- spect of losing all, Burgundians 1419 MURDER OF THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY 305 and Armagnacs seemed for a moment to forget their quarrel and to be ready to join together in defence of their common country ; but the hatred in their hearts could not be rooted out. At a conference between the Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin on the bridge of Montereau, angry words sprang easily to the lips of both. The Duke put his hand on the pommel of his sword, and some of the Dauphin’s attendants, believing their master’s life in danger, fell on the Duke and slew him. After this an agreement between the 3o6 HENRY V 1419-1422 factions was no longer possible. The new Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, at once joined the English against the Dauphin, whom he regarded as an accomplice of his father’s murderers. Even Queen Isabella, the mother of the Dauphin, shared in the outcry against her own son, and in 1420 was signed the Treaty of Troyes, by which the Dauphin was disinherited in favour of Henry, who was to be king of France on the death of Charles VI. In accordance with its terms, Henry married Charles’s daughter Catherine, and ruled France as regent till the time came when he was to rule it as king. 21. The Close of the Reign of Henry V. 1420—1422. — The Treaty of Troyes was very similar in its stipulations to that which Henry II. had made with Stephen at Wallingford (see p. 137). The result was, as might have been expected, totally different. Henry II. had the English nation behind his back. Henry V. presumed to rule over a foreign nation, the leaders of which had only accepted him in a momentary fit of passion. He never got the whole of France into his power. He held Paris and the North, whilst the Duke of Burgundy held the East. South of the Loire the Armagnacs were strong, and that part of F ranee stood by the Dauphin, though even here the English possessed a strip of land along the sea-coast in Guienne and Gascony, and at one time drew over some of the lords to admit Henry’s feudal supremacy. In 1420 Henry fancied it safe for him to return to England, but, in his absence, in the spring of 1421 his brother, the Duke of Clarence, was defeated and slain at Baug^ by a force of Frenchmen and of Scottish auxiliaries. Clarence had forgotten that English victories had been due to English archery. He had plunged into the fight with his horsemen, and had paid the penalty for his rashness with his life. Henry hurried to the rescue of his followers, and drove the French over the Loire ; though Orleans, on the north bank of that river, remained unconquered. Instead of laying siege to it Henry turned sharply round northwards to besiege Meaux, the garrison of which was plundering the country round Paris in the name of the Dauphin, and seemed likely to shake the fidelity to Henry even of Paris itself. Meaux held out for many months. When at last it fell, in 1422, Henry was already suffering from a disease which carried him oft' before the end of the year at the age of thirty-five. Henry V. had given his life to the restoration of the authority of the Church in England, and to the establishment of his dynasty at home by means of the glory of foreign conquest. What man could do he did, but he could not achieve the impossible. 307 CHAPTER XX HENRY VI. AND THE LOSS OF FRANCE. I422—I45I LEADING DATES Reign of Henry VI., 1422-1461 The accession of Henry VI 1422 The relief of Orleans 1429 End of the alliance with the Duke of Burgundy . . 1435 Marriage of Henry VI. with Margaret of Anjou. 1445 Murder of the Duke of Suffolk and Jack Cade’s rebellion 1450 Loss of the last French possessions except Calais . 1451 1. Bedford and Gloucester. 1422. — In England Henry V. was succeeded in 1422 by his son, Henry VI., a child of nine months. In the same year, in consequence of the death of Charles VI., the infant was acknowledged as king of France in the north and east of that country. The Dauphin, holding the lands south of the Loire, and some territory even to the north of it, claimed to reign over the whole of France by hereditary right as Charles VII. Henry V. had appointed his eldest surviving brother, John, Duke of Bedford, regent in France, and his youngest brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, regent in England. In England there were no longer any parties banded against the Crown, and the title of the Earl of March had not a single supporter ; but both the Privy Council and the Parliament agreed that the late king could not dispose of the regency by will. Holding that Bedford as the elder brother had the better claim, they nevertheless, in consequence of his absence in France, appointed Gloucester Protector, with the proviso that he should give up his authority to Bedford if the latter were to return to England. They also imposed limitations upon the authority of the Protector, requiring him to act by the advice of the Council. 2. Bedford’s Success in France. 1423 — 1424. — The English nation was bent upon maintaining its supremacy in France. Bed- ford was a good warrior and an able statesman. In 1423 he pru- dently married the sister of Philip of Burgundy, hoping thereby to secure permanently the all-important fidelity of the Duke. His next step was to place difficulties in the way of the Scottish auxil- iaries who poured into France to the help of Charles. Through his influence the captive James I. (see p. 295) was liberated and sent home to Scotland, on the understanding that he would prevent 3o8 HENRY VI. 1424-1425 his subjects from aiding the enemies of England. Bedford needed all the support he could find, as the French had lately been gaining ground. In 1424, however, Bedford defeated them at Verneuil. In England it was believed that Verneuil was a second Agincourt, and that the French resistance would soon be at an end. 3. Gloucester’s Invasion of Hainault. 1424. — Bedford’s pro- gress in France was checked by the folly of his brother Gloucester, who was as unwise and capricious as he was greedy of power. Gloucester had lately married Jacqueline, the heiress of Holland and Hainault, though her husband, the Duke of Brabant, was still living, on the plea that her first marriage was null on the ground of nearness of kin. In 1424 Gloucester overran Hainault, which was under the govern- ment of the Duke of Brabant, thereby giving offence to the Duke of Burgundy, who was a cousin and ally of the Duke of Brabant, and who had no wish to see the English holding a territory so near to his own county of Flanders. The Duke of Brabant re- covered Hainault and captured Jacqueline, who had already been abandoned by Glou- cester. A coolness arose between the Duke of Burgundy and the English which was never completely removed. 4. Gloucester and Beaufort. 1425— 1428.— In England as well as on the Continent Gloucester’s self-willed restlessness roused enemies, the most powerful of them being his uncle, the Chancellor, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester (seepp. 301,335), a wealthy and ambitious prelate not without those statesmanlike qualities which were sadly lacking to Gloucester. If Beaufort ruled the Council, Gloucester had the art of making himself popular with the multi- tude, \vhose sympathies were not likely to be given to a bishop of the type of Beaufort, who practised no austerities and who had GLOUCESTER AND BEAVEORT 309 1426-1429 nothing in him to appeal to the popular imagination. So bitter was the feud between Gloucester and Beaufort that in 1426 Bedford was obliged to visit England to keep the peace between them. Before he returned to France he persuaded Beaufort to surrender the chancellorship to Kemp, the Bishop of London, and to leave England for a time. Moreover, in 1427 he himself swore that as long as the king was under age the Council and not the Protector was to govern. When Gloucester was asked to take the same oath, he signed it, but refused to swear. In 1428, after Bedford had returned to France, Beaufort came back, bringing with him from Rome the title of Cardinal, and authority to raise soldiers for a crusade against heretics in Bohemia. A storm was at once raised against him. A Cardinal, it was said, was a servant of the Roman See, and as no man could serve two masters, he ought not to hold an English bishopric or to sit in the English Council, far less to send to Bohemia English troops which were needed in France. Gloucester fancied that the opportunity of overthrowing his rival had come. Beaufort, however, was too prudent to press his claims. He ab- sented himself from the Council and allowed the men whom he had raised for Bohemia to be sent to France instead. Before the end of the year the outcry against him died away, and. Cardinal as he was, he resumed his old place in the Council. 5. The Siege of Orleans. 1428 — 1429. — The time had arrived when the presence of every English soldier was needed in France. Bedford had made himself master of almost the whole country north of the Loire except Orleans. If he could gain that city it would be easy for him to overpower Charles, who kept court at Chinon. In 1428, therefore, he laid siege to Orleans. The city, however, defended itself gallantly, though all that the F rench outside could hope to do was to cut off the supplies of the besiegers. In February 1429 they attempted to intercept a convoy of herrings coming from Paris for the English troops, but were beaten off in what was jocosely styled the Battle of the Herrings, and it seemed as though Orleans, and with it F ranee itself, were doomed. F rench- men were indeed weary of the foreign yoke and of the arrogant insolence of the rough island soldiers. Yet in France all military and civil organisation had hitherto come from the kings, and un- fortunately for his subjects Charles was easy-tempered and entirely incapable either of carrying on war successfully or of inspiring that enthusiasm without which the most careful organisation is as the twining of ropes of sand. It would need a miracle to inspire Frenchmen with the belief that it was possible for them to defeat HENRY VI. 310 1429 the victors of Agincourt and Verneuil, and yet without such a miracle irretrievable ruin was at hand. 6. Jeanne Dare and the Relief of Orleans. 1429. — The miracle was wrought by a young maiden of seventeen, Jeanne Dare, the daughter of a peasant of Domremi, in the duchy of Bar. Her home was at a distance from the actual scenes of war, but whilst she was still little more than a child, tales of horror, reaching her from afar, had filled her with ‘ pity for the realm of F ranee ’ and for its young king, whom she idealised into the pattern of every virtue. As she brooded over the thought of possible deliverance, her warm imagination summoned up before her bright and saintly forms, St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret, who bade her, the chosen of God, to go forth and save the king, and conduct him to Reims to be crowned and anointed with the holy oil from the vessel which, as men believed, had been brought down from heaven in days of old. At last in 1428 her native hamlet was burnt down by a Bur- gundian band. Then the voices of the saints bade her go to Vaucouleurs, where she would find a knight, Robert de Baudricourt, who would conduct her to Charles. Months passed before Bau- dricourt would do aught but scorn her message, and it was not till February 1429, when the news from Orleans was most depressing, that he consented to take her in his train. She found Charles at Chinon, and, as the story goes, convinced him of her Divine mis- sion by recognising him in disguise in the midst of his courtiers. Soldiers and theologians alike distrusted her, but her native good sense, her simple and earnest faith, and above all her purity of heart and life disarmed all opposition, and she was sent forth to lead an army to the relief of Orleans. She rode on horseback clothed in armour as a man, with a sword which she had taken from behind the altar of St. Catherine by her side, and a consecrated banner in her hand. She brought with her hope of victory, enthusiasm built on confidence in Divine protection, and wide-reaching patriotism. ‘ Pity for the realm of France’ inspired her, and even the rough soldiers who followed her forsook for a time their debaucheries that they might be fit to follow God’s hofy maid. Such an army was invincible ; but whilst to the French the maid was an instrument of the mercy of God, to the English she was an emissary of hell and the forerunner of defeat. On May 7 she led the storm of one of the English fortified posts by which the town was hemmed in. After a sharp attack she planted her standard on the wall. The English garrison was slain to a man. The line of the besiegers was broken through, and Orleans was saved. On the I2th the English army was in full retreat. ,459 THE MAW OF ORLEANS 3 ” 7. The Coronation of Charles VII. and the Capture of the Maid. 1429— 1430.— The Maid followed up her victory. She had at her side brave and skilful warriors, such as La Hire and the Bastard of Orleans, the illegitimate son of the murdered Louis of Orleans, and with their help she pressed the English hard, driving them northwards and defeating them at Patay. She insisted on Fotheringhay Church, Northamptonshire. The contract for building it, between Edward Duke of York, and William Horwod, freemason, is dated September 24, 1434. conducting Charles to Reims, and he, indolently resisting at first, was carried away by her persistent urgency. Hostile towns opened their gates to heron the way, and on July 17 she saw with chastened joy the man whom she had saved from destruction crowned in the great cathedral of Reims. For her part, she was eager to push on the war, but Charles was slothful, and in a hurry to be back to 3*2 HENRY VI. 1430-1435 the pleasures of his court. When she led the troops to the attack of Paris, she was ordered back by the king, and the army sent into winter quarters. In the spring of 1430 the Maid was allowed again to attack the English, but she had no longer the support which she had once had. Many of the French soldiers were meanly jealous of her, and were vexed when they were told that they owed their victories to a woman. On the other side the Duke of Bur- gundy^was^rightened by the French successes into giving real aid to Bedford, and on May 23, in a skirmish before Compiegne, her countrymen doing nothing to save or to rescue her, the Maid was taken by Burgundian soldiers. Before the end of the year her captors sold her to the English, who firmly believed her to be a witch. 8. The Martyrdom at Rouen. 1431. — The English had no difficulty in finding an ecclesiastical court to judge their prisoner. Even the French clergy detested the Maid as having appealed to supernatural voices which had not been recognised by the Church ; and in spite of an intelligent and noble defence she was condemned to be burnt. At the stake she behaved with heroic simplicity. When the flames curled round her she called upon the saints who had befriended her. Her last utterance was a cry of “Jesus!” An Englishman who had come to triumph hung his head for shame. “We are lost,” he said ; “ we have burnt a saint 1 ” 9. The Last Years of the Duke of Bedford. 1431 — 1435. — The English gained nothing by their unworthy vengeance. Though the personal presence of the Maid was no longer there to encourage her countrymen, they had learnt from her to cherish that ‘ pity for the realm of France’ which had glowed so brightly in her own bosom. It was in vain that towards the end of 1431 Bedford carried the young Henry, now a boy of ten years, who had already been crowned in England the year before, to be crowned at Notre Dame, the cathedral of Paris. The Parisians were disgusted by the troop of foreigners which accompanied him, and their confi- dence was shaken when Bedford sent the king back to England as not venturing to trust him amongst his F rench subjects. In 1432 the armies of Charles VII. stole forwards step by step, and Bedford, who had no money to pay his troops, could do nothing to resist them. The English Parliament, which had cheerfully voted supplies as long as there seemed a prospect of conquering France, hung back from granting them when victories were no longer won. In 1433 Bedford was again forced to return to England to oppose the in- trigues of Gloucester, who, though he had lost the title of Protector when the young king was crowned, had thrown the government A HOPELESS STRUGGLE 313 U34-I437 into confusion by his intrigues. When Bedford went back to F ranee in 1434 he found the tide running strongly against him. Little more than Paris and Normandy were held by the English, and the Duke of Burgundy was inclining more and more towards the Frendi. In 1435 a congress was held at Arras, under the Duke of Bu5"«iindy s presidency, in the hope that peace might- be made. The congress, however, foiled to accomplish an\thing, and soon after the English ambassadors were withdrawn Bedford died at Rouen. If so wise a statesman and so skilful a warrior had foiled to hold down F ranee, no other Englishman was likely to achieve the task, la The Defection of Burgundy. 1435- — After Bedford's death the Duke of Burgundy renounced his alliance with the English and entered into a league with Charles VII. In 1430. by the death of the Duke of Brabant, he inherited Brabant, and in 1436 he inherited from the foithless Jacqueline Hainault, Holland, Zealand, and Friesland (see p. 3oS\ He thus, being already Count of Flanders, became ruler over well-nigh the whole of the Netherlands in addition to his own territories in Burgundy. The vassal of the king of France was now a European potentate. England had therefore to count on the enmity of a mler whose power of injuring her was indeed serious. 11. The Duke of York in France. 1436 — 1437. — Bedford's suc- cessor was the young Richard. Duke of York, whose father was that Earl of Cambridge who had been executed at Southampton (see p. 301) ; whilst his mother was Anne Mortimer, the sister of the Earl of March- As the Earl of March had died in 1425. the Duke of York was now, through his mother, the heir of Lionel. Duke of Clarence, and thus, if hereditary' right was to be regarded, heir to the throne. That a man \^-ith such claims should have been entrusted with such an office shows how firmly the t-ictories of Henry had established the House of Lancaster in England. Disputes in the English Council, howe\*er. delayed his departure, and in April 1436, before he could arrive in France, Paris was lost, whilst the Duke of Burgundy besieged Calais. England, stimg by the defection of Burgundy, made an imusual efifort. One army drove the Burgundians away from before Calais, whilst another under the Duke of York himself regained several fortresses in Normandy, and in 1437 Lord Talbot drove the Burgundians behind the Somme. 12. The English Lose Ground. 1437 — 1443. — Gallant as the Duke of York was, he was soon recalled, and in 1437 was succeeded by Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick- War\^-ick, howe\-er, 3 U • MENRV VI. 1438-1443 Gilt'latten effigy (front view) of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, died 1439 • from his tomb at Warwick. Made by William Austen, of London, founder, 1453. failed to do more than to hold what his prede- cessor had gained, and he died in 1439. Both in England and France the suffenng was ter- rible, and England would find neither men nor money to support a falling cause. In 1439 a peace conference was held at Calais, but the English continued arro- gantly to claim the crown of France, and peace was not to be had. In 1440 York was sent back, and fighting went on till 1443, in which the English lost ground both in Normandy and in Guienne. 13. Continued Ri- valry of Beaufort and Gloucester. 1439 — 1441. — The chief advocate in England of the attempt to make peace at Calais in 1439 had been Cai*- dinal Beaufort, whose immense wealth gave him authority over a Council which was always at its wits’ end for money. Beaufort was wise enough to see that the attempt to re- conquer the lost terri- tory, or even to hold Normandy, was hope' less. Such a view, how- ever, was not likely to l4j^T440 POPULARiTV OF GLOUCESTER 31s be popular. Nations, like men, often refuse openly to acknowledge failure long after they cease to take adequate means to avert it. Of the popular feeling Gloucester made him- self the mouthpiece, and it was by his influ- ence that exorbitant pretensions had been put forward at Calais. In 1440 he accused Beaufort of using his authority for his own private interests, and though Beaufort gave over to the public ser- vice a large sum of money which he re- ceived as the ransom of the Duke of Orleans from a captivity which had lasted twenty-four years (see p. 303), Gloucester virulently charged him with an unpatriotic concession to the enemy. Glou- cester’s domestic rela- tions, on the other hand, offered an easy object of attack. When he deserted Jacqueline he took a mistress, Eleanor Cobham, and subsequently married her, which he was able to do without difficulty, as his union with Jac- queline was, in the eyes Gilt-latten effigy (back view) of Richard Beauchamp, Earl ot Warwick, died 1^39 : from his tomb at Warwick. Made by William Austen, of London, founder, 1453. HENRY VI. 316 1441 of the Church, no marriage at all. The new Duchess of Gloucester being aware that if the king should die her husband would be next in order of succession to the throne, was anxious to hasten that event. It was a superstitious age, and the Duchess consulted an astrologer as to the time of the king’s death, and employed a re- Taitershall Castle, Lincolnshire : built of brick by Ralph, Lord Cromwell, between 1433 and 1455. puted witch to make a waxen image ot the king under the belief that as the wax melted before the fire the king’s life would waste away. In 1441 these proceedings were detected. The astrologer was hanged, the witch was burnt, whilst the Duchess escaped %vith doing public penance and with imprisonment for life. Gloucester 1442-1445 3*7 MARGARET OF ANJOU could not save her, but be did not lose his place in the Council, where he continued to advocate a war |x>licy, though with less success than before. 14. Beaufort and Somerset. 1442— 1443. — In 1442 Henry was in his twenty-first year. Unfeignedly religious and anxious to be at peace w ith all men, his character was far too weak and gentle to fit him for governing in those rough times. He had attached him- self to Beaufort because Beaufort's policy was pacific, and because Gloucester's life was scandalous. Beaufort’s position was secured at court, but the situation was not one in which a pacific states- man could hop>e for success. The French w^ould not consent to make peace till all that they had lost had been recovered ; yet, hardly bested as the English in France were, it was impossible in the teeth of English public opinion for any statesman, however pacific, to abandon lands still commanded by English garrisons. Every year, however, brought the problem nearer to the ine\*itable solution. In 1442 the French attacked the strip of land which was all that the English now held m Guienne and Gascony, and with the exception of Bordeaux and Bayonne captured almost every fortified towm. The command in France was given to Cardinal Beaufort’s nephew, John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset Somerset, who was thoroughly incompetent, did not even leave England till the autumn of 1443, and when he arrived in France accomplished nothing worthy of his office. 15. The Angevin Marriage Treaty. 1444 — 1445. — Henry now fell under the influence of William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, a descendant of the favourite of Richard II. Suffolk had fought bravely in France, and had learnt by sad experience the hopeless- ness of the English cause. In 1444, with the consent of the king and the Parliament, he negotiated at Tours a truce for ten months. In order to make it more lasting there w-as to be a marriage between Henry and Margaret of Anjou. Her father, Rene, the Duke of Anjou, was titular king of Jerusalem and Sicily, in neither of which did he possess a foot of ground, w hilst his duchy of Anjou was almost valueless to him in consequence of the forays of the English, who still held posts in Maine. Charles had the more readily consented to the truce, because it was understood that the surrender of Maine would be a condition of the marriage. In 1445 Suffolk led Margaret to England, where her marriage to Henry was solemnised. A French queen who brought widi her ho portion except a truce bought by the surrender of territor)' could hardly fail to be unpopular in England HENRY VI. 1447 16. Deaths of Gloucester and Beaufort. 1447. — The truce was renewed from time to time, and Suffolk’s authority seemed firmly established. In 1447 Gloucester was charged with high treason in a Parliament held at Bury St. Edmunds, but before he had time to answer he was found dead in his bed. His death may, with strong probability, be ascribed to natural causes, but it was widely believed that he had been murdered and that Suffolk was the murderer. A few weeks later Gloucester’s old rival. Cardinal Beaufort, the last real statesman who supported the throne of Henry VI., followed him to the grave, and Suffolk was left alone to bear the responsibility of government and the disgrace of failure. 17. The Loss of the French Provinces. 1448— 1449.— Suffolk had undertaken more than he was able to fulfil. Somerset had died m 1444, Suffolk being jealous of all authority but his own, Pa t of Wingfield manor-house. Derbyshire : built by Ralph, Lord Cromwell, about 1440. 1448 PREDOMINANCE OF SUFFOLK 319 he sent York to govern Ireland. He could not secure the fulfil- ment of the conditions which he had made with the king of France. The English commanders refused to evacuate Maine, and in 1448 a French army entered the province and drove out the English. 320 HENRY VI. 1449-1451 Edmund, the new Duke of Somerset, was sent to take the com- mand in Normandy, which had formerly been held by his brother. In 1449 an Aragonese captain in the English service, who had no pay for his troops, having seized F oug^res, a place on the frontier of Brittany, for the sake of the booty to be gained, Charles made the attack an excuse for the renewal of the war. So destitute was the condition in which the English forces were left that neither Somerset nor the warlike Talbot (see P..313), who had recently been created Earl of Shrewsbury, was able to resist him. Rouen fell in 1450, and in 1450 the whole of Normandy was lost. In 1451 the French attacked Bordeaux and Bayonne, two port-towns which, in consequence of their close commercial intercourse with England, had no wish to transfer their allegiance to Charles. England, how- ever, sent them no succour, and before the end of the year they were forced to capitulate. The relics of Guienne and Gascony thus passed into the hands of the French, and of all the possessions which the kings of England had once held on the Continent Calais alone remained. CHAPTER XXI THE LATER YEARS OF HENRY VI. I45O— 1461 LEADING DATES Reign of Henry VI., 1422—1461 Murder of the Duke of Suffolk and Jack Cade’s rebellion . 1450 First Protectorate of the Duke of York 1453 First Battle of St. Albans and second Protectorate of the Duke of York 1455 Battle of Blore Heath and the discomfiture of the Yorkists 1459 After a Yorkist victory at Northampton the Duke of York is declared heir to the crown, but is defeated and slain at Wakefield 1460 i Battles of Mortimer’s Cross, St. Albans, and Towton . 1461 Coronation of Edward IV 1461 I. The Growth of Inclosures. — Since the insurrection of the peasants in 1381 (see p. 268) villeinage had to a great extent been dying out, in consequence of the difficulty felt by the lords in en- forcing their claims. Yet the condition of the classes connected with the land was by no means prosperous. The lords of manors indeed abandoned the old system of cultivating their own lands LIVERY AND MAINTENANCE 321 1450 by the labour of villeins, or by labourers hired with money paid by villeins in commutation for bodily service. They began to let out their land to tenants who paid rent for it ; but even the new system did not bring in anything like the old profit. The soil had been exhausted for want of a proper system of manuring, and arable land scarcely repaid the expenses of its cultivation. For this evil a remedy was found in the inclosure of lands for pasturage. This change, which in itself was beneficial by increasing the produc- tiveness of the country, and by giving rest to the exhausted soil, became oppressive because all the benefit went to the lords of the manors, whilst the tenants of the manors were left to struggle on as best they might. Not only had they no share in the increase of wealth which was brought about by the inclosure of what had formerly been the common land of the manors, but the poorer amongst them had less employment than before, as it required fewer men to look after sheep than to grow corn. 2. Increasing Power of the Nobility. — The disproportionate increase of the wealth of the landowners threw into their hands a disproportionate amount of power. The great landowner especially was able to gather bands of retainers and to spread terror around him. The evil of liveries and maintenance, which had become prominent in the reign of Richard II. (see p. 281), had increased since his deposition. It was an evil which the kings were power- less to control. Again and again complaints were raised of ‘ want of governance.’ Henry V. had abated the mischief for a time by employing the unruly elements in his wars in France, but it was a remedy which, when defeat succeeded victory, only increased the disease which it was meant to cure. When France was lost bands of unruly men accustomed to deeds of violence poured back into England, where they became retainers of the great landowners, who with their help set king and laws at defiance. 3. Case of Lord Molynes and John Paston. — The difficulty of obtaining justice may be illustrated by a case which occurred in Norfolk. The manor of Gresham belonged to John Paston, a gentleman of moderate fortune. It was coveted by Lord Molynes, who had no legal claim to it whatever. Lord Molynes, however, took possession of it in 1448 with the strong hand. If such a thing had happened at present Paston would have gone to law ; but to go to law implies the submitting of a case to a jury, and in those days a jury was not to be trusted to do justice. In the first place it was selected by the sheriff, and the sheriff took care to choose such men as would give a verdict pleasing to the great men whom Y 322 HENRY VI. 1450 he wished to serve, and in the second place, supposing that the sheriff did not do this, a juryman who offended great men by giving a verdict according to his conscience, but contrary to their desire, ran the risk of being knocked on the head before he reached home. Paston accordingly, instead of going to law, begged Lord Molynes to behave more reasonably. Finding his entreaties of no avail, he took possession of a house on the manor. Lord Molynes merely waited till Paston was away from home, and then sent a thousand men, who drove out Paston’s wife and pillaged and wrecked the house. Paston ultimately recovered the manor, but redress for the injury done him was not to be had. 4. Suffolk’s Impeachment and Murder. 1450. — A government which was too weak to redress injuries was certain to be unpopular. The loss of the French possessions made it still more unpopular. The brunt of the public displeasure fell on Suffolk, who had just been made a duke, and who, through the queen’s favour, was all-powerful at court. It was believed that he had sold himself to France, and it was known that whilst the country was impoverished large grants had been made to court favourites. An outcry was raised that the king ‘ should live of his own/ and ask for no more grants from his people. In 1450 Suffolk was impeached. Though the charge brought against him was a tissue of falsehoods, Henry did not dare to shield him entirely, and ordered him into banishment for five years. Suffolk, indeed, embarked for the Continent, but a large ship ranged up alongside of the vessel in which he was. Having been dragged on board amidst cries of “Welcome, traitor !” he was, two days afterwards, transferred to a boat, where his head was chopped off with six strokes of a rusty sword. His body was flung on the beach at Dover. 5. Jack Cade’s Rebellion. 1450. — Suffolk’s supporters re- mained in office after his death. The men of Kent rose against them, and found a leader in an Irish adventurer. Jack Cade, who called himself Mortimer, and gave out that he was an illegitimate son of the late Earl of March. He established himself on Black- heath at the head of 30,000 men, asking that the burdens of the people should be diminished, the Crown estates recovered, and the Duke of York recalled from Ireland to take the place of the present councillors. Jack Cade’s rebellion, in short, unlike that of Wat Tyler, was a political, not a social movement. In demanding that the government should be placed in the hands of the Duke of York, Jack Cade virtually asked that the Duke should step into the place, not of the Council, but of the King — that is to say, that a ruler who I4SO-I4S3 YORK AND SOMERSET 323 could govern should be substituted for one who could not, and in whose name the great families plundered England. It was this demand which opened the long struggle which was soon to devas- tate the country. At first it seemed as if Jack Cade would carryall before him. London, which had the most to gain by the establish- ment of a strong government, opened its gates to him. When, however, he was tested by success, he was found wanting. Striking with his sword the old Roman milestone known as London Stone, he cried out, “ Now is Mortimer lord of this city.” His followers gave themselves up to wild excesses. They beheaded Lord Say and his son-in-law, the Sheriff of Kent, and carried about their heads on pikes. They plundered houses and shops. The citizens who had invited them to enter now turned against them. After a fight on London Bridge the insurgents agreed to go home on the promise of a pardon. Jack Cade himself, attempting to gather fresh forces, was chased into Sussex and slain. 6. Rivalry of York and Somerset 1450 — 1453. — In the sum- mer of 1450, Richard, Duke of York, the real leader of the opposi- tion, came back from Ireland. He found that Somerset, who had just returned from Normandy after the final loss of that province (see p. 320), had succeeded Suffolk in the king’s confidence. Somerset, however, was not merely the favourite of Henry and the queen. The bulk of the nobility was on his side, whilst York was supported by the force of popular discontent and by such of the nobility as cherished a personal grudge against Somerset and his friends. In 1451 the loss of Guienne and Gascony increased the weight of Somerset’s unpopularity. In 1452 both parties took arms ; but, this time, civil war was averted by a promise from the king that York should be admitted to the Council, and that Somerset should be placed in confinement till he answered the charges against him. On this York dismissed his army. Henry, however, was not allowed to keep his promise, and Somerset remained in power, whilst York was glad to be allowed to retire unhurt. Somerset attempted to recover his credit by fresh victories in France, and sent the old Earl of Shrews- bury to Bordeaux to reconquer Gascony. Shrewsbury was suc- cessful for a while, but in 1453 he was defeated and slain at Castillon, and the whole enterprise came to nothing. 7. The First Protectorate of the Duke of York. 1453 — 1454. — Henry’s mind had never been strong, and in 1453 it entirely gave way. His insanity was probably inherited from his maternal grand- father, Charles VI. The queen bore him a son, named Edward, but though the infant was brought to his father, Henry gave no sign 3*4 HENRY VL 1454-1456 of recognising his presence. It was necessary to place the govern- ment in other hands, and in 1454 the Duke of York was named Protector by the House of Lords, which, as the majority of its members were at that time ecclesiastics, did not always re-echo the sentiments of the great families. If only the king had remained permanently insane York might have established an orderly govern- ment. Henry, however, soon recovered as much sense as he ever had, and York’s protectorate came to an end. 8. The First Battle of St. Albans and the Duke of York’s Second Protectorate. — The restoration of Henry was in reality the restoration of Somerset. In 1455 York, fearing destruction, took arms against his rival. A battle was fought at St. Albans, in which Somerset was defeated and slain. This was the first battle in the wars known as the Wars of the Roses, because a red rose was the badge of the House of Lancaster, to which Henry belonged, and a white rose the badge of the House of York. After the victory York accompanied the king to London. Though the bulk of the nobility was against him, he had on his side the powerful family of the Nevills, as he had married Cicely Nevill, the sister of the head of that family, the Earl of Salisbury. Still more powerful was Salisbury’s eldest son, who had married the heiress of the Beau- champs, Earls of Warwick, and who held the earldom of Warwick in right of his wife.’ In June 1455 the king was again insane, and York was for the second time named Protector. This Protectorate, however, did not last long, as early in 1456 the king recovered his senses, and York had to resign his post. 1 Genealogy of the Nevills John of Gaunt Ralph Nevill, — Joan Thomas Montague, Earl of Earl of Salisbury Westmoreland Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick Alice — Richard, Cicely —Richard, Duke of York, killed at Wakefield, 1460 Earl of Salisbury, beheaded at Pontefract, 1460 Anne — Richard, iiie= jNiuuciru, Earl of Warwick, the king-maker, killed at Barnet, John, Marquess of Montague George, Archbishop of York 147X tVARS OF THE ROSES 325 1456-1458 9. Discomfiture of the Yorkists. 1456 — 1459. — For two years Henry exercised such authority as he was capable of exercising. In 1458 he tried his hand at effecting a reconciliation. The chiefs 326 HENRY VI. 1458-1460 Effigy of Sir Robert Harcourt, K.G. ^ied 1471): from his tomb at Stanton Harcourt, Oxon : show- ing armour worn from about 1445 to 1480. of the two parties walked hand in hand in procession to St. Paul’s, York himself leading the queen. The Yorkists founded masses for the re- pose of the souls of their enemies slain at St. Albans, and paid money to their widows. It seemed as if the old practice of the weregild (see p. 32) had been unexpectedly revived. The spirit which had made weregild pos- sible was, however, no longer to be found. Warwick retired to Calais, of which he was governor, and sent out vessels to plunder the merchant ships of all nations. When he was sum- moned to Westminster to give ac- count of his actions, a quarrel broke out there between his servants and those of the king. Believing his own life to be in danger, he made his way back to Calais. The Yorkists spent the winter in preparing for war. In the summer of 1459 Lord Audley, sent by the queen to seize the Earl of Salisbury, was defeated by him at Blore Heath, in Staffordshire. Later in the year the two parties with their whole forces prepared for a battle near Ludlow, but the Yorkists found themselves no match for their enemies, and, without fighting, York, with his second son, the Earl of Rutland, took refuge in Ireland. His eldest son Edward, Earl of March, with Salis-, bury and Warwick, made his way to Calais. 10. The Battle of Northampton and the Duke of York’s Claim to the Throne. 1460. — In 1460 the Yorkist Earls of Salisbury, Warwick, and March were once more in England. They defeated the royal army at WAliS dP TMP ROSES 1460 327 Northampton and captured the king. York returned from Ireland, and, as soon as Parliament met, took an unexpected step. If heredi- tary descent was to count for anything, his claim to the throne was superior to that of Henry himself, as he was the heir of Edward III. through his mother Anne, the sister of the last Earl of March.^ The Duke of York now placed his hand on the throne, claiming it in right of birth. The Lords decided that Henry, to whom they had sworn oaths of fealty, should retain the crown, but that York should succeed him, to the exclusion of Henry’s son, Edward, Prince of Wales. II. The Battle of Wakefield. 1460. — The struggle, which had at first been one between two unequal sections of the nobility, each nominally acknowledging Henry VI. as their king, thus came to be one between the Houses of Lancaster and York. The queen, savage at the wrong done to her son, refused to accept the compromise. Withdrawing to the North, she summoned to her aid the Earl of N orthumberland and the Lancastrian lords. The N orth was always exposed to Scottish invasions, and the constant danger kept the inhabitants ready for war, and strengthened the authority of the great lords who led them. For the same reason the people of the North were ruder and less civilised than their fellow-country- men in the South. Plunder and outrage did not come amiss to men who were frequently subjected to plunder and out- rage. An army composed of 18,000 of these rough warriors placed 1 Genealogy of the Houses of Lancaster and York ; — Edward III. (1307-1377) Edward, the Black Prince I Richard II. (1377-1399) Edmund, Duke of York SljaXl. 01 I I March (i) Henry V. (2) John, Duke of (1413-1422) Bedford I (3) Thomas, Duke of Roger Mortimer, Henry VI. Clarence Earl of March (1422-1461) (4) Humphrey, I Duke of Gloucester Lionel, Duke of Clarence John of Gaunt Philippa = Edmund Mortimer, Henry IV. (1399-1413) Edmund Mortimer, Anne = Richard, Earl of Cambridge Earl of March | Richard, Duke of York Edward, Earl of March, afterwards Edward IV, HRNkV VI, 3aS 1460-1461 itself at the queen’s disposal. With these she routed her enemies at Wakefield. York himself was slain. His son, Rutland, was stabbed to death by Lord Clifford, whose father had been slain at St. Albans. Salisbury was subsequently beheaded by the popu- lace at Pontefract. By command of Margaret, York’s head was cut off, and, adorned in mockery with a paper crown, was fixed with those of Salisbury and Rutland above one of the gates of York. 12. The Battle of Mortimer’s Cross and the Second Battle of St. Albans. 1461. — The battle of Wakefield differed in cha- racter from the earlier battles of the war. They had been but conflicts between bands of noblemen and their armed retainers, in which the general population took little part, whilst the ordinary business of the country went on much as usual. At Wakefield not only were cruel passions developed, but a new danger appeared. When Margaret attempted to gain her ends with the help of her rude northern followers, she roused against her the fears of the wealthier and more prosperous South. The South found a leader in York’s son, Edward. Though only in his nineteenth year, Edward showed that he had the qualities of a commander. Rapid in his movements, he fell upon some Lancastrian forces and de- feated them on February 2, 1461, at Mortimer’s Cross. In the meanwhile Margaret was marching with her northern host upon London, plundering and destroying as she went. Warwick, carry- ing the king with him, met her on the way, but in the second battle of St. Albans — fought on February 17 — was driven back, leaving the king behind him. 13. The Battle of Towton and the Coronation of Edward IV. 1461. — ^With a civilised army at her back, Margaret might have won her way into London, and established her authority, at least for a time. Her unbridled supporters celebrated their victory by robbery and rape, and Margaret was unable to lead them forward. The Londoners steeled their hearts against her. Edward was marching to their help, and on February 25 he entered London. The men of the neighbouring counties flocked in to his support. On March 2 the crown was offered to him at Clerkenwell by such lords as happened to be in London. On his presenting him- self to the multitude in Westminster Hall, he was greeted with shouts of “ Long live the king ! ” Edward IV. represented to peace-loving England the order which had to be upheld against the barbarous host which Margaret and the Lancastrian lords had called to their aid. He had yet to justify the choice. The northern host had retreated to its own country, and Edward swiftly followed OF THE ROSk^ 1461 it up. His advanced guard was surprised and driven back at Ferry Bridge ; but his main army pressed on, and on March 29 gained a decisive victory at Towton. The slaughter of the defeated side was enormous. Margaret escaped with Henry to Scotland, and Edward, returning southwards, was crowned at Westminster on June 29. CHAPTER XXII THE YORKIST KINGS EDWARD IV., 1461—1483. EDWARD V., I483. RICHARD III., 1483—1485. LEADING DATES Coronation of Edward IV 146Z Restoration of Henry VI 1470 Edward IV. recovers the crown— Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury 1471 Edward V 1483 Richard III. deposes Edward V 1483 Richard III. killed at Bosworth 1485 I. Edward IV. and the House of Commons. 1461. — On June 29 1461, Edward IV. was crowned, and created his two brothers, George and Richard, Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester. His first Parliament declared the three Lancastrian kings to have been usurpers, and Henry VI., his wife, his son, and his chief sup- porters, to be traitors. At the end of the session Edward thanked the Commons for their support, and assured them of his resolution to protect them at the hazard of his own life. It was the first time that a king had addressed the Commons, and his doing so was a sign that a new era had begun, in which the wishes of the middle class in town and country were to prevail over those of the great nobles. It did not follow that the House of Commons would take the control of the government into its own hands, as it does at the present day. For a long time the election of the members had been carried out under pressure from the local nobility. If the great men in a county resolved that certain persons should be re- turned as members, those who came to the place of election in support of others would be driven off, and perhaps beaten or wounded. Consequently each House of Commons had hitherto represented the dominant party, Lancastrian or Yorkist, as the case might be. kDWAkb IV, 1461 Before there could be a House of Commons capable of governing, the interference of the nobles with elections would have to be brought to an end, and it was only by a strong king that their power could be overthrown. The strengthening of the kingship was the only road to future constitutional progress. 2. Loss of the Mediaeval Ideals. — Before the end of the 15th century the English people had lost all the ideals of the middle ages. The attempt of Henry V. to revive the old ecclesiastical feel- ing had broken down through the race for material power opened by his French wars, and through the sava- gery of the wars of the Roses. The new reli- gious feeling of Wycliffe and the nobler Lollards had perished with Sir John Oldcastle from the same causes. Neither the Church nor the op- ponents of the Church had any longer a sway over men’s hearts. The clergy continued to per- form their part in the services of the Church not indeed without be- lief, but without the spiritual fervour which influences the lives of men. The chivalry of the middle ages was as dead as its religion. Men spoke of women as coarsely as they spoke of their cattle. Human nature indeed could not be entirely crushed. John Paston’s wife (see p. 321), for in- stance, was quaintly affectionate. “ I would,” she once wrote to her husband, “ ye were at home, if it were for your ease . . . now liever than a gown, though it were of scarlet.” But the system of wardship (see p. 116) made marriages a matter of bargain and sale. “ For very need,” wrote a certain Stephen Scrope, “ I was fain to Edward IV. : from an original painting belonging to the Society of Antiquaries. 1461-1464 MORAL DETERIORATION l^tl sell a little daughter I have for much less than I should.” When Scrope was old he wished to marry Paston’s young sister, and the girl was willing to take him if she were sure that his land was not burdened with debt. She would be glad enough to escape from home. Her mother kept her in close confinement and beat her once or twice every week, and sometimes twice a day, so that her head was broken in two or three places. This low and material view of domestic life had led to an equally low and material view of political life, and the cruelty which stained the wars of the Roses was but the outcome of a state of society in which no man cared much for any- thing except his own greatness and enjoyment. The ideal which shaped itself in the minds of the men of the middle class was a king acting as a kind of chief constable, who, by keeping great men in order, would allow their inferiors to make money in peace. 3. Fresh Efforts of the Lancastrians. 1462 — 1465. — Edward IV. only very partially responded to this demand. He was swift in action when a crisis came, and was cruel in his revenge, but he was lustful and indolent when the crisis was passed, and he had no statesmanlike abilities to lay the foundations of a powerful government. The wars were not ended by his victory at Towton. In 1462 Queen Margaret reappeared in the North, and it was not till 1464 that Warwick’s brother. Lord Montague, thoroughly defeated her forces at Hedgeley Moor and Hexham ; for which victories he was rewarded by Edward with the earldom of North- umberland, which had been forfeited by the Lancastrian head of the House of Percy. Montague’s victory was marked by the usual butcheries ; the Duke of Somerset, a son of the duke who had been slain at St. Albans, being amongst those who perished on the scaffold. In 1465 Henry himself was taken prisoner and lodged in the Tower. 4. Edward’s Marriage. 1464. — Whilst these battles were being fought Edward was lingering in the South courting the young widow of Sir John Grey, usually known by her maiden name as Elizabeth Woodville. His marriage to her gave offence to his noble supporters, who disdained to acknowledge a queen of birth so undistinguished ; and their ill-will was increased when they found that Edward distributed amongst his wife’s kindred estates and preferments which they had hoped to gain for themselves. The queen’s father became Earl Rivers and Lord Constable, and her brothers and sisters were enriched by marriages with noble wards of the Crown. One of her brothers, a youth of twenty, was married to the old Duchess of Norfolk, who was over eighty. ^34 EDWARD IV. 1465-1476 5. Estrangement of Warwick. 1465 — 1468. — No doubt there was as much of policy as of affection in the slight shown by Edward to the Yorkist nobility. Warwick— the King-maker, as he was called — had special cause for ill-humour. He had expected to be a King-ruler as well as a King-maker, and he took grave offence when he found Edward slipping away from his control. It seemed as if Edward had the settled purpose of raising up a new nobility to counterbalance the old. In 1467 Warwick’s brother, the Arch- bishop of York, was deprived of the chancellorship. In foreign politics, too, Edward and Warwick disagreed. Warwick had taken up the old policy of the Beauforts, and was anxious for an alliance with the astute Louis XL, who had in 1461 succeeded his father, Charles VII., as king of France. Edward, perhaps with some thought passing through his head of establishing his throne by following in the steps of Henry V., declared for an alliance with Burgundy. In 1467 Warwick was allowed to go to France as an ambassador, whilst Edward was entertaining Burgundian ambas- sadors in England. In the same year Charles the Rash succeeded his father, Philip the Good (see p. 306), as Duke of Burgundy, and in 1468 married Edward’s sister, Margaret. The Duke of Burgundy, the rival of the king of France, was the lord of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands, and his friendship brought with it that peaceful intercourse with the manufacturing towns of Flanders which it was always the object of English policy to secure. 6. Warwick’s Alliance with Clarence. 1469 — 1470. — Warwick, disgusted with Edward, found an ally in Edward’s brother, Clarence, who, like Warwick, was jealous of the Woodvilles. Warwick had no son, and his two daughters, Isabel and Anne, would one day share his vast estates between them. Warwick gave Isabel in marriage to Clarence, and encouraged him to think that it might be possible to seat him — in days when everything seemed possible to the strong — on Edward’s throne. Edward had by this time lost much of his popularity. His extravagant and luxurious life made men doubt whether anything had been gained by substituting him for Henry, and in 1469 and 1470 there were risings fomented by Warwick. In the latter year Edward, with the help of his cannon, the importance of which in battles was now great, struck such a panic into his enemies at a battle near Stamford that the place of action came to be known as Lose- coat Field, from the haste with which the fugitives stripped them- selves of their armour to make their flight the easier. Warwick ^VARWICK AND HENRY VI. 333 1470 and Clarence fled across the sea. Warwick was governor of Calais, but his own offlcer there refused to admit him, and he was forced to take refuge in France. 7. The Restoration of Henry VI. 1470.— Warwick knew that he had no chance of recovering power without the support of the Lancastrian party, and, disagreeable as it was to him, he allowed Louis XL to reconcile him to Queen Margaret, the wife of that Henry VI., of whom he had been the bitterest enemy. Louis, who A fifteenth-century ship : from Harl. MS. 2278. dreaded Edward’s alliance with the Duke of Burgundy, did every- thing to support Edward’s foes, and sent Warwick off to England, where he was subsequently to be joined by the queen. Edward, who was in his most careless mood, was foolish enough to trust Warwick’s brother, Montague, from whom he had taken away, not only his new earldom of Northumberland to restore it to the head of the Percies (see p. 331), but all the lands connected with it, and had thought to compensate him with the mere marquisate 334 EDWARD IV. 1471 of Montague, unaccompanied by any estate wherewith to support the dignity of his rank. Montague turned against him, and Edward, fearing for his life, fled to Holland. Warwick became master of England, and this time the King-maker drew Heniy from the Tower and placed him once more on the throne, imbecile as he now was. 8. Edward IV. recovers the Throne. 1471. — In the spring of 1471 Edward was back in England, landing at Ravenspur, where Henry IV. had landed in 1399. Like Henry IV., he lyingly declared that he had come merely to claim his duchy and estates. Like Henry IV., too, he found a supporter in an Earl of Northumberland, who was this time the Percy who, Lancastrian as he was, had been restored by Edward to his earldom at the expense of Montague. Clarence, too — false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, as Shakspere truly calls him — had offered to betray Warwick. Edward gathered a sufficient force to march unassailed to London, where he was enthusiastically received. Taking with him the unfortunate Henry he won a complete victory at Barnet. The battle was fought in a dense fog, and was decided by a panic caused amongst Warwick’s men through the firing of one of their divisions into another. Warwick and Montague were among the slain. By this time Margaret had landed with a fresh army at Weymouth. Edward caught her and her army at Tewkesbury, where he inflicted on her a crushing defeat. Her son, Edward Prince of Wales, was either slain in the battle, or more probably murdered after the fight was over ; and the Duke of Somerset, the brother of the duke who had been executed after the battle of Hexham (see p. 331), the last male heir of the House of Beaufort, as well as others, who had taken refuge in the abbey, were afterwards put to death, though Edward had solemnly promised them their lives. On the night after Edward’s return to London Henry VI. ended his life in the Tower. There can be no reason- able doubt that he was murdered, and that, too, by Edward’s directions, 9. Edward IV. prepares for War with France. 1471 — 1474. — Edward IV. was now all powerful. He had no competitor to fear. No descendant of Henry IV. remained alive. Of the Beauforts, the descendants of John of Gaunt by Catherine Swynford (see p. 282), the male line had perished, and the only representative was young Henry, Earl of Richmond, whose mother, the Lady Margaret, was the daughter of the first Duke of Somerset, and the cousin of the two dukes who had been executed after the battles of Hexham 1471-1474 BENEVOLENCES 335 and Tewkesbury.' His father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who died before his birth, was the son of a Welsh gentleman of no great mark, who had had the luck to marry Catherine of France, the widow of Henry V. The young Richmond was, however, an exile, and, as he was only fourteen years of age when Edward was restored, no serious danger was as y et to be apprehended from that side. Moreover, the slaughter amongst both the Yorkist and the Lancastrian nobility had, for the time, put an end to all danger of a rising. Edward was, therefore, at liberty to carry out his own foreign policy. He obtained grants from Parliament to enable him, in alliance with Charles of Burgundy, to make war against Louis XI. The grants were insufficient, and he supplemented them by a newly invented system of benevolences, which were nominally free gifts made to him by the well-to-do, but which were in reality exactions, because those from whom they were re- quired dared not refuse to pay. The system raised little general ill will, partly because the small owners of property who were relieved from taxation were not touched by the benevolences, and partly because the end which Edward had put to the civil war made his government welcome. In some cases his personal charm counted for something. One old lady whom he asked for ten pounds 1 Genealogy of the Beauforts and the Tudors : — John of Gaunt = Catherine Swynford John Beaufort, Cardinal Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, legitimated by Act of legitimated by Act of Parliament Owen Tudor = Catherine, Parliament widow of I Henry V. | | John, ist Duke of Somerset Edmund, and Duke of Somerset, killed at St. Albans, 1455 Edmund Tudor •= Margaret Earl of Richmond, I d. 1456 I Henry VII, (1485-1509) Henry, 3rd Duke of Somerset, executed after the battle of Hexham, 1464 Edmund, 4th Duke of Somerset, executed after the battle of Tewkesbury, 1471 336 EDWARD IV. 1475-1478 replied that for the sake of his handsome face she would give him twenty. He kissed her and she at once made it forty. 10. The Invasion of France. 1475. — In 1475 Edward invaded France. If he could have secured the steady support of the Duke of Burgimdy he might have accomplished something, but the Duke’s dominions were too scattered to enable him to have a settled policy. He was sometimes led to attack the king of France, because he had interests as a French vassal ; whilst at other times he threw all his strength into projects for encroachments in Germany, because he had also interests as a vassal of the Emperor. When Edward landed Charles was anxious to carry on war in Germany, and would give no help to Edward in France. Louis XL, who pre- ferred a victory of diplomacy to one of force, wheedled Edward into a seven years’ truce by a grant of 75,000 crowns, together with a yearly pension of 50,000, and by a promise to marry the Dauphin Charles to Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the king of England. Louis also made presents to Edward’s chief foUow'ers, and was delighted when the English army turned its back on France. In consequence of this imderstanding Queen Margaret recovered her liberty. 11. Fall and Death of Clarence. 1476 — 1478. — Soon after Ed- ward’s return he became suspicious of his brother Clarence, who took upon himself to interfere with the course of justice. In 1477 the Duke of Burgimdy, Charles the Rash, was slain at Nancy by the Swiss, leaving only a daughter, Mary. Ducal Burgimdy was at once seized by Louis, as forfeited for want of male heirs, but Franche Comte, or the county of Burgundy, was a part of the Empire, and therefore beyond his reach ; and this latter district, together with the provinces of the Netherlands, formed a dower splendid enough to attract suitors for Mary’s hand. Amongst these was Clarence,^ now a widower. Edward, who had no wish to see his brother an independent sovereign, forbade him to proceed with his wooing. Other actions of Clarence were displeas- ing to the king, and when Parliament met, 1478, Edward with his own mouth accused his brother of treason. Clarence was condemned to death, and perished secretly in the Tower, being, according to rumour, drowned in a butt of malmsey. 12. The Last Years of Edward IV. 1478 — 1483. — The remainder of Edward’s life was spent in quiet, as far as domestic affairs were 1 Mary was the child of an earlier wife of Charles the Bold than Margaret the sister of Edward IV. and Clarence, and the latter was therefore not related to her. 1478-1483 ^HE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER 337 concerned. In foreign affairs he met with a grave disappointment. Mary of Burgundy had found a husband in Maximilian, archduke of Austria, the son of the Emperor Frederick III. In 1482 she died, leaving two children, Philip and Margaret. The men of Ghent set Maximilian at naught, and, combining with Louis, forced Maximilian in the treaty of Arras to promise the hand of Margaret to the Dauphin, and the cession of some Netherlandish territory to France. Edward died on April 9, 1483, and it has been said that the treaty of Arras, which extended French influence in the Netherlands, brought about his death. It is more reasonable to attribute it to the dissoluteness of his life. 13. Edward V. and the Duke of Gloucester. 1483. — Edward IV. left two sons. The elder, a boy of twelve, was now Edward V., and his younger brother, Richard, was Duke of York.^ The only grown- up man of the family was the youngest brother of Edward IV., Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Gloucester had shown himself during his brother’s reign to be possessed of the qualities which fit a man to fulfil the duties of a high position. He was not only a good soldier and an able commander, but, unlike his brother Clarence, was entirely faithful to Edward, though he showed his indepen- dence by refusing to take part in Edward’s treaty with Louis of France. He had a rare power of winning popular sympathy, and was most liked in Yorkshire, where he was best known. He had, however, grown up in a cruel and unscrupulous age, and had no more hesitation in clearing his way by slaughter than had Edward IV. or Margaret of Anjou. Though absolute proof is wanting, there is strong reason to believe that he took part in cutting down Prince Edward after the battle of Tewkesbury, and that he executed his ^ Genealogy of the Yorkist Kings : — Richard, Duke of York, killed at Wakefield, 1460 Elizabeth : Woodville Edward IV. Margaret = Charles, (1461-1483) the Rash, Duke of Burgundy George = Isabel Duke of Clarence, d. 1478 Nevill Elizabeth, m. Edward V., Richard, Edward, to Henry VII. murdered 1483 Duke of York, Earl of murdered 1483 Warwick, executed 1499 Richard III., Duke o£ Gloucester, afterwards king, m. to Anne Nevill (1483-1485) Edward, d. 1484 Z EDWARD V. 338 1483 brother’s orders in providing for the murder of Henry VI. in the Tower. He made no remonstrance against, though he took no part in, the death of Clarence, with whom he was on bad terms, because Clarence claimed the whole of the estates of the King-maker, whose eldest daughter Isabel he had married ; whereas Gloucester, having manied the younger daughter Anne, the widow of the slaughtered son of Henry VI. put in a claim to half. Gloucester was now to be tried as he had never been tried before, his brother having appointed him by will to be the guardian of his young nephew and of the kingdom. If the authority thus conferred upon him met with general acceptance, he would probably make an excellent ruler. If it were questioned he would strike out, and show no mercy. In those hard days every man of high position must be either ham- mer or anvil, and Richard was resolved that he would not be the anvil. 14. Fall of the Queen’s Relations. 1483. — The young king was at Ludlow, and rode up towards London, guarded by Earl Rivers, his uncle on his mother’s side, and by his half-brother. Sir Richard Grey. Another half-brother, the Marquis of Dorset, was lieutenant of the Tower.^ Gloucester had strong reasons for believing that the Greys intended to keep the young king in their hands and, having him crowned at once, so as to put an end to his own guardian- ship, to make themselves masters of the kingdom. He therefore struck the first blow. Accompanied by his friend and supporter, the Duke of Buckingham, he overtook the cavalcade, and sent Rivers and Grey prisoners to Pontefract. The queen-mother at once took refuge in the sanctuary at Westminster, whence no one could remove her without violating the privileges of the Church. 15. Execution of Lord Hastings. — The young king arrived in London on May 4. The Council acknowledged Gloucester as Pro- tector, and removed Edward to the Tower, which in those days was a place of safety rather than a prison. Dorset, however, had equipped a fleet, and Gloucester was afraid lest a fresh attempt ' Genealogy of the Woodvilles and Greys : — Richard, Earl Rivers I Anthony (i) Sir John Grey = Elizabeth WoodvilIe= (a) Edward IV. Woodville, | | Earl Rivers, I I I executed Thomas Grey, Sir Richard Grey, Edward V. , 1483 Marquis of Dorset executed 1483 murdered 1483 1483 GLOUCESTER AND HASTINGS 339 might be made by the queen’s party to overthrow him. His fears were increased because Lord Hastings, the leading member Large ship and boat of the fifteenth century. The mainsail of the ship has the Beauchamp arms, and the streamer the bear and ragged staflF. From the ‘ Life of Richard Beatt- champ, Earl of Warwick,’ by John Rous; drawn about 1485. of the Council, who had taken his part against the Woodvilles, pow turned against him and began to intrigue with the queen’s 340 EDWARD V. [483 supporters. Coming into the council chamber on June 13, he laid bare his left arm, which had been withered from his birth, and declared that the mischief was the effect of witchcraft, and that the witches were the queen and Jane Shore, who had been one of the many mistresses of Edward IV., and was now the mistress of Hastings. Hastings admitted that the queen and Jane Shore were worthy of punishment if they were guilty. “ What ! ” cried Gloucester, “ dost thou serve me with ifs and with ands ? I tell thee they have done it, and that I will make good on thy body, traitor.” Gloucester struck his fist on the table. Armed men rushed in, dragged Hastings out, and cut off his head on a log of wood. Jane Shore was compelled to do public penance in a white sheet. Of the causes of Hastings’ desertion of Gloucester it is impossible to speak with certainty. It is a probable conjecture that he had discovered that Gloucester entertained the thought of making himself more than Protector. Young Edward’s coronation would make the boy capable, formally at least, of exercising royal power, and as it was known that the boy loved his mother’s rela- tions, it was almost certain that he would place the Woodvilles in power. Now that Gloucester had imprisoned Rivers and Grey, it was certain that the first thing done by the Woodvilles, if they got a chance, would be to send Gloucester to the scaffold, and Glou- cester was not the man patiently to allow himself to be crushed. It is ridiculous to speak of Gloucester as an accomplished dis- sembler. The story of witchcraft served its purpose, but it was the stupid lie of a man who had not hitherto been accustomed to lying. 16. Deposition of Edward V. 1483. — The execution of Hastings was promptly followed by the execution of Rivers and Grey. Dorset saved himself by escaping beyond sea. By threats Glou- cester got the Duke of York into his hands, and lodged him with his brother in the Tower. He was now in a temper which would stop at no atrocity. He put up a Dr. Shaw to preach a sermon against Edward’s claim to the throne. In those days if a man and woman made a contract of marriage neither of the contracting parties could marry another, though no actual marriage had taken place. Shaw declared that Edward IV. had promised marriage to one of his mistresses before he met Elizabeth Wood- ville, and that therefore, his marriage with Elizabeth being invalid, all his children by her were illegitimate, and Gloucester was the true heir to the throne. Further, Shaw declared that Gloucester was the only legitimate son of the Duke of York, both Edward_IV, DEPOSITION OF EDWARD V. 483 34t and Clarence being the sons of their mother by some other man. That Richard should have authorised so base an attack upon his mother’s honour shows the depth of infamy to which he had now sunk. At first it seemed as if he had lowered himself to no purpose. The hearers of the sermon, instead of shouting, “ God save King Richard ! ” held their peace. At a meeting in the City the Duke of Buckingham told the same story as had been told by Shaw, and there the servants of the two dukes shouted for ‘ King Richard,’ and their Voice was taken as the voice of the City. On June 25 Parliament declared Gloucester to be the lawful heir, and on J uly 6 he was crowned as Richard III. The Woodvilles were not popular, and the blood- shed with which Richard had maintained himself against them was readily condoned. 17. Buckingham’s Rebellion. 1483. — Rich- ard’s enemies were chiefly to be found amongst the nobility. No nobleman could feel his life secure if he crossed Richard’s path. The first to revolt was Buckingham, who had played the part of a king- maker, and who was dis- appointed because Rich- ard did not reward him by conceding his claim to estates so vast that if he possessed them he would have been master of England. Buckingham, who was de- scended from Edward III. through his youngest son, the Duke of Gloucester, at first thought of challenging a right to the throne for himself, but afterwards determined to support the claim of the Earl of Richmond, the Tudor heir of the House of Lancaster (see p. 334). He was skilfully led from one step to another by John . 1 .: from an original painting belonging to the Society of Antiquaries. J^icMaj^ 3 ItL §42 143-1485 Morton, Bishop of Ely, one of the ablest statesmen of the day. Richmond was to sail from Brittany, where he was in exile, and Buckingham was to raise forces in Wales, where the Welsh Tudors were popular, whilst other counties were to rise simulta- neously. The rebellion came to nothing. Heavy rains caused a flood of the Severn, and Buckingham, in Shropshire, was cut off from his army in Wales. Buckingham was betrayed to Richard, and on November 2 was beheaded at Salisbury. 18. Murder of the Princes. 1483. — At some time in the summer or autumn the princes in the Tower ceased to live. There had been movements in their favour in some counties, and there can be no reasonable doubt that Richard had them secretly killed. It was only by degrees that the truth leaked out. Wherever it was believed it roused indignation. Murders there had been in plenty, but the murdered as yet had been grown men. To butcher children was reserved for Richard alone. 19. Richard's Government. 1484 — 1485. — As long as the last tale of murder was still regarded as doubtful, Richard retained his popularity. In a Parliament which met in January 1484 he en- acted good laws, amongst which was one declaring benevolences illegal. In the summer he was welcomed as he moved about, yet he knew that danger threatened. Richmond was preparing inva- sion and the hollow friendship of the English nobility was not to be trusted. In vain Richard scattered gifts in profusion amongst them. They took the gifts and hoped for deliverance. The popular good-will grew cooler, and in the winter Richard, needing money, and not venturing to summon another Parliament, raised a forced loan. A loan not being a gift, he did not technically break the statute against benevolences though practically he set it at naught. Domestic misfortunes came to add to Richard’s political troubles. His only son, Edward, died in 1484. His wife, Anne, died in 1485. Richard was now eager, if he had not been eager before, to marry his niece, Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV. This monstrous proposal was scouted by his own supporters, and he had reluctantly to abandon the scheme. If there could be queens in England, Elizabeth was on hereditary principles the heiress of the throne, unless, indeed, Richard’s argument against her mother’s marriage (see p. 340) was to be accepted. Rich- mond was naturally as anxious as Richard could be to win her hand, and his promise to marry her was the condition on which he obtained the support of those Yorkists who were Richard’s enemies. SOS WORTH FIELD 343 1485 20. Richard Defeated and Slain at Bosworth. 1485. — In August 1485 Richmond landed at Milford Haven. As he marched on he was joined by considerable numbers, but on August 22 he found Richard waiting for him near Bosworth, with a host far larger than his own. Richard, however, could not count on the fidelity of his own commanders. Lord Stanley, who had married Richmond’s widowed mother, the Lady Margaret (see p. 334), to- gether with his brother. Sir William Stanley, were secretly in accord with Richmond, though they had placed themselves on Richard’s side. When the battle began Stanley openly joined Richmond, whilst the Earl of Northumberland who was also nominally on Richard’s side withdrew his forces and stood aloof. Knowing that defeat was certain, Richard, with the crown on his head, rushed into the thick of the fight and met a soldier’s death. After the battle the fallen crown was discovered on a bush, and placed by Stanley, amidst shouts of ‘ King Henry ! ’ on Richmond’s head. CHAPTER XXIII HENRY VII. 1485-1509 LEADING DATES Accession of Henry VII . 1485 The Battle of Stoke 1487 Poynings’ Acts 1494 Capture of Perkin Warbeck 1497 Alliance with Scotland 1503 Death of Henry VII 1509 I. The First Measures of Henry VII. 1485 — 1486. — Henry VII. owed his success not to a general uprising against Richard, but to a combination of the nobles who had hitherto taken opposite sides. To secure this combination he had promised to marry Elizabeth, the heiress of the Yorkist family. Lest an attempt should be made to challenge her title, Henry imprisoned in the Tower the Earl of Warwick, the son of Clarence, who might possibly maintain that a female was incapable of inheriting. He was indeed unwilling to have it thought that he derived his title from a wife, and when Parliament met on November 7 he obtained from it a recognition of 344 HENRY Vn. 1485 his own right to the throne, though it would have puzzled the most acute controversialist to discover in what that right consisted. Parliament, therefore, contented itself with declaring that the Henry VII. : from an original picture in the National Portrait Gallery. inheritance of the crown was to ‘be, rest, and abide in King Henry VII. and his heirs,’ without giving any reasons why it was to be so.^ As far as the House of Lords was concerned the atten- 1 Abbreviated genealogy of Henry VII. and his competitors Edward III. ^ Lionel, Duke of Clarence John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster George, Duke of Clarence Edward IV. Edward. I Earl of Warwick Elizabeth Henry VII. i486 HENRY VII. AND THE MIDDLE CLASSES 345 dance when this declaration was made was scanty. Only twenty- nine lay peers were present, not because many of the great houses had become extinct, but because some of the principal Yorkist peers had been attainted, and others had been left without a summons. In the quieter times which followed this slur upon them was re- moved, and the House of Lords was again filled. On January 1 8, i486, Henry married Elizabeth. This marriage and the blending of the white and red rose in the Tudor badge was Henry’s way of announcing that he intended to be the king of both parties. Elizabeth of York, queen of Henry VII. : from an original picture in the National Portrait Gallery. 2. Maintenance and Livery. — Henry could not maintain himself on the throne merely by the support of the nobility. The middle classes, as in the days of Edward IV., called out for a strong king, and were ready to overlook violence and cruelty if only order could be secured. Henry was shrewd enough to know that their aid was indispensable, and, Lancastrian as he was, he adopted the policy of the Yorkist kings. Economical and patient, he might succeed where Edward IV. had partially failed. He had no injuries to avenge, no cruelties to repay. He clearly saw that both the throne and the lives and properties of the middle classes were rendered insecure by maintenance and livery — the support given by 1399-1486 the great landowners to their retainers, and the granting of badges by which the retainers might recognise one another, and thus become as it were a uniformed army ready to serve their lords in the field. Against these abuses Richard II. had directed a statute, (seep. 281) and that statute had been confirmed by Edward IV. These laws had, however, been inoperative ; and Henry, in his first Parlia- ment, did not venture to do more than to make the peers swear to abandon their evil courses. 3. Lovel’s Rising, i486. — In i486 Lord Lovel, who had been one of Richard’s ministers, rose in arms and seized Worcester. Henry found warm support even in Yorkshire, where Richard had been more popular than elsewhere. At short warning a ‘marvellous great number of esquires, gentlemen, and yeomen’ gathered round him, and the rebellion was easily put down. Lovel escaped to Flanders, where he found a protector in Margaret, the dowager Duchess of Burgundy, the sister of Edward IV. and Richard III. Before long a new attack upon Henry was developed. For the first time an English king had to ward off danger from Ireland. 4. Lancaster and York in Ireland. 1399 — 1485. — Since the expedition of Richard II. no king had visited Ireland, and the English colonists were left to defend themselves against the Celtic tribes as best they might. In 1449 Richard, Duke of York, who had not at that time entered on his rivalry with Henry VI., was sent to Dublin as Lord Lieutenant (see p. 319) where he remained till 1450, and gained friends amongst both races by his conciliatory firmness. In 1459, after the break-up of his party at Ludlow (see p. 326), he appeared in Ireland in the character of a fugitive seeking for allies. Between him and the English colony a bargain was soon struck. They gave him troops which fought gallantly for him at Wakefield, and he, claiming to be Lord Lieutenant, assented to an act in which they asserted the complete legislative independence of the Parliament of the colony. The colony, therefore, became distinctly Yorkist. Its leader was the Earl of Kildare, the chief of the eastern Fitzgeralds or Geraldines, the Earl of Desmond being the chief of the Geraldines of the West. Between them was the Earl of Ormond, the chief of the Butlers, the hereditary foe of the Tudor rose (white and red) : from the gates of the. Chapel of Henry VII. LAMBERT SIMNEL *487 Geraldines, who, probably merely because his rivals were Yorkist, had attached himself to the Lancastrian party. All three were of English descent, but all three exercised the tribal authority of an Irish chief, and were practically independent of English control. Ormond fought at Towton on the Lancastrian side, and was exe- cuted after the battle. Family quarrels broke out amongst his kindred, and for the time Kildare was supreme in the English Pale (see p. 265). 5. Insurrection of Lambert Simnel. 1487. — Kildare and the colonists had every reason to distrust Henry, but to oppose him they needed a pretender. They found one in the son of an Oxford tradesman, a boy of ten, named Lambert Simnel, who had been persuaded to give himself out as the Earl of Warwick, who, as it was said, had escaped from the Tower. In 1487 Simnel landed in Ireland, where he was soon joined by Lord Lovel from Flanders, and by the Earl of Lincoln, of the family of De la Pole,^ whose mother, Elizabeth, was the eldest sister of Edward IV., and who had been named by Richard III. as his heir after the death of his son (see p. 342). Lincoln and Lovel, after crowning Simnel at Dublin, crossed to Lancashire, taking with them the pretender, and 2,000 trained German soldiers under Martin Schwarz ; as well as an Irish force furnished by Kildare. Scarcely an English- man would join them, and on June 16 they were utterly defeated by Henry at Stoke, a village between Nottingham and Newark. Lincoln and Schwarz were slain. Lovel was either drowned in the Trent or, according to legend, was hidden in an underground vault, where he was at last starved to death through the neglect of the man whose duty it was to provide him with food. Simnel ‘ Genealogy of the De la Poles and Poles ; — Richard, Duke of York ! Elizabeth = John de la Pole, George, Duke I Duke of Suffolk of Clarence, 1 died 1477 John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, killed at Stoke, 1487 Edmund de la Pole, Sir Richard de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, killed at Pavia, 1525 beheaded 1513 Margaret, = Sir Richard Countess . of Salisbury Pole Henry. Lord Montague, beheaded 1538 Reginald Pole, Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury, died 155* 34§ URNky VtL 1487-1489 was pardoned, and employed by Henry as a turnspit in his kitchen. 6. The Court of Star Chamber. 1487. — Nothing could serve Henry better than this abortive rising. At Bos worth he had been the leader of one party against the other. At Stoke he was the leader of the nation against Irishmen and Germans. He felt him- self strong enough in his second Parliament to secure the passing of an act to ensure the execution of the engagements to which the lords had sworn two years before (see p. 345). A court was to be erected, consisting of certain specified members of the Privy Council and of two judges, empowered to punish with fine and imprisonment all who were guilty of interfering with justice by force or intrigue. The new court, reviving, to some extent, the disused criminal authority of the king’s Council, sat in the Star Chamber ^ at Westminster. The results of its establishment were excellent. Wealthy landowners, the terror of their neighbours, who had bribed or bullied juries at their pleasure, and had sent their retainers to inflict punishment on those who had displeased them, were brought to Westminster to be tried before a court in which neither fear nor favour could avail them. It was the greatest merit of the new court that it was not dependent on a jury, because in those days juries were unable or unwilling to give verdicts according to their conscience. 7. Henry VII. and Brittany. 1488 — 1492. — Henry VII. was a lover of peace by calculation, and would gladly have let France alone if it had been possible to do so. France, however, was no longer the divided power which it had been in the days of Henry V. When Louis XI. died in 1483, he left to his young son, Charles VIII., a territory the whole of which, with the exception of Brittany, was directly governed by the king. Charles’s sister, Anne of Beaujeu, who governed in his name, made it the object of her policy to secure Brittany. She waged war successfully against its duke, Francis II., and after he died, in 1488, she continued to wage war against his daughter, the Duchess Anne. In England there was a strong feeling against allowing the Duchess to be overwhelmed. At the beginning of 1489 Henry, having received from Parliament large supplies, sent 6,000 Englishmen to Anne’s assistance. Maximilian — whose hold on the Netherlands, where he ruled in the name of his young son, Philip (see p. 337), was always slight — proposed marriage to the 1 So called either because the roof was decorated with stars or because it was the room in which had formerly been kept Jewish bonds or ‘ starres.’ 1490-1492 FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS 349 young duchess, and in 1490 was wedded to her by proxy. He was a restless adventurer, always aiming at more than he had the means of accomplishing. Though he could not find time to go at once to Brittany to made good his claim, yet in 1491 he called on Henry to assist him in asserting it. 8. Cardinal Morton’s Fork. 1491. — Henry, who knew how un- popular a general taxation was, fell back on the system of benevo- lences (see p. 335), excusing his conduct on the plea that the statute of Richard III. abolishing benevolences (see p. 342) was invalid, because Richard himself was a usurper. In gathering the benevolence the Chancellor, Cardinal Morton, who had been helpful to Henry in the days of his exile (see p. 341), invented a new mode of putting pressure on the wealthy, which became known as Cardinal Morton’s fork. If, he addressed himself to one who lived in good style, he told him that his mode of living showed that he could afford to give money to the king. If he had to do with one who appeared to be economical, he told him that he must have saved and could therefore afford to give money to the king. Before Henry could put the money thus gained to much use, Anne, pressed hard by the French, repudiated her formal marriage with Maximilian, who had never taken the trouble to visit her, and gave her hand to Charles VIII., who on his part refused to carry out his contract to marry Maximilian’s daughter Margaret (see p. 337). From that time Brittany, the last of the great fiefs to maintain its independence, passed under the power of the king of France. Feudality was everywhere breaking down, and in France, as in England, a strong monarchy was being erected on its ruins. 9. The Invasion of France. 1492. — Maximilian’s alliance had proved but a broken reed, but there was now arising a formid- able power in the south of Europe, which might possibly give valu- able support to the enemies of France. The peninsula to the south of the Pyrenees had hitherto been divided amongst various states, but in 1469 a marriage between Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and Isabella, the heiress of Castile, united the greater part under one dominion. Ferdinand and Isabella were, for the present, fully occupied with the conquest of Granada, the last remnant of the possessions of the Moors in Spain, and that city did not surrender till early in 1492. In the meanwhile all England was indignant with the king of France on account of his marriage with the heiress of Brittany. Money was voted and men were raised, and on October 2, 1492, Henry crossed to Calais to invade France. He 350 HENRY VI L 1491-1494 was, however, cool enough to discover that both Ferdinand and Maximilian wanted to play their own game at his expense, and as Anne of Beaujeu was ready to meet him half-way, he concluded a treaty with the French king on November 3 at Etaples, receiving large sums of money for abandoning a war in which he had nothing to gain. In 1493 the Spaniards followed Henry’s example, and made a peace with France to their own advantage. ‘ 10. Perkin Warbeck. 1491 — 1494. — Henry’s prudent relin- quishment of a war of conquest was not likely to bring him popu- larity in England, and his enemies were now on the watch for another pretender to support against him. Such a pretender was found in Perkin Warbeck, a Fleming of Tournay, who had landed at Cork in the end of 1491 or the beginning of 1492, and who had been pressed by the townsmen to give himself some name which would attach him to the Yorkist family. He allowed them to call him Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the princes who had been murdered in the Tower. He received support from Desmond, and probably from Kildare, upon which Henry deprived Kildare of the office of Lord Deputy. Perkin crossed to France, and ultimately made his way to Flanders, where he was supported by Margaret of Burgundy. In 1493 Henry demanded his sur- render, and on receiving a refusal broke off commercial inter- course between England and Flanders. The interruption of trade did more harm to England than to Flanders, and gave hopes to the Yorkist party that it might give rise to ill-will between the nation and the king. For some time, however, no one gave assistance to Perkin, and in 1494 Charles VI 1 1, crossed the Alps to invade Italy, and drew the attention of the Continental powers away from the affairs of England. 11. Poynings’ Acts. 1494. — Henry seized the opportunity to 1 Genealogy of the Houses of Spain and Burgundy : — Charles the Rash, Duke of Burgundy Frederick III. , Emperor Mary = Maximilian I. Ferdinand V. = Isabella, Queen I Emperor King of Aragon I of Castile I Margaret I Charles V. , Emperor Philip = Juana Ferdinand 1 Emperor Catharine = Henry VIII. , King I of England Mary, Queen of England PERKIN WARBECK 351 1495-1496 bring into obedience the English colony in Ireland. He sent over as Lord Deputy Sir Edward Poynings, a resolute and able man. At a Parliament held by him at Drogheda two acts were passed. By the one it was enacted that all English laws in force at that time should be obeyed in Ireland ; by the other, known for many generations afterwards as Poynings’ Law, no bill was to be laid be- fore the Irish Parliament which had not been previously approved by the king and his Council in England. At the same time the greater part of the Statute of Kilkenny (see p. 265) was re-enacted ; and restricted the authority of the Government at Dublin to the English Pale. 12. Perkin’s First Attempt on England. 1495. — Henry’s firm government in England had given offence even to men who were not Yorkists. Early in 1495 he discovered that Sir William Stanley, who had helped him to victory at Bos worth, had turned against him. Stanley, who was probably involved in a design for sending Perkin to invade England, was tried and executed. In the summer of 1495 Perkin actually arrived off Deal. Being no warrior, he sent a party of his followers on shore, though he remained himself on shipboard to see what would happen. The countrymen fell upon the invaders, who were all slain or captured. Then Perkin sailed to Ireland, was repulsed at Waterford, and ultimately took refuge in Scotland, where King James IV., anxious to distinguish himself in a war with England, acknowledged him as the Duke of York, and found him a wife of noble birth. Lady Catherine Gordon. It was probably in order to rally even the most timid around him, in face of such a danger, that Henry obtained the consent of Parliament to an act declaring that no one supporting a king in actual possession of the crown could be subjected to the penalty of treason in the event of that king’s dethronement. 13. The Intercursus Magnus. 1496. — The danger of a Scot- tish invasion made Henry anxious to be on good terms with his neighbours. Maximilian had become Emperor in 1493 upon his father’s death. In the Netherlands, however, his influence had declined, as his son, the young Archduke Philip, was now grow- ing up, and claimed actually to rule the country which he had inherited from his mother, Mary of Burgundy (see p, 337), his father having merely the right of administering the government of it till he himself came of age. It was therefore with Philip, and not with Maximilian, that Henry concluded, in 1496, a treaty known as the Intercursus Magnus^ for the encourage- ment of trade between England and the Netherlands, each HENRY VI L 352 1496-1497 party engaging at the same time to give no shelter to each other’s rebels. 14. Kildare Restored to the Deputyship. 1496. — In Ireland also Henry was careful to avert danger. The government of Poynings had not been entirely successful, and the Geraldines had taken good care to show that they could be troublesome in spite of the establishment of English government. The Earl of Kildare was at the time in England, and a story is told of some one who, having brought a long string of charges against him, wound up by saying that all Ireland could not govern the Earl, whereupon the king replied that then the Earl should govern all Ireland. The story is untrue, but it well represents the real situation. In 1496 Henry sent Kildare back as Lord Deputy. A bargain seems to have been struck between them. Henry abandoned his attempt to govern Ireland from England, and Kildare was allowed to use the king’s name in any enterprise upon which his heart was set, pro- vided that he did not support any more pretenders to the English throne. 15. Perkin’s Overthrow. 1496 — 1497. — In the autumn of 1496 James IV. made an attack on England in Perkin’s name, but it was no more than a plundering foray. Henry, however, early in 1497, obtained from Parliament a grant of money, to enable him to resist any attempt to repeat it This grant had unexpected consequences. The Comishmen, refusing payment, marched up to Blackheath, where on June 18 they were overpowered by the king’s troops. James IV., thinking it time to be quit of Perkin, sent him off by sea. In July Perkin arrived at Cork, but there was no shelter for him there now that Kildare was Lord Deputy, and in September he made his way to Com wall Followed by 6,000 Comishmen he reached Taunton, but the news of the defeat of the Cornish at Blackheath depressed him, and the poor coward ran away from his army and took sanctuary in Beaulieu Abbey. He was brought to London, where he publicly acknowledged himself to be an im- postor. Henry was too humane to do more than place him in con- finement. 16. European Changes. 1494 — 1499. — In 1494 Charles VIII. had passed through Italy as a conqueror to make good his claims to the kingdom of Naples. In 1495 he had returned to France, and in 1496 the French army left behind had been entirely de- stroyed. Yet the danger of a renewed attack from France made the other Continental powers anxious to unite, and in 1496 the Archduke Philip married Juana, the eldest daughter of Ferdinand 1500 ST. MARY'Sy TAUNTON 351 Tower of St. Mary’s Church, Taunton : built about 1500. A A 354 HENRY VII, 1492-1502 and Isabella, whilst his sister was sent to Spain to be married to their only son, Juan. In 1497 the death of the young prince led to consequences unexpected when the two marriages were arranged. Philip, who held Tranche Comt^ and the Netherlands, and who was through his father Maximilian heir to the German dominions of the House of Austria, would now, that his wife had become the heiress of Spain, be able to transmit to his descendants the whole of the Spanish monarchy as well. That monarchy was no longer con- fined to Europe. Portugal at the end of the fourteenth century had led the way in maritime adventure, and Portuguese navigators discovered a way to India round the Cape of Good Hope. Spain was anxious tq do as much, and in 1492 Columbus had dis- covered the West Indies, and the kings of Spain became masters of the untold wealth produced by the gold and silver mines of the New World. It was impossible but that the huge power thus brought into existence would one day arouse the jealousy of Europe. For the present, however, the danger was less than it would be after the deaths of Ferdinand and Isabella, as the actual combination of their territories with those which Philip was to in- herit from Maximilian had not been effected. In 1499 F ranee gave a fresh shock to her neighbours. Charles VIII. had died the year before, and his successor, Louis XII., invaded Italy and subdued the duchy of Milan, to which he had set up a claim. Naturally the powers jealous of France sought to have Henry on their side. There had been for some time a negotiation for a marriage between Henry’s eldest son, Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catherine of Aragon, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, but hitherto nothing had been concluded. 17. Execution of the Earl of Warwick. 1499. — Perkin had long been eager to free himself from prison. In 1498 he was caught attempting to escape, but Henry contented himself with putting him in the stocks. He was then removed to the Tower, where he persuaded the unhappy Earl of Warwick (see p. 343) to join him in flight. It is almost certain that Warwick was guilty of no more, but Henry, soured by the repeated attempts to dethrone him, resolved to remove him from his path. On trumped-up evidence Warwick was convicted and executed, and Perkin shared his fate. 18. Prince Arthur’s Marriage and Death. 1501 — 1502.-- Warwick’s death was the one judicial murder of Henry’s reign. To the Spaniards it appeared to be a prudent action which had cleared away the last of Henry’s serious competitors. The negotia- 1441*535 /TING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 355 HENRY VII , 1497-1503 356 tions for the Spanish marriage were pushed on, and in 1501 Catherine, a bride of fifteen, gave her hand to Arthur, a bride- groom of fourteen. In 1502 the prince died, and the attempt to bind England and Spain together seemed to have come to an end. 19. The Scottish Marriage. 1503. — Another marriage treaty proved ultimately to be of far greater importance. Henry was sufficiently above the prejudices of his time to be anxious to be on good terms with Scotland. For some time a negotiation had been in progress for a marriage between James IV. and Henry’s daughter, Margaret. The marriage took place in 1503. To the counsellors who urged that in the case of failure of Henry’s heirs in the male line England would become subject to Scotland Henry shrewdly replied that there was no fear of that, as ‘ the greater would draw the less.’ 20. Maritime Enterprise. — Henry’s chief merit was that he had re-established order. Commercial prosperity followed, though the commerce was as yet on a small scale. It is probable that the population of England was no more than 2,500,000. London con- tained but 130,000 inhabitants, whilst Paris contained 400,000. There was no royal navy, as there was no royal army, but merchant vessels were armed to protect themselves. The company of Mer- chant Adventurers made voyages to the Baltic, and the men of Bristol sent out fleets to the Iceland fishery. Henry did what he could to encourage maritime enterprise. He had offered to take Columbus into his service before the great navigator closed with Spain, and in 1497 he sent the Venetian, John Cabot, and his sons across the Atlantic, where they landed in Labrador before any Spaniards had set foot on the American continent. England however, was as yet too poor to push these discoveries farther, and the lands beyond the sea were for the present left to Spain. 21. Growth of the Royal Power. — The improvement in the general well-being of the country had been rendered possible by the extension of the royal power, and the price paid for order was the falling into abeyance of the constitutional authority of Parlia- ments. The loss indeed was greater in appearance than in reality. In the fifteenth century the election of members of the House of Commons depended more upon the will of the great lords than upon the political sentiments of the community. In the first half of the sixteenth century they depended on the will of the king. The peculiarity of the Tudor rule v/as that its growing despotism was 1502-1505 MATRIMONIAL SCHEMES 357 exercised without the support of the army. It rested on the good- will of the middle classes. Treading cautiously in the steps of Edward IV., Henry VII. recognised that in order to have a full treasury it was less dangerous to exact payments illegally from the few than to exact them legally from the many. Hence his recourse in times of trouble to benevolences. Hence, too, the eagerness with which he gathered in fines. The Cornish rebels were fined indi- vidually. The great lords who persisted in keeping retainers were fined. On one occasion the king visited the Earl of Oxford, and found, when he went away, a band of retainers drawn up to do him honour. “ My lord,” he said, “ I thank you for your entertainment, but my attorney must speak with you.” If there was a man in England who had deserved well of Henry it was Oxford, but Oxford had to pay 15,000/., a sum worth perhaps 180,000/. at the present day, to atone for his offence. No services rendered to Henry were to excuse from obedience to the law. 22. Empson and Dudley. — As Henry grew older the gathering of money became a passion. His chief instruments were Empson and Dudley, who under pretence of enforcing the law established the worst of tyrannies. Even false charges were brought for the sake of extracting money. At the end of his reign Henry had accumulated a hoard of 1,800,000/., mainly gathered by injustice and oppression. The despotism of one man was no doubt better than the despotism of many, but the price paid for the change was a heavy one. 23. Henry and his Daughter-in-law. 1502 — 1505. — On the death of Prince Arthur in 1502, Ferdinand and Isabella proposed that their daughter Catharine should marry her brother-in-law, Henry, the only surviving son of the king of England, though the boy was six years younger than herself. They had already paid half their daughter’s marriage portion, and they believed, probably with truth, that they had little chance of recovering it from Henry VII., and that it would therefore be more economical to re-marry their daughter where they would get off with no more expense than the payment of the other half. Henry on the other hand feared lest the repayment of the first half might be demanded of him, and consequently welcomed the proposal. In 1503 a dispensation for the marriage was obtained from Pope Julius II., but in 1505, when the time for the betrothal arrived, the young Henry protested, no doubt at his father’s instigation, that he would proceed no farther. 24. The Last Years of Henry VII. 1505 — 1509. — Circura- HENRY VJI. 1504-1509 358 stances were changed by the death of Isabella in 1504, when her son- in-law, the Archduke Philip, claimed to be sovereign of Castile in right of his wife Juana. Philip, sailing from the Netherlands to Spain in 1506, was driven into Weymouth by a storm, and Henry seized the opportunity of wringing from him commercial conces- sions as well as the surrender of Edmund de la Pole, a brother of the Earl of Lincoln who perished at Stoke, and a nephew of Edward IV. Henry was himself now a widower on the look-out for a rich wife, and Philip promised him the hand of his sister, Margaret, who had formerly been betrothed to Charles VIII. (see p. 337). Once more, however, the conditions of the game changed. Philip died a few months after his arrival in Spain, leaving a mad widow, and as Ferdinand then regained his authority Catharine's marriage was again discussed. Other schemes were also proposed, amongst them one for marrying Catharine, not to the young prince, but to her old father-in-law, the king. In 1509, before any of these plans could take effect, Henry VII. died. He deserves to be reckoned amongst the kings who have accomplished much for England. If he was not chivalrous or imaginative, neither was the age in which he lived. His contemporaries needed a chief constable to keep order, and he gave them what they needed. 2 5. Architectural Changes and the Printing Press. — Architecture, which in England, as upon the Continent, had been the one great art of the Middle Ages, was already, though still instinct with beauty, giving signs in its over-elaboration of approaching decadence. To the tower of Fotheringhay Church (see p. 31 1) had succeeded the tower of St. Mary’s, Taunton. To the roof of the nave of Win- chester Cathedral (see p. 276) had succeeded the roof of the Divinity School at Oxford (see p. 319), and of the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge (see p. 355). Art in this direction could go no farther. The new conditions in which the following age was to move were indicated by the discovery of America and the in- vention of printing. New objects of knowledge presented them- selves, and a new mode of spreading knowledge was at hand. In the reign of Edward IV., Caxton, the earliest English printer, set up his press at Westminster, and the king and his nobles came to gaze at it as at some new toy, little knowing how profoundly it was to modify their methods of government. Henry VII. had enough to do without troubling himself with such matters. It was his part to close an epoch of English history, not to open a fresh one. BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR STUDY 3 S 9 Books recommended for further study of Part IV. Green, J. R. History of the English People. Vol. i. p. 521-V0I. ii. p. 77. Stubbs, W. (Bishop of Oxford). Constitutional History of England, Vol. ii, from p. 441, and Vol. hi. Hallam, H. Constitutional History of England, Vol. i. pp. 1-15. Rogers, J. E. Thorold, History of Agriculture and Prices. Vols. iii. and iv. Cunningham, W. The Growth of English Industry and Commerce. Vol. i. pp. 335 - 449 - Wylie, J. H. History of England under Henry IV. Gairdner, James. Lancaster and York. Richard III. Henry VII. Ramsay, Sir James. Lancaster and York. Oman, C. The Political History of England, Vol. iv. From the Acces* sion of Richard II, to the Death of Richard III. (1377- 1485)- Fisher, H. A. L. The Political History of England. Vol. v. From the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of Henry VIII. (1485-1547). PART V THE RENASCENCE AND THE REFORMATION 1509—1603 CHAPTER XXIV HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY. 1509— 1527 LEADING DATES Reign of Henry VIII., 1509-1547 Accession of Henry VIII 1509 Henry’s first war with France ...... 1512 Peace with France 1514 Charles V. elected Emperor 1519 Henry’s second French war ....... 1522 Francis I. taken captive at Pavia 1525 The sack of Rome and the alliance between England and France 1527 I. The New King. 1509. — Henry VIII. inherited the hand- some face, the winning presence, and the love of pleasure which distinguished his mother’s father, Edward IV., as well as the strong will of his own father, Henry VII. He could ride better than his grooms, and shoot better than the archers of his guard. Yet, though he had a ready smile and a ready jest for everyone, he knew how to preserve his dignity. Though he seemed to live for amusement alone, and allowed others to toil at the business of administration, he took care to keep his ministers under control. He was no mean judge of character, and the saying which rooted itself amongst his subjects, that ‘ King Henry knew a man when he saw him,’ points to one of the chief secrets of his success. He was well aware that the great nobles were his only possible rivals, and that his main support was to be found in the country gentry and the townsmen. Partly because of his youth, and partly because the result of the II. B B 362 HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY 1509 political struggle had already been determined when he came to the throne, he thought less than his father had done of the importance Henry VIII. ; from a painting by Holbein about 1536, belonging to Earl Spencer. of possessing stored up wealth by which armies might be equipped and maintained, and more of securing that popularity which at 1508-1512 AN ADVENTUROUS KING 363 least for the purposes of internal government, made armies un- necessary. The first act of the new reign was to send Empson and Dudley to the Tower, and it was significant of Henry’s policy that they were tried and executed, not on a charge of having ex- torted money illegally from subjects, but on a trumped up charge of conspiracy against the king. It was for the king to see that offences were not committed against the people, but the people must be taught that the most serious crimes were those committed against the king. Henry’s next act was to marry Catharine. Though he was but nineteen, whilst his bride was twenty-five, the marriage was for many years a happy one. 2. Continental Troubles. 1508 — 1511. — For some time Henry lived as though his only object in life was to squander his father’s treasure in festivities. Before long, however, he bethought himself of aiming at distinction in war as well as in sport. Since Louis XII. had been king of France (see p. 354) there had been constant wars in Italy, where Louis was striving for the mastery with Ferdinand of Aragon. In 1508 the two rivals, Ferdinand and Louis, abandon- ing their hostility for a time, joined the Emperor Maximilian (see pp. 337) 348) and Pope Julius II. in the League of Cambrai, the object of which was to despoil the Republic of Venice. In 1511 Ferdinand allied himself with Julius IL and Venice in the Holy League, the object of which was to drive the French out of Italy. After a while the new league was joined by Maximilian, and every member of it was anxious that Henry should join it too. 3. The Rise of Wolsey. 1512. — England had nothing to gain by an attack on France, but Henry was young, and the English nation was, in a certain sense, also young. It was conscious of the strength brought to it by restored order, and was quite ready to use this strength in an attack on its neighbours. In the new court it was ignorantly thought that there was no reason why Henry VIII. should not take up that work of conquering France which had fallen to pieces in the feeble hands of Henry VI. To carry on his new policy Henry needed a new minister. The best of the old ones were Fox, the Bishop of Winchester, and Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, who, great nobleman as he was, had been contented to merge his greatness in the greatness of the king. The whole miilitary organisation of the country, however, had to be created afresh, and neither Fox nor Surrey was equal to such a task. The work was assigned to Thomas Wolsey, the king’s almoner, who, though not, as his enemies said, the son of a butcher, was of no exalted origin. Wolsey’s genius for administration at HENRY VIII. AND WORSE V 1512-1515 364 once manifested itself. He was equally at home in sketching out a plan of campaign, in diplomatic contests with the wariest and most experienced statesmen, and in providing for the minutest details of military preparation. 4. The War with France. 1512— 1513. — It was not Wolsey’s fault that his first enterprise ended in failure. A force sent to attack France on the Spanish side failed, not because it was ill- equipped, but because the soldiers mutinied, and Ferdinand, who had promised to support it, abandoned it to its fate. In 1513 Henry himself landed at Calais, and, with the Emperor Maximilian serving under him, defeated the French at Guinegatte in an en- gagement known, from the rapidity of the flight of the F rench, as the Battle of the Spurs. Before the end of the autumn he had taken Terouenne and Tournai. War with France, as usual, led to a war with Scotland. James IV., during Henry’s absence, invaded Northumberland, but his army was destroyed by the Earl of Surrey at Flodden, where he himself was slain. 5. Peace with France. 1514. — Henry soon found that his allies were thinking exclusively of their own interests. In 1512 the French were driven out of Italy, and Ferdinand made himself master of Navarre. In 1513 the warlike Pope, Julius II., died, and a fresh attempt of Louis to gain ground in Italy was decisively foiled. Henry’s allies had got what they wanted, and in 1514 Henry discovered that to conquer France was beyond his power. Louis was ready to come to terms. He was now a widower. Old in constitution, though not in years, he was foolish enough to want a young wife. Henry was ready to gratify him with the hand of his younger sister Mary. The poor girl had fallen in love with Henry’s favourite, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, a man of sturdy limbs and weak brain, and pleaded hard against the marriage. Love counted for little in those days, and all that she could obtain from her brother was a promise that if she married this time to please him, she should marry next time to please herself. Louis soon relieved her by dying on January i, 1515, after a few weeks of wedlock, and his widow took care, by marrying Suffolk before she left F ranee, to make sure that her brother should keep his promise. 6. Wolse^s Policy of Peace. 1514 — 1518. — In 1514 the king made Wolsey Archbishop of York. In 1515 the Pope made him a Cardinal. Before the end of the year he was Henry’s Chancellor. The whole of the business of the government passed through his hands. The magnificence of his state was extraordinary. To all observers he seemed to be more a king than the king himself. Behind him RISE OF WOLSEY 1515 365 was Henry, trusting him with all his power, but self-willed and un- controllable, quite ready to sacrifice his dearest friend to satisfy his least desire. As yet the only conflict in Henry’s mind was the conflict about peace or war with France. Henry’s love of display and renown had led him to wish to rival the exploits of Edward III Cardinal Wolsey : from an original picture belonging io the Hon. Sir Spencer Ponsont)y-Fane, K.C.B. and Henry V. Wolsey preferred the old policy of Richard II. and Henry VI., but he knew that he could only make it palatable to the king and the nation by connecting the idea of peace with the idea of national greatness. He aspired to be the peace-maker of Europe, and to make England’s interest in peace the law of the 366 HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY 515-1518 world. In 1515 the new king of France, Francis I., needed peace with England because he was in pursuit of glory in Italy, where he won a brilliant victory at Marignano. In 1516 Ferdinand’s death gave Spain to his grandson, Charles, the son of Philip and Juana (see p. 358), and from that time Francis and Charles stood forth as the rivals for supremacy on the Continent. Wolsey tried his best to maintain a balance between the two, and it was owing to his ability that England, thinly populated and without a standing army, was eagerly courted by the rulers of states far more powerful than herself. In 1518 a league was struck between England and France, in which Pope Leo X., the Emperor Maximilian, and Charles, king of Spain, agreed to join, thus converting it into a league of universal peace. Yet Wolsey was no cosmopolitan philanthropist. He believed that England would be more influential in peace than she could be in war. 7. Wolsey and the Renascence. — In scheming for the elevation of his own country by peace instead of by conquest, Wolsey reflected the higher aspirations of his time. No sooner had internal order been secured, than the best men began to crave for some object to which they could devote themselves, larger and nobler than that of their own preservation. Wolsey gave them the contemplation of the political importance of England on the Continent. The noblest minds, however, would not be content with this, and an outburst of intellectual vigour told that the times of internal strife had passed away. This intellectual movement was not of native growth. The Renascence, or new birth of letters, sprung up in Italy in the four- teenth century, and received a further impulse through the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, when the dispersal of Greek teachers from the East revived the study of the Greek language. It was not merely because new teachers landed in Italy that the literature of the ancient world was studied with avidity. Men were weary of the mediaeval system, and craved for other ideals than those of the devotees of the Church. Whilst they learnt to admire the works of the Greek and Latin authors as models of literary form, they caught something of the spirit of the ancient world. They ceased to look on man as living only for God and a future world, and regarded him as devoting himself to the service of his fellow- men, or even — in lower minds the temptation lay perilously near — as living for himself alone. Great artists and poets arose who gave expression to the new feeling of admiration for human action and human beauty, whilst the prevailing revolt against the religion of the middle ages gave rise to a spirit of criticism which refused belief to popular legends. rm RENASCENCE 1510-1515 367 8. The Renascence in England.— The spirit of the Renascence Was slow in reaching England. In the days of Richard II. Chaucer visited Italy, and Italian influence is to be traced in his Canterbury Tales. In the days of Henry VI. the selfish politician, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, purchased books, and gave to Oxford a collection which was the foundation of what was after- wards known as the Bodleian Library. Even in the Wars of the Roses the brutal John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, and the gentle Earl Rivers, the brother of Elizabeth Woodville, were known as patrons of letters. The invention of printing brought literature within reach of those to whom it had hitherto been strange. Edward IV. patronised Caxton, the first English printer. In the peaceful reign of Henry VII. the seed thus sown sprang into a crop. There was, however, a great difference between the followers of the new learning in England and in Italy. In Italy, for the most part, scholars mocked at Christianity, or treated it with tacit contempt. In England there was no such breach with the religion of the past. Those who studied in England sought to permeate their old faith with the new thoughts. 9. The Oxford Reformers. — Especially was this the case with a group of Oxford Reformers, Grocyn, Linacre, and Colet, who were fighting hard to introduce the study of Greek into the University. Among these Colet specially addicted himself to the explanation of the epistles of St. Paul, insisting on following their plain meaning instead of the mystical interpretations then in vogue. In 1510 he founded St. Paul’s School, that boys might be there taught without being subjected to the brutal flogging which was in those days the lot even of the most diligent of schoolboys. The most remarkable member of this group of scholars was Thomas More. Young More, who had hoped much from the accession of Henry VI 1 1., had been disappointed to find him engaging in a war with France instead of cultivating the arts of peace. He meditated! deeply over the miseries of his fellow-men, and longed for a time when governments would think it to be their highest duty to labour for those who are too weak to help themselves. 10. ‘The Utopia,’ 1515 — 1516. — In 1515 and 1516 More produced a book which he called Utopia^ or Nowhere, intending it to serve as a satire on the defects of the government of England, by praising the results of a very different government in his imaginary country. The Utopians, he declared, fought against invaders of their own land or the land of their allies, or to deliver other peoples from tyranny, but they made no wars of aggression. In peace no 368 HENRY VllL AND MOISEY 1516-1518 one was allowed either to be idle or overworked. Everyone must work six hours a day, and then he might listen to lectures for the improvement of his mind. As for the religion of Utopia, no one was to be persecuted for his religious opinions, as long as he treated respectfully those who differed from him. If, however, he used scornful and angry words towards them, he was to be banished, not as a despiser of the established religion, but as a stirrer up of dissension. Men of all varieties of opinion met together in a common temple, the worship in which was so ar- ranged that all could take part in it. Amongst their priests were women as well as men. More practical was the author’s attack on the special abuses of the times. England swarmed with vagrants, who easily passed into robbers, or even murderers. The author of Utopia traced the evil to its roots. Soldiers, he said, were discharged on their return home, and, being used to roving and dissolute habits, naturally took to vagrancy. Robbery was their only resource, and the law tempted a robber to murder. Hanging was the penalty both for pbbing and murder, and the robber, therefore, knowing that he would be hanged if he were detected, usually killed the victim whom he had plundered in order to silence evidence against himself; and More consequently argued that the best way of checking murder would be to abolish the penalty of death for robbery. Another great complaint of More’s was against the ever-growing increase of inclosures for pasturage. “ Sheep,” he said, “ be become so great devourers and so wild that they eat up and swallow down the very men themselves. They consume, destroy, and devour whole fields, houses, and cities.” More saw the evil, but he did not see that the best remedy lay in the estab- lishment of manufactures, to give employment in towns to those who lost it in the country. He wished to enforce by law the reversion of all the new pasturage into arable land. II. More and Henry VIII.— Henry VHI. was intolerant of those who resisted his will, but he was strangely tolerant of those who privately contradicted his opinions. He took pleasure in the society of intelligent and witty men, and he urged More to take office under him. More refused for a long time, but in 1518 — the year of the league of universal peace — believing that Henry was now a convert to his ideas, he consented, and became Sir Thomas More and a Privy Councillor. Henry was so pleased with his conversation that he tried to keep him always with him, and it was only by occasionally pretending to be dull that More obtained leave to visit his home. I5I9-I52J CHARLES V, AND FRANCIS I. 369 12. The Contest for the Empire. 1519. — In January 1519 the Emperor Maximilian died. His grandson Charles was now possessed of more extensive lands than any other European sovereign. He ruled in Spain, in Austria, in Naples and Sicily, in the Netherlands, and in the County of Burgundy, usually known as Franche Comte. Between him and Francis I. a struggle was in- evitable. The chances were apparently, on the whole, on the side of Charles. His dominions, indeed, were scattered, and devoid of the strength given by national feeling, whilst the smaller domi- nions of Francis were compact and united by a strong national bond. In character, however, Charles had the superiority. He was cool and wary, whilst Francis was impetuous and uncalculating. Both sovereigns were now candidates for the Empire. The seven electors who had it in their gift were open to bribery. Charles bribed highest, and being chosen became the Emperor Charles V. 13. The Field of the Cloth of Gold. 1520. — Wolsey tried hard to keep the peace. In 1520 Henry met Francis on the border of the territory of Calais, and the magnificence of the display on both sides gave to the scene the name of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In the same year Henry had interviews with Charles. Peace was for a time maintained, because both Charles and Francis were still too much occupied at home to quarrel, but it could hardly be maintained long. 14. The Execution of the Duke of Buckingham. 1521. — Henry was entirely master in England. In 1521 the Duke of Buckingham, son of the Buckingham who had been beheaded by Richard HI., was tried and executed as a traitor. His fault was that he had great wealth, and that, being descended from the Duke of Gloucester, the youngest son of Edward HI., he had not only cherished some idea of claiming the throne after Henry’s death, but had chattered about his prospects. In former days justice was not to be had by those who offended the great lords. Now, one despot had stepped into the place of many, and justice was not to be had by those who offended the king. The legal forms of trial were now as before observed. Buckingham was indeed tried before the court of the Lord High Steward, which consisted of a select number of peers, and which had jurisdiction over peers when Parliament was not sitting. These, however, were no more than forms. It was probably a mingled feeling of gratitude and fear which made peers as well as ordinary juries ready to take Henry’s word for the guilt of any offender. 15. Another French War. 1522 — 1523. — The diplomacy of 370 HENRY Vnt. and WOLSEY 152a The embarkation of Henry VIII. from Dover, 1520 : from the original painting at Hampton Court. 37 t 1521^1523 WOLSEY IN THE HOUSE 01 COMMONS those days was a mere tissue of trickery and lies. Behind the falsehood, however, Wolsey had a purpose of his own, the maintenance of peace on the Continent. Yet, in 1521 war broke out between Charles and Francis, both of whom laid claim to the Duchy of Milan, and it was evident that Wolsey would be unable to keep England out of the struggle. If there was to be fight- ing Henry preferred to fight France rather than to fight Charles. In 1522, in conjunction with Charles, he invaded France. There was burning and ravag- ing enough, but nothing of im- portance was done. Neverthe- less in 1523 Henry was in high spirits. A great French noble, the Duke of Bourbon, pro- voked by ill-treatment, revolted against Francis, and Henry and Charles fancied that he would open a way to them into the heart of F ranee. I f H enry was to be crowned at Paris, which was the object on which he was bent, he must have a supply of money from his subjects. Though no Parliament had been summoned for nearly eight years, one was summoned now, of which More was the Speaker. Wolsey asked for an enormous grant of 800,000/., nearly equal to 1 2,000,000/. at the present day. Finding that the Commons hesitated, he swept into the House in state to argue with them. Expecting a reply, and finding silence, he turned to More, who told him that it was against the privilege of the House to call on it for an imme- diate answer. He had to depart unsatisfied, and after some days the House granted a considerable sum, but far less than that which had been demanded. Wolsey was now in a position of danger. His own policy was pacific, but his master’s policy was warlike, and he had been obliged to make himself the unquestioning mouth- Cup and Cover, 1523, at Barber Surgeons’ Hall, London. 372 nENkV Vllt. AND WOLSEV 1523-1525 piece of his master in demanding supplies for war. He had long been hated by the nobles for thrusting them aside. He was now beginning to be hated by the people as the supposed author of an expensive war, which he would have done his best to prevent. He had not even the advantage of seeing his master win laurels in the field. The national spirit of France was roused, and the com- bined attack of Henry and Charles proved as great a failure in 1523 as in 1522. The year 1524 was spent by Wolsey in diplomatic intrigue. 16. The Amicable Loan. 1525. — Early in 1525 Europe was startled by the news that Francis had been signally defeated by the Imperialists at Pavia, and had been carried prisoner to Spain. Wolsey knew that Charles’s influence was now likely to predomi- nate in Europe, and that unless England was to be overshadowed by it, Henry’s alliance must be transferred to Francis. Henry, however, saw in the imprisonment of Francis only a fine oppor- tunity for conquering France. Wolsey had again to carry out his master’s wishes as though they were his own. Raking up old pre- cedents, he suggested that the people should be asked for what was called an Amicable Loan, on the plea that Henry was about to in- vade France in person. He obtained the consent of the citizens of London by telling them that, if they did not pay, it might ‘fortune to cost some their heads.’ All over England Wolsey was cursed as the originator of the loan. There were even signs that a rebellion was imminent. In Norfolk when the Duke of Norfolk demanded payment there was a general resistance. On his demanding the name of the captain of the multitude which refused to pay, a man told him that their captain’s ‘ name was Poverty,’ and ‘ he and his cousin Necessity’ had brought them to this. Wolsey, seeing that it was impossible to collect the money, took all the unpopularity of advising the loan upon himself. ‘ Because,’ he wrote, ‘ every man layeth the burden from him, I am content to take it on me, and to endure the fame and noise of the people, for my good-will towards the king . . . but the eternal God knoweth all.’ Henry had no such nobility of character as to refuse to accept the sacrifice. He liked to make his ministers scapegoats, to heap on their heads the indignation of the people that he might himself retain his popu- larity. F or three centuries and a half it was fully believed that the Amicable Loan had originated with Wolsey. 17. Closing Years of Wolsey’s Greatness. 1525—1527. — All idea of continuing the war being now abandoned, Wolsey cautiously negotiated for an alliance with France, and in the autumn of 1525 1526 HAMPTON COURT 373 Hampton Court ; built by Cardinal Wolsey, finished in 1526- 374 HENRY FIJI AND WOLSEY 1526-1527 peace was signed between France and England. In February 1526 Charles set Francis at liberty on his promising to abandon to him large tracts of French territory. As soon as he was out of Spain Francis declared that, without the consent of his subjects, such promises were not binding on him. An Italian league, jealous of Charles’s power, gathered round the Pope, Clement VII., to oppose him. In May 1527 the exiled Duke of Bourbon, who was now one of Charles’s generals, took Rome by assault. He was himself slain as he mounted the wall, but his followers took prisoner the Pope, and sacked Rome with horrible barbarity. Wolsey was too v/orldly-minded to be shocked at the Pope’s misfortunes ; but he had much to fear from the enormous extension of the Emperor’s power. For some weeks he had been negotiating a close alliance with France on the basis of a marriage between Henry’s only sur- viving child, Mary, and the worn-out voluptuary Francis. Sud- denly the scheme was changed to a proposal for a marriage between Mary, who was ten years old, and the second son of F rands, whc was but six. The bargain was concluded, and for a time there was some thought of carrying it out. At all events when the news of the sack of Rome arrived, England and France were already in close alliance. Wolsey’s position was, to all outward appearance, secure. CHAPTER XXV THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY. 1527-1534 LEADING DATES Reign of Henry VIII., 1509-1547 Henry seeks for a divorce 1527 His suit before a Legatine Court 1529 Fall of Wolsey ... 1529 The clergy acknowledge Henry to be Supreme Head of the Church of England 1531 The first Act of Annates 1532 The king’s marriage to Anne Boleyn and the Act of Appeals 1533 Cranmer’s sentence of divorce 1533 The final separation from Rome ...... 1534 I. The Papacy and the Renascence. — The Renascence alone could not make the world better, and in many respects it made it worse. The respect which it paid to humanity, which was its CORRUPTION OF THE PAPACY 375 1492-1521 leading characteristic, allied itself in More with a reverence for God, which led him to strive to mellow the religious teaching of the Middle Ages, by fitting it for the needs of the existing world. Too many threw off all religious restraints, and made it their first thought to seek their own enjoyment, or the triumphs of their own intel- lectual skill. Sensual delights were pursued with less brutal direct- ness, but became more seductive and more truly debasing by the splendour and gracefulness of the life of which they formed a part. In Italy the Popes swam with the current. Alexander VI. (1492 — 1503) gave himself up to the most degrading vices. Julius II. (1503 — 1513) a passionate warrior struggling for the extension of his temporal possessions. Leo X. (1513 — 1521) was a polished lover of art, perfectly indifferent to religious duty. “ Let us enjoy the Papacy,” he said when he was elected, “ since God has given it to us.” Amidst the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, the Popes became as other Italian princes, no better and no worse. Spiritual guidance was no longer to be expected of them. 2. Wolsey and the Papacy. — By Wolsey and his master the Papacy was respected as a venerable and useful institution, the centre of a religious organisation which they believed to be of divine origin, though when it came in conflict with their own projects they were quite ready to thwart it. In 1521 Leo X. died, and Wolsey, having some hopes of being himself elected, asked Charles V. to send troops to compel the cardinals to choose him, promising to pay the expenses of the armament. Charles, though, in the previous year, he had offered to support Wolsey’s candida- ture at the next vacancy, now deserted him, and the new Pope was Adrian VI., who in 1523 was succeeded by Clement VII. (see p. 374). 3. Wolsey’s Legatine Powers.— It is unlikely that Wolsey was much disappointed. His chief sphere of action was England, where since 1518 he had held unwonted authority, as in that year he had been appointed Legate a latere^ by Leo X. at Henry’s request, and the powers of a Legale a latere were superior even to those of Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Wolsey was therefore clothed with all the authority of king and Pope combined. His own life was, indeed, like those of many churchmen in his day, very far from the ideal of Christianity ; but for all that he had that respect for religious order which often lingers in the hearts of men who break away from the * i.e. a Legate sent from the Pope’s side, and therefore having power to speak almost with full Papal authority. 376 the breach WITH THE PAPACY 1521 precepts of religion, and he was too great a statesman to be blind to the danger impending over the Church. The old order was changing, and Wolsey was as anxious as More, though from more Portrait of William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, i503-iS3a, showing the ordinary episcopal dress, with the mitre and archiepiscopal cross : from a painting belonging to Viscount Dillon, dated 1527. worldly motives, that the change should be effected without violence. He knew that the Church was wealthy, and that wealth tempted plunderers, and he also knew that, with some bright ex- 377 1515-1524 the LUTHERAN REFORMATION ceptions, the clergy were ignorant, and even when not absolutely dissolute were remiss and easy-going in their lives. He was, therefore, anxious to make them more worthy of respect, and, with the consent of king and Pope, he began in 1524 to dissolve several small monasteries, and to apply their revenues to two great colleges, the one founded by him at Oxford and the other at Ipswich. He hoped that without any change of doctrine or organisa- tion the Church would gradually be purified by improved education, and would thus once more command the respect of the laity. 4. Henry VIII. and the Clergy. — With Wolsey’s object Henry, being himself well educated and well read, fully sympathised. For many years there had been a tacit understanding between the king and the Pope, and now that both the king and the Pope supported Wolsey’s action there seemed to be less danger than ever of any disturbance of the friendly relations between Church and State. Yet though Henry was on good terms with the Pope, he had made up his mind that whenever there was a conflict of juris- diction in ecclesiastical matters his own will, and not that of the clergy, was to be predominant. As early as in 1515, when a question of this kind was moved, Wolsey asked on behalf of the clergy that it might be referred to the Pope. “We,” said H enry proudly, “are by God’s grace king of England, and have no superior but God ; we will maintain the rights of the crown like our predecessors ; your decrees you break and interpret at your pleasure, but we will not consent to your interpretation of them any more than our prede- cessors have done.” Henry VIII., in short, took up the position which Henry II. had assumed towards the clergy of his day, and he was far more powerful to give effect to his views than Henry II. had ever been. Such an act of self-assertion would probably have caused a breach with the great Popes of the middle ages, such as Gregory VII. or Innocent III. Leo X. was far too much a man of the world to trouble himself about such matters. 5. German Lutheranism. — Before many years had passed the beginnings of a great religious revolution which appeared in Germany served to bind Henry and Leo more closely together. Martin Luther, a Saxon friar, had been disgusted by the proceed- ings of a hawker of indulgences, who extracted small sums from the ignorant by the sale of the remission of the pains of purgatory. What gave world-wide importance to Luther’s resistance was that he was not only an eloquent preacher of morality, but the con- vinced maintainer of a doctrine which, though not a new one, had long been laid aside. He preached justification by faith, and the 378 THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY 1517 Tower of Fountains Abbey church ; built by Abbot Huby. 1494-1526. HENRY AND LUTHER 379 1517-1521 acceptance of his teaching implied even more than the acceptance of a new doctrine. For centuries it had been understood that each Christian held intercourse with God through the sacraments and ordinances of the Church. His individuality was, as it were, swallowed up in the vast community to which he belonged. Luther taught each of his hearers that the important thing was his faith, that is to say his immediate personal relation with God, and that the intervention of human beings might, indeed, be helpful to him, but could be no more. Such a doctrine touched all human activity. The man who in religion counted his own individual faith as the one thing necessary was likely to count his own indi- vidual convictions in social or political matters as worth more to him than his obedience to the authority of any government. In Luther’s teaching was to be found the spirit of political as well as of religious liberty. This side of it, however, was not likely to reveal itself at once. After a time Luther shook off entirely the claims of the Papacy upon his obedience, but he magnified the duty of obeying the princes who gave him their support in his struggle with the Pope. 6. Henry’s Controversy with Luther. — Luther, when once he was engaged in controversy with the Papacy, assailed other doc- trines than those relating to justification. In 1521 Henry, vain of his theological learning, wrote a book against him in defence of the seven sacraments. Luther, despising a royal antagonist, replied with scurrilous invective. Pope Leo was delighted to have found so influential a champion, and conferred on Henry the title of Defender of the Faith. If Henry had not been moved by stronger motives than controversial vanity he might have remained the Pope’s ally till the end of his life. 7. Queen Catharine and Anne Boleyn. — It was a great dis- appointment to Henry that he had no surviving male children. England had never been ruled by a queen, and it was uncertain whether Henry’s daughter, Mary, would be allowed to reign. Henry had already begun to ask himself whether he might not get rid of his wife, on the plea that a marriage with his brother’s wife was unlawful, and this consideration had the greater weight with him because Catharine was five years older than himself and was growing distasteful to him. When in 1521, in his book against Luther, he assigned a divine origin to the Papacy, he told More of a secret reason for this exaltation of the Pope’s power, and it is possible that this reason was his desire to obtain from the Pope a divorce under the pretext that it would secure a peaceful succes- 38 o THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY 1522 sion. At all events his scruples regarding his marriage with Catharine were quickened in 1522 by the appearance at court of Anne Boleyn, a sprightly black-eyed flirt in her sixteenth year, who took his fancy as she grew into womanhood. Flirt as she was, she knew her power, and refused to give herself to him except Catharine of Aragon : from a painting in the National Portrait Gallery. in marriage. The king, on his part, being anxious for a legitimate son, set his heart on a divorce which would enable him to marry Anne. Wolsey, knowing the obstacles in the way, urged him to abandon the project ; but it was never possible to turn Henry from his course, and Wolsey set himself, in this as in all things else, to COUGHTON COURT 381 1525 The Gatehouse of Coughton Court, Warwickshire ; built about 1530. 382 THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY 1525-1529 carry out his master’s wishes, though he did so very reluctantly. Moral scruples had little weight with Wolsey, but in 1525, when he learnt the king’s design, there were strong political reasons against its execution, as England was in alliance with Catharine’s nephew, the Emperor, Charles V., and a divorce would be certain to en- danger the alliance. 8. Henry’s Demand for a Divorce. 1527 — 1528. — Two years later, in 1527, as Henry was veering round towards a French alli- ance (see p. 374), he had no longer much reason to consider the feelings of the Emperor. On the other hand, the strong position which Charles occupied in Italy after the sack of Rome made it improbable that Clement VII. who was then Pope, and who thought more of his political than of his ecclesiastical position, would do anything to thwart the Emperor. An attempt made by Hemy in 1527 to draw Clement to consent to the divorce failed, and in 1528 Wolsey sent to Rome his secretary, Stephen Gardiner^ an adroit man of business, to induce Clement to appoint legates to decide the question in Henry’s favour. Clement, anxious t'o please all parties, appointed Wolsey and another cardinal, Campeggio, as his legates, but took care to add that nothing done by them should be valid until it had received his own approval. 9. The Legatine Court. 1529. — The court of the two legates was opened at Blackfriars in 1529. Before proceeding to business they tried hard to induce either Henry to abstain from asking for a divorce or Catharine to abstain from resisting his demand. In such a matter Catharine was as firm as the self-willed Henry. Even if she could consent to leave the throne, she could not, if she retained any sense of womanly dignity, acknowledge that she had never been a wife to Hemy’^, or suffer her daughter to be branded with illegitimacy. When king and queen were at last cited to appear Catharine knelt before her husband. She had, she said been his true and obedient wife for twenty years, and had done nothing to deserve being put to open shame. As it was, she ap- pealed to Rome. The queen’s cause was popular with the masses, who went straight to the mark, and saw in the whole affair a mere attempt to give a legal covering to Henry’s lust The legates re- fused to consider the queen’s appeal, but when they came to hear arguments on the merits of the case they were somewhat startled by the appearance of the aged Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, one of the holiest and most learned prelates of the day, who now came voluntarily, though he knew that Henry’s wrath was deadly, to support the cause of Catharine. Campeggio took advantage of i 529 - 1 530 FALL AJVD FFaTJI OF PVOLSEV 383 the strong feeling which was growing against the king to interpose delays which he knew to be well-pleasing to Clement, and before these delays were at an end Clement annulled all the proceedings in England and revoked the cause to Rome, Most probably he was alarmed at the threats of the Emperor, but he had also reasons of his own for the course which he took. Henry did not ask for a divorce on any of the usual grounds, but for a declaration that his marriage had been null from the beginning. As, however, his marriage had been solemnised with a Papal dispensation, Clement was asked to set aside the dispensation of one of his predecessors, a proceeding to which no Pope with any respect for his office could reasonably be expected to consent. 10. The Fall of Wolsey. 1529 — 1530. — Henry was very angry and made Wolsey his victim. Wolsey’s active endeavours to pro- cure the divorce counted as nothing. It was enough that he had failed. He was no longer needed to conduct foreign affairs, as Henry cared now only for the divorce, and raised no objection when Charles and Francis made peace at Cambrai without con- sulting his interests. The old nobility, headed by the Duke of Norfolk, the son of the victor of Flodden, had long hated Wolsey bitterly, and the profligate courtiers, together with the friends and relatives of Anne, hated him no less bitterly now. Before the end of the year proceedings under the Statute of Praemunire (see pp. 258, 382) were taken against him on the ground that he had usurped legatine powers. It was notorious that he had exercised them at the king’s wish, and he could have produced evidence to show that this had been the case. In those days, however, it was held to be a subject’s duty not to contest the king’s will, and Wolsey contented himself with an abject supplica- tion for forgiveness. He was driven from his offices, and all his goods and estates seized. The college which he had founded at Ipswich was sold for the king’s use, and his college at Oxford, then known as Cardinal College, was also seized, though it was after- wards refounded under the name of Christchurch by the robber king. Wolsey was reduced to extreme poverty. In 1530 he was allowed to return to the possession of the archbishopric of York ; but he imprudently opened communications with the French ambassador, and harmless as they were, they gave a handle to his enemies. Henry ordered him to be charged with treason. The sufferings of his mind affected his body, and on his way to London he knew that he was a dying man. “ Father Abbot,” he said, in taking shelter in Leicester Abbey, “ I am come hither to leave my 3S4 THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY 15^9 bones among you.” “ If I had serv ed my God,” he acknowledged as he was passing away, “ as diligently as I have done my king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs,” Ilnll of Cliristdiurch, Oxford ; Imilt Uy Cardinal Wolscy, nud fminlicd in 1529. IS29-I530 ATTACiC 0^ TB^: CLEkQV 38s 11. The House of Commons and the Clergy. 1529. — No king ever felt the importance of popularity like Henry, and the compas- sion which had been freely given to Catharine by the crowd, on her appearance in the Legatine Court, made it necessary for him to find support elsewhere. It had been Wolsey’s policy to summon Par- liament as seldom as possible. It was to be Henry’s policy to sum- mon it as frequently as possible. He no longer feared the House of Lords, and either he or Wolsey’s late servant, Thomas Crorfi- well, an able and unscrupulous man, who rose rapidly in Henry’s favour, perceived the use which might be made of the House of Commons. By his influence the king could carry the elections as he pleased, and when Parliament met in 1529 it contained a packed House of Commons ready to do the king’s bidding. The members were either lawyers or country gentlemen, the main supports of the Tudor monarchy, and Henry strengthened his hold upon them by letting them loose on the special abuses which had grown up in the ecclesiastical courts. Lawyers and country gentlemen were very much what they had been in the fifteentli century, without large political ideas or fine spiritual perceptions \ but now that they were relieved of the oppression of the great nobles they turned upon the clergy, who claimed fees and dues which they disliked paying, and who used the powers of the ecclesiastical tribunals to exact heavy payments for moral and spiritual offences.- 12. The Universities Consulted. 1530. — Henry had as yet no‘ thought of breaking with the Pope. He wanted to put pressure on him to make him do what he had come to regard as right. In 1530 he sent to the universities of Europe to ask their opinion on the question whether a marriage with a brother’s widow was contrary to the law of God. The whole inquiry was a farce. Wherevei* Henry or his allies could bribe or bully the learned doctors, aii answer was usually given in the affirmative. Wherever the Em- peror could bribe or bully, then the answer was usually given in the negative. That the experiment should have been tried, how- ever, was a proof of the strength of the spirit of the Renascence. A questions of morals which the Pope hesitated to decide was submitted to the learning of the learned. 13. The Clergy under a Praemunire. 1530— 1531. — Towards the end of 1530 Henry charged the whole clergy of England with a breach of the Statute of Praemunire by their submission to Wolsey’s lega- tine authority. A more monstrous charge was never brought, as when that authority was exercised not a priest in England dared to offend the king by resisting it. When the Convocation of Canter- 386 THE BREACH WITH THM PAPACY I 531 -i 53 ^ bury met in 1531, it offered to bUy the pardon of the clergy by a grant of 100,000/., to which was afterwards added 18,000/. by the Convocation of York. Henry refused to issue the pardon unless the clergy would acknowledge him to be supreme head of the Church of England. 14. The King’s Supreme Headship acknowledged by the Clergy. 1531. — The title demanded by Henry was conceded by the clergy, with the qualification that he was Supreme Head of the English Church and clergy so far as was allowed by the law of Christ. The title thus given was vague, and did not bar the acknowledgment of the Papal authority as it had been before exercised, but its interpretation would depend on the will of the stronger of the two parties. As far 'as the Pope was concemedj Henry’s claim was no direct invasion of his rights. The Pope had exercised authority and jurisdiction in England, but he had never de- clared himself to be Supreme Head of the Church either in England or anywhere else. Henry indeed alleged that he asked for nothing new. He merely wanted to be known as the supreme authority in the relations between the clergy and the laity. Nevertheless it was a threat to the Pope, who might well fear lest the clergy, after giving way to the assumption of a title which implied authority over themselves, might give way to the widening of that same authority over matters on which the Pope’s clairhs had hitherto been undoubted. 15. The Submission of the Clergy. 1532. — Eveiything done by Henry at this crisis was done with a view to the securing of his purposed divorce. In the Parliament which sat in 1532 the Com- mons were again let loose upon the clergy, and Henry, taking their side, forced Convocation ^ to sign a document known as the submission of the clergy. In this the clergy engaged in the first place neither to meet in Convocation nor to enact or execute new canons without the king’s authority, and, secondly, to submit all past ecclesiastical legislation to examination with a view to the removal of everything prejudicial to the royal prerogative. The second article was never carried into effect, as the first was enough for Henry. He was now secure against any attempt of the clergy in Convocation to protest against any step that he might take about the divorce, and he was none the less pleased because he 1 There were two Convocations, of the two provinces of Canterbury and York, but the former was so much more important that it is usually spoken of simply as Convocation. 1529-1532 MOJ^E AND THE PROTESTANTS 3^7 had incidentally settled the question of the relations between the clerical legislature and the Crown. 16. Sir Thomas More and the Protestants. 1529 — 1532. — The submission of the clergy cost Henry the services of the best and Sir Thomas More, wearing the collar of SS : from an original portrait painted by Holbein in 1527, belonging to Edward Huth, Esq. wisest of his statesmen. Sir Thomas More had been appointed Chancellor on Wolsey’s fall in 1529. When More wrote the Uto~ pia, Luther had not yet broken away from the Papacy, and the tolerant principles of the author of that book had not been put to the test. Even in the Utopia More had confined his tolerance 388. THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY 1532-1533 to those who argued in opposition to the received religion without anger or spite, and when he came to be in office he learnt by practical experience that opposition is seldom carried on in the spirit of meekness. Protestantism, as the Lutheran tenets began to be called in 1529, spread into Englandj though as yet it gained a hold only on a few scattered individuals. Here and there thought- ful men, dissatisfied with the teaching given to them and with the lives of many of their teachers, embraced the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith. Even the best of them could hardly be ex- pected to treat with philosophic calm the doctrines which they had forsaken ; whilst some of their converts took a pleasure in reviling the clergy and the common creed of the vast majority of English- men. With many again the doctrine of justification by faith slipped into the condemnation of the merit of good works, and even into a light estimation of good works themselves. For this bitterness of speech and mind More had no tolerance, and while he pursued his antagonists with argument and ridicule, he also used his authority to support the clergy in putting down what they termed heresy by the process of burning the obstinate heretic. 17. Resignation of Sir Thomas More. 1532.— More had no ground for fearing that the increase of the king’s authority over the clergy would at once encourage revolt against the Church. Henry was a representative Englishman, and neither he nor the House of Commons had the least sympathy with heresy. They wanted to believe and act as their fathers had done. More, however, was sufficiently prescient to foresee that a lay authority could not for ever maintain this attitude. Laymen were certain to be moved by the current of thought which prevailed in their age, and it was only, he believed, the great Papal organisation which could keep them steady. Though Henry had not yet directly attacked that organisation, he might be expected to attack it soon, and, in 1532, More retired from all connection with Henry’s government rather than take part in that attack. 18. The First Act of Annates. 1532. — Having secured himself, as it were, in the rear by the submission of the clergy, Henry pro- ceeded to deal with the Pope. He still wished if possible to win him to his side, and before the end of 1532 he obtained from Parlia- ment an Act of Annates. Annates were the first-fruits or first year’s income of ecclesiastical benefices, and by this Act the first- fruits of bishoprics, which had hitherto been paid to the Pope, were to be kept back. The Act was not, however, to come into force till the king had ratified it, and Henry refused for a time to ratify 1533 ARCHBISHOP CRAMMER 389 it hoping to reduce Clement to submission by suspending over his head a threat upon his purse. 19. The King’s Marriage and the Act of Appeals. 1533. — Henry, however, found that Clement was not to be moved, and his patience coming at last to an end, he was secretly married to Anne Boleyn on January 25, 1533. Now that he had reluctantly given up hope of obtaining a favourable decision from the Pope, he resolved to put an end to the Papal jurisdiction in England. Otherwise if he obtained a sentence in an English ecclesiastical court declaring his marriage with Catharine to be null from the beginning, his injured wife might appeal to the superior court of the Pope. He accordingly obtained from Parliament the Act of Appeals, declaring that the king held the supreme authority in England, and that as under him all temporal matters were to be decided by temporal judges, and all spiritual matters by spiritual judges, no appeals should hereafter be suffered to any authority outside the realm. Henry was capable of any meanness to serve his ends, but he also knew how to gain more than his immediate ends by connecting them with a large national policy. He almost made men forget the low design which prompted the Act of Appeals by fixing their eyes on the great object of national inde- pendence. 20. Archbishop Cranmer and the Court at Dunstable. 1533. — Henry found a convenient instrument for his personal as well as for his national policy in Thomas Cranmer, whom he appointed Arch- bishop of Canterbury in the spring of 1533. Cranmer was intel- lectually acute, and took a worthy part in the further development of the English Church ; but he was morally weak, and inclined to carry out orders whatever they might be, especially if they came from a king as strong-willed as Henry. He had already thrown himself as an active agent into the cause of Henry’s divorce, and he was now prepared as archbishop to give effect to his arguments. In March Convocation was half persuaded, half driven to declare Catharine’s marriage to be void, and in May Cranmer, sitting at Dunstable in his archiepiscopal court, pronounced sentence against her. In accordance with the Act of Appeals the sentence was final, but both Henry and Cranmer feared lest Catharine should send her counsel to make an appeal to Rome, and they were there- fore mean enough to conceal from her the day on which sentence was to be given. The temporal benefits which the Pope derived from England were now to come to an end as well as his spiritual jurisdiction, and in July the king ratified the Act of Annates 390 THE BE EACH WITH THE PAPACY 21. Frith and Latimer. 1533. — When a man of special intel- lectual acquirements like Cranmer could descend to the trick which he had played at Dunstable, it was time that some one should be found who, in the stedfastness of his faith, would refuse to truckle to the king, and would maintain the rights of individual conscience as well as those of national independence. The teach- ing of Zwingli, a Swiss reformer, who held that the bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was a mere sign of the Body and Blood of the Redeemer, was beginning to influence the English Protestants, and its reception was one more reason for the mass of Englishmen to send to prison or the stake those who maintained what was, in their eyes, so monstrous a heresy. Amongst the noblest of the persecuted was John Frith, who. whilst he stoutly held to the belief that the doctrine of transubstantiatlon was untrue, begged that men should be left ‘ to think thereon as God shall instil in any man’s mind, and that neither part condemn other for this matter, . but receive each other in brotherly love, reserving each other’s infirmity to God.’ Frith was in advance of his time as the advocate of religious liberty as well as of a special creed, and he was burnt alive. Henry meant it to be understood that his supreme headship made it easier, and not harder, to suppress heresy. He might have succeeded if he had had merely to deal with a few heroes like Frith. That which was beyond his control was the sapping process of the spirit of the Renascence, leading his bishops, and even himself, to examine and explain received doctrines, and thus to transform them without knowing what they were doing. Hugh Latimer, for instance, a favourite chaplain of the king, was, indeed, a preacher of righteousness, testing all things rather by their moral worth than by their con- formity to an intellectual standard. The received doctrines about Purgatory, the worship of the saints, and pilgrimages to their images seemed to him to be immoral ; but as yet he wished to purify opinion, not to change it altogether, and in this he had the support of the king, who, in 1535, made him Bishop of Worcester. 22. Completion of the Breach with Rome. i533— 1534-— Before 1533 was over Henry appealed from the Pope to a General Council. Clement not only paid no heed to his appeal, but gave sentence in favour of Catharine. When Parliament met in 1534, therefore, Henry was obliged to strengthen his position of hostility to the Pope. He procured from it three Acts. The first of these was a second Act of Annates, which conferred on him absolutely not only the first-fruits of bishoprics which had been the subject of 1534 COMPLETE SETA PAT/ON 391 the conditional Act of Annates in 1532 (see p. 388), but also the first-fruits of all the beneficed clergy, as well as a tenth of each year’s income of both bishops and beneficed clergy, all of which payments had been hitherto made to the Pope. Incidentally this Act also regulated the appointment of bishops, by ordering that the king should issue a congee (Tdire to the chapter of the vacant see, together with a letter missive compelling the choice of his nominee. The second was an Act concerning Peter’s pence, abolishing all minor payments to the Pope, and cutting away all interference of the Pope by transferring his right to issue licences and dispensations to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The third confirmed the submission of the clergy and enacted that appeals from the courts of the Archbishop should be heard by commis- sioners appointed by the King, and known as the delegates of Appeals. It was by these Acts that the separation between the Churches of England and Rome was finally effected. They merely completed the work which had been done by the great Act of Appeals in 1533. The Church of England had indeed always been a national Church with its own ecclesiastical assemblies, and with ties to the Crown which were stretched more tightly or more loosely at various times. It had, however, maintained its connection with the Continental Churches by its subordination to the Pope, and this subordination had been made real by the subjection of its caurts to appeals to Rome, and by the necessity of recurring to Rome for permission to do certain things prohibited by English ecclesiastical law. All this was now at an end. The old supremacy of the king was sharpened and defined. The jurisdiction of the Po'pe was abolished. Nominally the English ecclesiastical authorities became more independent ; more capable of doing what seemed to them to be best for the Church of the nation. Such at least was the state of the law. In practice the English ecclesiastical authorities were entirely at Henry’s bidding. In theory and in sentiment the Church of England was still a branch of the Catholic Church, one in doctrine and in discipline with the Continental Churches. Practically it was now, in a far more un- qualified sense than before, a national Church, ready to drift from its moorings and to accept new counsels whenever the tide of opinion should break strongly upon it. 392 CHAPTER XXVI A THE ROYAL SUPREMACY. 1534 — LEADING DATES Reign of Henry VIII., 1509-1347 The Acts of Succession and Supremacy 1534 Execution of Fisher and More iS 35 Dissolution of the smaller monasteries and the Pilgrim- age of Grace 1536 Destruction of relics and images 1538 The Six Articles and the Act granting to the king the greater monasteries 1539 Fall of Cromwell iS4o Henry VIII. king of Ireland ....... 1541 Solway Moss 1542 Death of Henry VIII iS 47 1. The Act of Succession. 1534. — In September 1533 Anne had given birth to a daughter, who was afterwards Queen Elizabeth. In 1534 Parliament passed an Act of Succession. Not only did it declare Anne’s marriage to be lawful and Catharine’s unlawful, and consequently Elizabeth and not Mary to be heir to the crown, but it required all subjects to take an oath acknowledging their approval of the contents of the Act. More and Fisher professed themselves ready to swear to any succession which might be autho- rised by Act of Parliament ; but they would not swear to the il- legality of Catharine’s marriage. It was on this point that Henry was most sensitive, as he knew public opinion to be against him, and he threw both More and Fisher into the Tower. In the year before the language held in the pulpit on the subject of Henry’s marriage with Anne in his wife’s lifetime had been so strong that Cranmer had forbidden all preaching on the subject of the king’s laws or the succession to the throne. Of the clergy, the friars were still the most resolute. Henry now sent commissioners to visit the friaries, and those in which the oath was refused were summarily suppressed. 2. The Acts of Treason and Supremacy. 1534. — In 1534 Parlia- ment also passed a new Act of Treasons which made it high treason to wish or practise harm to the king, the queen, and their heirs, to use words denying their titles, or to call the king a ‘ heretic, schis- matic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper of the crown.’ Later in the sam§ 1534 PERSECUTION 393 year, but in a fresh session, Parliament passed the Act of Supre- macy, which confirmed the title of Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England, a title very similar to that to which the king had obtained the qualified assent of the clergy in 1531 (see p. 386). From that time anyone who denied the king to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England was liable to a traitor’s death. 3. The Monks of the Charterhouse. 1534.— It can hardly be doubted that Henry’s chief adviser in these tyrannical measures was the able and unscrupulous Cromwell. It was Cromwell’s plan to exalt the royal autho- rity into a despotism by means of a subser- vient Parliament. He was already Henry’s secretary ; and in 1535 was appointed the king’s Vicar-General in ecclesiastical matters. He was quite ready to push the Acts of Parlia- ment which had re- cently been passed to their extreme conse- quences. His first ob- ject was to get rid of the Friars Observant, who had shown them- selves most hostile to what they called in plainness of speech the king’s adultery. All their houses were suppressed, and some of the inmates put to death. Then Cromwell fell on the London Charterhouse,' the in- mates of which had been imprisoned in the year before simply for a refusal to take the oath of the Act of Succession, though they had not uttered a word against the king’s proceedings. They could now be put to death under the new Treason Act, for denying the king's supremacy, and many of them were accordingly executed after the usual barbarous fashion, whilst others perished of starvation or of diseases contracted in the filthy prisons in which they were confined. ' The Charterhouse nere means the house of the Carthusians. II. 394 the royal SUPREMACY 1535-1536 “ I profess ” said the Prior, Houghton, “ that it is not out of obstinate malice or a mind of rebellion that I do disobey the king, but only for the fear of God, that I offend not the Supreme Majesty ; because our Holy Mother the Church hath decreed and appointed otherwise than the king and Parliament hath ordained.” Houghton and his fellows were as truly martyrs as Frith had been. They at least had sown no seeds of rebellion, and they died because a tyrannical king insisted on ruling over consciences as well as over bodily acts. 4. Execution of Fisher and More. 1535. — Fisher and More were the next to suffer on the same charge, though their sentences were commuted to death by beheading. More preserved his wit to the last. “ I pray you,” he said as he mounted the scaffold, “ see me safe up, and for my coming down I will shift for myself.” After he had knelt to place his head on the block, he raised it again to move his beard aside. “ Pity,” he muttered, “ that should be cut that has not committed treason.” 5. The Dissolution of the Smaller Monasteries. 1536. — Money never came amiss to Henry, and Cromwell now rooted himself firmly in his master’s favour by pointing out to him fresh booty. The English monasteries were rich and weak, and it was easy to trump up or exaggerate charges against them. Cromwell sent commissioners to inquire into their moral state (1535), and the commissioners, who were as unscrupulous as himself, rushed round the monasteries in such a hurry that they had no time to make any real inquiry, but nevertheless returned with a number of scanda- lous tales. "These tales referred to some of the larger monasteries as well as'the smaller, but, when Parliament met in 1536, Henry con- tented himself with asking that monasteries having property worth less than 200/. a year should be dissolved, and their estates given to himself, on the ground that whilst the smaller ones were dens of vice the larger ones were examples of virtue. Parliament granted his request, and the work of spoliation began. There can be no doubt that vice did exist in the monasteries, though there was not so much of it as the commissioners asserted. It would have been indeed strange if innocence had been preserved in communities living in enforced celibacy, with no stress of work to occupy their thoughts, and with the high ideals of their profession neglected or cast aside. On the other hand, the monks were easy landlords, were hospitable to the stranger and kindly to the poor, whilst neither the king him- self nor those to whom he gave or sold the lands which he acquired cared for more than to make money. The real weakness of the monks lay in their failure to conciliate the more active minds of the A NEW QUEEN 39 S 1536 age, or to meet its moral needs. The attack upon the vast edifice of Henry’s despotism in Church and State could only be carried on successfully by the combined effort of men like the scholars of the Renascence, whose thoughts were unfettered, and of those who, like the Protestants, were full of aggressive vigour, and who substi- tuted for the duty of obedience the duty of following their own con- victions. 6. The Execution of Anne Boleyn. 1536. — Before the end of 1536 there was a new queen. Henry became tired of Anne, as he had been tired of Catharine, and on a series of monstrous charges, so mons- trous as to be hardly credible, he had her tried and executed. Her unpardonable crime was probably that her only living child was a daughter, and not a son. Ten days after Anne’s death H enry married a third wife, Jane Seymour. As Catha- rine was now dead, there could be no doubt of the legiti- macy of Jane’s off- spring, but to make assurance doubly sure, a new Parlia- ment passed an Act settling the succession on Jane’s children, and declaring both Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. 7. The Ten Articles. 1536. — It is probable that when Henry took the title of Supreme Head he intended to maintain the doctrines and practices of the Church exactly as he found them. In 1536 the clergy were crying out not merely against attacks on their faith, but against the ribaldry with which these attacks were often conducted. One assailant, for instance, declared the oil used in extreme unction to be no more than the Bishop of Rome’s grease or butter, and Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, brother of Jane Seymour, afterwards Duke of Somerset, known as ‘the Protector,' at the age of 28 (1535), 1507-1552: from a painting at Sudeley Castle. THE ROYAL SUPREMACY 396 1536 another that it was of no more use to invoke a saint than it was to whirl a stone against the wind Many of the clergy would have been well pleased with mere repression. Henry, however, and the bishops whom he most trusted wished repression to be accompanied with reasonable explanations of the doctrines and practices en- forced. The result was seen in the Ten Articles which w'ere drawn up by Convocation, and sent abroad with the authority of the king. There w^as to be uniformity, to be obtained by the circulation of a w'ritten document, in which the old doctrines were stripped of much that had given offence, and their acceptance made easy for educated men. Of the seven sacraments, three only. Baptism, Penance, and the Sacrament of the Altar, wxre explained, whilst the other four — those of Marriage, Orders, Confirmation, and Extreme Unction — w'ere passed over in silence. On the whole the Ten Articles in some points showed a distinct advance in the direction of Luther- anism, though there w^as also to be discerned in them an equally distinct effort to explain rather than to reject the creed of the mediaeval Church. 8. The Translation of the Bible authorised. 1536. — The same tendency to appeal to educated intelligence show'ed itself in the sanction given by the king and Cromwell in 1536 to a translation of the Bible which had been completed in 1535 by Miles Coverdale, w'hose version of the New Testament was founded on an earlier one by Tyndale. It is probable that Henr>’, in authorising the cir- culation of this version, thought of the support which he might derive from the silence of the Bible on the Papal claims. The circulation of the Bible was, however, fikely to work in a direction very different from that of the Ten Articles. The Ten Articles w ere intended to promote unity of belief. The Bible, once placed in the hands ot everyone who could read, w'as likely to promote diversity. It would be the storehouse in which Lutherans, Zwinglians, and every divergent sect would find weapons to support their own special ideas. It would help on the growth of those individual opinions w'hich w^ere springing up side by side with the steady forward progress of the clergy of the Renascence. The men who attempted to make the old creed intellectually acceptable and the men w'ho proclaimed a new one, under the belief that they were recurring to one still older, were together laying the foundations of English Protestantism. 9. The Pilgrimage of Grace. 1536 — 1537. — Slight as these changes were, they were sufficient to rouse suspicion that fiirther change was impending. The masses who could neither read nor write were stirred by the greed and violence with which the disso- THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE 397 1536- 1538 lution of the smaller monasteriej was carried on, and by the ces- sation of the kindly relief which these monasteries had afforded to the wants of the poor. A rumour spread that when Cromwell had despoiled the monasteries he would proceed to despoil the parish churches. In the autumn of 1536 there was a rising in Lincolnshire, which was easily suppressed, but was followed by a more formid- able rising in Yorkshire. The insurgents, headed by Robert Aske, called it the Pilgrimage of Grace, and bore a banner embroidered with the five wounds of Christ. They asked among other things for the restoration of the monasteries, the punishment of Cromwell and his chief supporters, the deprivation of the reforming bishops, the extirpation of heresy, and the restoration of the Papal authority in a modified form. Their force grew so large that the Duke of Norfolk, who was sent to disperse it, did not venture to make the attempt, and the king found himself obliged to issue a general pardon and to promise that a Parliament should meet in the North for the redress of grievances. On this the insurgents returned home. Early in 1537 Henry, who had no intention of keeping his word, took advantage of some new troubles in the North to declare that his engagement was no longer binding, and seized and ex- ecuted, not merely the leaders, but many of the lesser supporters of the insurrection. Of the Parliament in the North nothing more was heard, but a Council of the North was established to keep the people of those parts m order, and to execute justice in the king’s name. 10. Birth of a Prince. 1537. — In 1537 Jane Seymour gave birth to a boy, who was afterwards Edward VI. Henry had at last a male heir of undoubted legitimacy, but in a few days his wife died. ! I. The Beginning of the Attack on the Greater Monasteries. 1537— 1538. — The failure of the Pilgrimage of Grace brought in fresh booty to Henry. Abbots and priors who had taken part in it, or were accused of doing so, were hanged, and their monas- teries confiscated. Where nothing could be proved against the greater monasteries, which had been declared by Parliament to be free from vice, their heads were terrified into an appearance of voluntary submission. Cromwell had his spies and informers everywhere, and it was as easy for them to lie as to speak the truth. In 1537 and 1538 many abbots bowed before the storm, and, con- fessing that they and their monks had been guilty of the most de- grading sins, asked to be allowed to surrender their monasteries to the king. Cromwell’s commissioners then took possession, sold the bells, the lead on the roof, and every article which had its price, and left the walls to serve as a quarry for the neighbourhood. 398 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY 1538 The lands went to the king. It not unfrequently happened that Henry promoted to ecclesiastical benefices those monks who had been most ready to confess themselves sinners beyond other men. There is no doubt that the confessions were prepared beforehand to deceive contemporaries, and there is therefore no reason why they should deceive posterity. 12. Destruction of Relics and Images. 1538. — The attack on the monasteries was accompanied by an attack on relics and such images as attracted more than ordinary reverence. The explana- tion of the zeal with which they were hunted down is in many cases to be found in the gold and jewels with which they were adorned. Some of them were credited with miraculous powers. The figure of the Saviour on the rood at Boxley, in Kent, moved its head and eyes. A phial at Hales, in Worcestershire, contained a substance which had been brought from Germany in the thirteenth century, and was said to be the blood of the Saviour. Pilgrims thronged in numbers to adore, and their offerings brought in no small profit to the monks who owned such treasures. What was fondly believed by the common people was derided by critical spirits, and Henry was well pleased to destroy all reverence for anything which brought credit to the monks. The rood of Boxley was exhi- bited in London, where the Bishop of Rochester pulled the wires which caused its motions, and the blood in the phial of Hales was declared to be no more than a coloured gum. An ancient wooden figure, worshipped in Wales under the name of Darvel Gathern, served to make a fire which burned Friar Forest, who maintained that in spiritual things obedience was due to the Pope and not to the king. Instead of hanging him under the Treason Act (see p. 392) Henry had him burnt as a heretic. It was the first and only time when the denial of the royal supremacy was held to be heresy. When war was made against superstition, the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury could hardly be allowed to escape. Thomas was a saint who had bearded a king, and his shrine, which had attracted such crowds of pilgrims that the marks which they left as they shuffled forward on their knees towards it are still to be seen on the stone floor, was smashed, and the bones of the saint burnt. Shrines were usually covered with gold and jewels, and all shrines shared the fate of that of St. Thomas.^ The images in parish churches, 1 Shrines were receptacles above ground of the bodies of saints. That of Edward the Confessor at Westminster was rebuilt by queen Mary, and that of St. Alban at St. Albans in recent times. These two are the only shrines now to be seen in England. SUPPRESSION OF RESISTANCE 1538-1539 399 not being attractive to the covetous, and being valued by the people for ordinary purposes of devotion, were still left untouched. 13. The Trial of Lambert. 1538. — Henry’s violence against monasticism and superstition made him extremely anxious to show his orthodoxy. The opinion held by Zwingli, the reformer of Zurich, that the Body and Blood of Christ were in no way present in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was now spreading in England, and those who held it were known as Sacramentaries. One of these, John Lambert, was tried before Henry himself. Henry told Lambert scornfully that the words of Christ, ‘ This is My Body,’ settled the whole question, and Lambert was condemned and burnt. 14. The Marquis of Exeter and the Poles. 1538. — Amongst the descendants of the Duke of Clarence was Reginald Pole.* He had been scandalised by the divorce, had left England, had been made a Cardinal in 1536, and had poured out a torrent of invective against the wickedness of Henry. In the end of 1538 Henry, having been informed that some of Pole’s kinsfolk had been muttering dis* satisfaction, sent them to execution together with his own cousin, the Marquis of Exeter, the son of his mother’s sister. 15. The Six Articles. 1539. — Cruel and unscrupulous as Henry was, he was in many respects a representative Englishman, sympathising with the popular disgust at the spread of ideas hitherto unheard of. In a new Parliament which met in 1539 he obtained the willing consent of both Houses to the statute of the Six Articles. This statute declared in favour of; (i) the real presence of ‘the natural Body and Blood of Christ ’ in the Lord’s Supper ; (2) the sufficiency of communion in one kind ; (3) clerical celibacy ; (4) the perpetual obligation of vows of chastity ; (5) private masses ; and (6) auricular confession. Whoever spoke against the first was to be burnt ; whoever spoke against the other five was to suffer im- prisonment and loss of goods for the first offence, and to be hanged ‘ Genealogy of the de la Poles and Poles : — Richard, Duke of York Edward IV. Elizabeth=John de la Pole, I Duke of Suffolk John Edmund Richard de la Pole, de la Pole, de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, Earl of Suffolk, killed at Pavia, killed at Stoke, beheaded 1525 1487(866 p. 347) 1513 George, Duke of Clarence Margaret, = Sir R. Pole Countess of Salisbury Reginald Pole 400 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY 1539-1540 for the second. By those who suffered from the Act it was known as ‘ The Whip with Six Strings.’ Cranmer, who was a married archbishop, was forced to dismiss his wife. Bishops Latimer and Shaxton, whose opinions had gradually advanced beyond the line at which Henry’s orthodoxy ended, were driven from their sees ; but the number of those put to death' under the new Act was not great. 16. Completion of the Suppression of the Monasteries. 1539 '—1540. — So completely was the statute of the Six Articles in accord- ance with public opinion, that Henry had no difficulty in obtaining the consent of Parliament to an Act giving to his proclamations the force of law, and to another Act securing to him the whole of the monasteries whether they had been already suppressed or not. Before the end of 1540 not a single monastery was left. Three abbots, those of Glastonbury, Colchester, and Reading, had been hanged the year before after the mere semblance of a trial. The disappearance of the abbots from the House of Lords made the lay peers, for the first time, more numerous than the ecclesiastical members of the House. The lay peers, on the other hand, were reinforced by new creations from amongst Henry’s favourites, whom he had enriched by grants of abbey lands. The new peers and the more numerous country gentlemen who had shared in the spoil were interested in maintaining the independence of the English Church, lest the Pope, if his jurisdiction were restored, should insist on their disgorging their prey. Of that which fell into the hands of the king, a small portion was spent on the foundation of five new bishoprics, whilst part of the rest was employed on shipbuilding and the erection of fortifications on the coast, part in meeting the general expenditure of the Crown. 17. Anne of Cleves and the Fall of Cromwell. 1539 — 1540. — In all that had been done Cromwell had been the leading spirit. It had been his plan to erect an absolute despotism, and thereby to secure his own high position and to enrich himself as well as his master. He was naturally hated by the old nobility and by all who suffered from his extortions and cruelty. In the summer of 1539 he was eager for an alliance with the German Protestants against the Emperor Charles V., and suggested to Henry a fourth marriage with a German princess, Anne of Cleves. Holbein, a great German painter settled in England, was sent to take a por- trait of the lady, and Henry was so pleased with it that he sent for her to make her his wife. When she arrived he found her anything but good-looking. In 1540 he went through the marriage ceremony HENRY VIII. AND IRELAND 40k 1540-1543 with her, but he divorced her shortly afterwards. Fortunately for herself, Anne made no objection, and was allowed to live in England on a good allowance till her death. For a time Cromwell seemed to be as high as ever in Henry’s good opinion, and was created Earl of Essex. Henry, however, was inwardly annoyed, and he had always the habit of dropping ministers as soon as their unpopularity brought discredit on himself. Cromwell was charged with treason by the Duke of Norfolk. A Bill of attainder^ was rapidly passed, and Cromwell was sent to the scaffold without being even heard in his own defence. 18. Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr. 1540 — 1543. — In 1540 Henry married a fifth wife, Catherine Howard. Norfolk, who was her uncle, gained the upper hand at court, and was supported by Gardiner (see p. 382), now Bishop of Winchester, who was strongly opposed to all further ecclesiastical innovations. Those who denied the king’s supremacy were sent to the gallows, those who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation to the stake. In 1541 the old Countess of Salisbury, the mother of Cardinal Pole, and the daughter of the brother of Edward IV., was executed in the belief that she had favoured an abortive conspiracy. Before the end of 1540 Henry discovered that his young wife had, before her marriage, been guilty of incontinency, and in 1542 she was beheaded. In 1543 Henry married a sixth wife, Catherine Parr, who actually survived him. 19. Ireland. 1534. — Henry’s masterful rule had made him many enemies abroad as well as at home, and he was therefore constantly exposed to the risk of an attack from the Continent. In the face of such danger he could no longer allow Ireland to remain as disorganised as it had been in his father’s reign and in the early years of his own, lest Ireland should become the stepping-stone to an invasion of England. In Ireland the Celtic chiefs maintained their independence, carrying on destructive wars with one another, both they and their followers being inspired 1 A Bill of attainder was brought into one or other of the Houses of Parlia- ment, and became law, like any other Act of Parliament, after it had passed both Houses and received the Royal assent. Its object was condemnation to death, and, as the legislative powers of Parliament were unlimited, it need not be supported by the production of evidence, unless Parliament chose to ask for it. Henry VIII. preferred this mode of getting rid of ministers with whom he was dissatisfied to the old way of impeachment ; as in an impeach- ment (see p. 262) there was at least the semblance of a judicial proceeding, the Commons appearing as accusers, and the Lords as judges. 462 mn ROYAL SUPREMACY 1534-1536 with a high spirit of tribal patriotism, but without the slightest idea of national union. The Anglo-Norman lords ruling a Celtic population were quite as quarrelsome and even more oppressive than the Celtic chiefs, whilst the inhabitants of the English Pale (see p. 265), ruled over by what was only in name a civilised government, were subjected alike to the oppressive exactions of the authorities at Dublin and to the plundering of the so-called ‘ Irish enemies,’ from whom these authorities were unable to pro- tect them. The most powerful of the Anglo-Norman lords was still the Earl of Kildare (see p. 347), who, whenever he bore the title of Lord Deputy, unblushingly used the king’s name in wreaking vengeance on his private enemies. 20. The' Geraldine Rebellion. 1534 — 1535. — In 1534 Henry sum- moned Kildare to England and threw him into the Tower. On a rumour of Kildare’s death his son. Lord Thomas Fitzgerald — Silken Thomas, as he was called in Ireland — rose against the king. The Geraldines, as the Fitzgeralds were sometimes called, had often frightened kings by rebelling, but this time they failed in their object. In 1535 the Lord Deputy Skeffington brought heavy guns and battered down the walls of the great Geraldine castle at Maynooth. One by one all the males of Kildare’s family, with the exception of two boys, were captured and put to death. 21. Lord Leonard Grey. 1536 — 1539. — Lord Leonard Grey became Lord Deputy in 1536. The Irish Parliament which met in that year was still only a Parliament of the English Pale, but its acts showed that Henry intended, if possible, to rule all Ireland. On the one hand the royal supremacy was declared. On the other hand an Act was passed which showed how little was, in those days, understood of the difficulties standing in the way of the assimila- tion of two peoples at different stages of civilisation. The nativ e Irish were ordered to be exactly as the English. They were to use the English language, to adopt the English dress, and to cut their hair after the English fashion. It was to be in the Church as It was to be in the State. No one was to receive any ecclesiastical preferment who did not speak English. Such laws naturally could not be put in force, but they served as indications of the spirit of the Government. Even more obnoxious was the conduct of the Archbishop of Dublin, George Browne, a mere creature of Henry and Cromwell. The assertion of the royal supremacy, in- deed, if it had stood alone, would hav'e made little difference in the church-life of Ireland. Browne, however, persisted, in obedience to orders from England, in destroying relics and images which 1536 THE REFORMATION IN IRELAND 403 were regarded by the whole population with the deepest reverence. The doubting spirit of the Renascence found no echo in Ireland, because that country was far behind England in education and 404 THk ROYAL SVPRMMACY 1539-154^ culture. It would have been of less consequence if these unwise proceedings had been confined to the English Pale. Lord Leonard Grey was, however, a stem warrior, and carried his arms successfully amongst the Irish tribes. When he left Ireland in 1539 a large part of the Celtic population had been compelled to submit to Henry, and that population was even less prepared than were the inhabitants of the Pale for violent alterations of religious ceremonial. 22. Henry VIII. King of Ireland. 1541. — In 1541 a Parlia- ment at Dublin acknowledged Henry to be king of Ireland. Hitherto he had been but Lord of Ireland. As that title had been granted by Pope Adrian IV. to Henry II. (see p. 152), Henry VHI. wished to have a new one which should mark his complete inde- pendence of Rome. This Parliament was the first attended by the native chiefs, and the assumption of the new title therefore indicated a new stage in Irish history. Unfortunately Heilry bent himself to conciliate the chiefs rather than their tribes. He gave to the chiefs English titles — the O’Neill, for instance, becoming Earl of Tyrone, and O’Brien, Earl of Thomond — whilst he hoped to win their support by dissolving the monasteries, and by giving them a share in the plunder. All this Henry did in the hope that the chiefs would use their influence to spread English habits and English law amongst a people who were attached to their own ways. For the time he gained what he wanted. As long as the plunder of the abbeys was to be had the chiefs kept quiet. When that had been absorbed both chiefs and people would revolt against a Government which wanted to bring about, in a few years, a complete change in their mode of life. It is indeed useless to regret that Henry did not content himself with forcing the tribes to keep peace with one another, whilst allowing them gradually to grow in civilisation in their own fashion. There are often things which it would be well to do, but which no government can do. In the first place Henry had not money enough to enforce peace, the whole revenue of Ireland at that time being no more than 5,000/. a year. In the second place he was roused to futile efforts to convert Irishmen into Englishmen because he was in constant dread of the intervention in Ireland of his Continental enemies. 23. Solway Moss. 1542. — Henry was probably the more dis- trustful of a possibly independent Ireland because an actually independent Scotland gave him so much trouble. In Scotland there had been no Wars of the Roses, and the warlike nobility still resembled petty kings in their own districts. James V., the son of IS32-1S44 HENRY VIII. AND SCOTLAND 405 Henry’s sister Margaret, strove to depress the nobles by allying himself with the Church and the Commons. Scotland was always ready to come to blows with England, and the clergy urged James to break with a king of England who had broken with the Pope. F rom 1532 to 1534 there had been actual war between the king- doms. Even after peace was restored James’s attitude was con- stantly menacing. In 1542 war broke out again, and the Duke of Norfolk crossed the Tweed and wasted the border counties of Scot- land. Then James launched an army across the Border into Cum- berland. His distrust of the nobles, however, made him place at the head of it a mere court favourite, Oliver Sinclair. The Scottish army was harassed by the horsemen of the English border, and as night was drawing on was suddenly assailed by a small English party. Having no confidence in Sinclair, the whole multitude fled in a panic, to be slain or captured in Solway Moss. James’s health Angel of Henry VIII. 1543. broke down under the evil tidings. As he lay sick news was brought to him that his wife had given birth to a child. Hearing that the child was a girl, and remembering how the heiress of the Bruces had brought the crown to the House of Stuart (see p. 295), he was saddened by the thought that the Stuart name also would come to an end. “It came with a lass,” he murmured, “ and it will go with a lass.” In a few days he died, and his infant daughter, the Queen of Scots, received the name of Mary.^ 24. War with Scotland and France. 1542—1546. — Henry, anxious to disarm Scottish hostility, proposed a marriage between his son Edward and the young queen. The proposal was rejected, and an alliance formed between Scotland and France. In 1544 Henry, having formed an alliance with Charles V., who was now at war with France, invaded France and took Boulogne after q ^ James’s foreboding was not realised, because Mary married a Stuart. 4o6 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY 1544 long siege — thus enlarging the English possessions in the neighbourhood of Calais — whilst Charles concluded a peace with Francis at Crepy and left his ally in the lurch. In the same year Henry sent Lord Hertford, Jane Seymour’s brother, to invade 1544 THE SIEGE OF BOULOGNE 407 Part of the piege of Boulogne by Henry VIII., 1544, showing military operations : from an eiigrav ng made by Venue for the Society of Antiquaries from the now destroyed painting at Cowdray House. 4o8 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY *544 Part of the siege of Boulogne by Henry VIII., 1544, showing military operations : from an engraving made by Vertue for the Society 1544-1546 THE ENGLISH LITANY 409 Scotland. Hertford burnt every house and cottage between Berwick and Edinburgh, took Edinburgh itself, and burnt the town. In 1546 peace was made between England and France, in which Scotland was included. The war had been expensive, and in 1544 Parliament had come to Henry's help by enacting that he need not repay a loan which he had gathered, yet even then Henry had had recourse to the desperate remedy of debasing the coinage. Armour as worn in the reign of Henry VIII. : from the brass of John Lymsey, 1545, in Hackney Church. Margaret, wife of John Lymsey: from her brass in Hackney Churchi showing the costume of a lady an:* 1545. 25. The Litany and the Primer. 1544—1545. — In 1544, when Henry was besieging Boulogne, Cranmer ordered prayers to be offered for his success. In the true spirit of the Renascence he wished these prayers to be intelligible, and directed that they should be in English. In the same year he composed the English Litany, intended to be recited by priests and people going in pro- cession. This Litany was the foundation-stone of the future Book II. E E 410 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY I 545 -I 545 of Common Prayer. It was issued in 1544 together with a Primer, or book of private prayer, also in English. In the public services the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments were to be in English, the remainder being left in Latin as before. 260 The Last Days of Henry VIII. 1545— " 547 . — When once Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, 1473 (?)— 1554 : from the picture by Holbein at Windsor Castle. inquiring intelligence is let loose on an antiquated system, it is hard to say where the desire of making alterations will stop, and there are reasons to believe that Henry was contemplating further changes. There were two parties at court, the one anxious to resist further change, headed, amongst the temporal lords, by the Dukegf I54S-I547 last days OF HENRY VIII. 41 1 Norfolk and his son, the Earl of Surrey, and amongst the bishops by Gardiner ; the other, desiring doctrinal innovations, especially if money was to be got by them, headed by the Earl of Hertford. In 1545 an Act had been passed for the dissolution of chantries, hospitals, and free chapels. The chantries had been founded for the maintenance of priests to say mass for the souls of the founders, and it was convenient for those who sought to divert this main- tenance to their own use to believe that it was wrong to pray for the dead. In the end of 1546 Henry was taken ill, and, feeling himself to be dying, ordered the arrest of Norfolk and Surrey on charges of treason. It is probable that Henry turned against Norfolk and Surrey because he thought Hertford, as the uncle of the young Prince of Wales, more likely to be faithful to the future king. On January 27, 1547, Surrey was executed. His father was to have suffered on the 28th. Before he reached the scaffold, Henry died, and he was conducted back to prison. Henry, before his death, had done something to provide against the danger of a disputed succession. An Act of Parliament, passed in 1544, had given back to Mary and Elizabeth the places in the line of inherit- ance to which they would have been entitled if no doubt had ever been cast on the legitimacy of their birth, ^ and had authorised Henry to provide by will for the future occupancy of the throne in case of the failure of his own descendants. In accordance with this Act he left the crown, in case of such failure, to the descendants of his younger sister Mary, leaving out those of his elder sister Margaret, with whose son, James V., he had had so much reason to be displeased. 1 Genealogy of the children of Henry VIII. : — (i) Catharine = Henry VIII. =(2) Anne = (3) Jane Seymour = (4) Anne of of Aragon I I Boleyn | Cleves I 1 I =(5) Catherine Mary Elizabeth Edward VI, Howard (1553-1558) {1558-1603) (1547-1553) = (6) Catherine Parr 412 EDWARD VI. I547-I54« CHAPTER XXVII EDWARD VI. AND MARY EDWARD VI., 1547—1553- MARY, 1553 — 1558 - LEADING DATES Goraerset’s Protectorate 1547 First Prayer Book of Edward VI 1549 Fall of Somerset 1549 Second Prayer Book of Edward VI 1552 Death of Edward VI. and accession of Mary . . . 1553 Mary’s marriage with Philip 1554 Submission to Rome and re-enactment of the heresy laws 1554 Beginning of the persecution 1555 War with France 1557 Loss of Calais and death of Mary . = 1558 1. Somerset becomes Protector. 1547. — The new king, Ed- ward VI., was but a boy, and Henry had directed that England should be governed during his son’s minority by a body composed of the executors of his will and other councillors, in which neither the partisans of change nor the partisans of the existing order should be strong enough to have their own way. The leading innovators, pretending to be anxious to carry out his wishes, asserted that he had been heard to express a desire that they should be made peers or advanced in the peerage, and should receive large estates out of the abbey lands. After gaining their object, they set aside Henry’s real plan for the government of the realm, and declared Hertford (who now became Duke of Somerset) to be Protector. A council was formed, from which Gardiner and the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley were excluded as likely to take part against them. 2. The Scotch War. 1547 — 1548. — Somerset was as greedy of Church property as the greediest, but he was covetous also of popularity, and had none of that moderatinsr influence which Henry, with all his faults, possessed. He had always too many irons in the fire, and had no sense of the line which divides the possible from the impossible. His first thought was to intervene in Scot- land. For some time past Protestant missionaries had been at- tempting to convert the Scottish people, but most of them had been caught and burnt Cardinal Beaton, the Archbishop of St. 1546-1547 CRAMMER AND THE CHURCH 413 Andrews, had lately burnt George Wishart, a noted Protestant. In 1546 the Cardinal was murdered in revenge by a party of Pro- testants, who seized on the castle of St. Andrews. A French fleet, however, recaptured the castle, and Somerset, who had sent no help to the Protestants in St. Andrews, marched into Scotland in the hope of putting an end to all future troubles between the kingdoms by marrying the young Queen of Scots to Edward. He carried with him a body of foreign mercenaries armed with the improved weapons of Continental warfare, and with their help he defeated and slaughtered the Scotch army at Pinkie Cleugh, burnt Holyrood and Leith, and carried destruction far and wide. Such rough wooing exasperated the Scots, and in 1548 they formed a close alliance with Henry II., who had succeeded Francis I. as king of France, and sent their young queen across the sea, where she was married to Henry’s eldest son, the Dauphin Francis. Somerset had gained nothing by his violence. 3. Cranmer’s Position in the Church of England. 1547.— Somerset’s ecclesiastical reforms were as rash as his political enter- prises. Cranmer had none of that moral strength which would have made some men spurn an alliance with the unscrupulous politicians of the time. He was a learned student, and through long study had adopted the principle that where Scripture was hard to understand it was to be interpreted by the consent of the writers of the first ages of Christianity. As he had also convinced himself that the writers of the first six centuries had known nothing of the doctrine of transubstantiation, he was now prepared to reject it — though he had formerly not only believed it, but had taken part in burning men who denied it. It is quite possible that if Irlenry had been still alive Cranmer would have been too much overawed to announce that he had changed his opinion. His exact shade of belief at this time is of less importance than the method by which he reached it. In accepting the doctrines and practices of the existing Church till they were tested and found wanting by a combination of human reason and historical study of the scrip- tures, interpreted in doubtful points by the teaching of the writers of the early Church, Cranmer more than any one else preserved the continuity of the Church of England, and laid down the lines On which it was afterwards to develop itself. There was, therefore, a great gulf between Cranmer and the advanced Protestants, who, however much they might differ from one another, agreed in drawing inferences from the Scripture itself, without troubling themselves whether these inferences conformed in any way to the 414 EDWARD VI. 1547 earlier teaching. This gulf was constantly widening as time went on, and eventually split English Protestantism into fractions. 4. Ecclesiastical Reforms. 1547 — 1548. — In 1547 a fresh blow was struck at the devotions of the people. In the churches — by the order of the Government — there was much smashing of images and of painted glass bright with the figures of saints and angels. Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1533-1556 : from a painting dated 1547, at Jesus College, Cambridge. Gardiner, who protested that the Government had no authority to alter religion till the king was of age, was sent to prison as the easiest mode of confuting him. As Parliaments were usually packed in those days, it does not follow that the nation was eager for changes because Parliament ordered them. There was, how- ever, no difficulty in filling the benches of the House of Commons with men who profited by the plunder of the Church, and when 1548-1549 PROGJ^ESS OF THE REFORMATION 415 Parliament met, it showed itself innovating enough. It repealed all the statutes giving special powers to Henry VIII. and all laws against heresy. It also passed an Act vesting in the reigning king the whole of the chantries and other like foundations which Henry had been permitted to take, but which he had left untouched. Cranmer, indeed, would have been glad if the money had been devoted to the relief of the poorer clergy, but the grasping spirit of the laymen was too strong for him. So violent was the race for wealth that the Act decreed the confiscation even of the endow- ments of lay corporations, such as trading companies and guilds, on the excuse that part of their funds was applied to religious purposes. It was soon, however, found that an attempt to enforce this part of the Act would cause resistance, and it was therefore abandoned. In 1548 the Government issued orders abolishing a great variety of Church practices, and, in consequence of the opposition offered by the clergy to these sudden measures ordered that no sermons should be preached except by a few licensed preachers. 5. The First Prayer Book of Edward VI. 1549. — In 1549 Parliament authorised the issue of a Prayer Book in English, now known as the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. The same Par- liament also passed an Act permitting the marriage of the clergy. 6. The Insurrection in the West. 1549. — Somerset’s own brother. Lord Seymour of Sudley, was sent to the block by this Parliament. He had spoken rashly against the Protector’s govern- ment, but it has been thought by some that his main fault was his strong language against the rapacity with which Church property was being divided amongst the rich. That rapacity was now reaching its height. The Protector had set an evil example in order to raise the palace which, though it has since been rebuilt, still bears the name of Somerset House. He had not only seized on a vast amount of ecclesiastical property, but had pulled down a parish church and had carted off the bones of the dead from their graves. The Reformers themselves, men of the study as most of them were, had gone much farther than the mass of the people were prepared to follow. In 1549 an insurrection burst out in Devon and Cornwall for the restoration of the old religion, which was only suppressed with difficulty. 7. Ket’s Rebellion. 1549. — Another rising took place in Nor- folk, headed by Ket, a tanner. Ket’s rebellion was directed not so much against ecclesiastical reforms, as against civil oppression. The gentry, who had been enriching themselves at the expense of EDWARD VL 1549 416 ^ the clergy, had also been enriching themselves at the expense of the poor. The inclosures against which More had testified were multiplied, and the poor man’s claims were treated with contempt Ket gathered his followers under a tree, which he called the Oak of Reformation, on Mousehold Hill, outside Norwich, and sent them to pull down the palings of the inclosures. The Earl of Warwick — the son of that Dudley who, together with Empson, had been the object of popular hatred in the reign of Henry VII. (see p. 357) — dispersed the insurgents with great slaughter ; but it was noted that both here and in the West the Government was driven to use the bands of German and Italian mercenaries which Somerset had gathered for the war in Scotland. It was the first time since the days of John (see p. 182) that foreign troops had been used to crush an English rising. 8. The Fall of Somerset. 1549. — Somerset no longer pleased any single party. His invasion of Scotland had led to a war with France, and to carry on that war he had found it necessary to debase the coinage still further than it had been debased by Henry VI 1 1 . All the disturbance of trade, as well as the disturbance of religion, was laid to his door. At the same time he was too soft- hearted to satisfy his colleagues in the Council, and had shown himself favourable to the outcry against inclosures. Accordingly, before the end of 1549 his colleagues rose against him, and thrust him into the Tower. The Protectorate was abolished. Hence- forth the Council was to govern, but the leading man in the Council was Warwick. 9. Warwick and the Advanced Reformers. 1549. — Religion was a matter to which Warwick was supremely indifferent. It was an open question when he rose to power whether he would protect the men of the old religion or the advanced reformers. He chose to protect the advanced reformers. Even before Somerset’s fall Cranmer had been pushing his inquiries still farther, and was trying to find some common ground with Zwinglian (see p. 399) and other reformers, who went far beyond Luther. Foreign preachers, such as Bucer and Peter Martyr, were introduced to teach religion to the English, as foreign soldiers had been introduced to teach them obedience. Bishops were now ap- pointed by the king’s letters-patent, without any form of election. Gardiner and Bonner, refusing to accept the new state of things, were deprived of their sees of Winchester and London, and Ponet and Ridley set in their places. Ridley’s moral character was as distinguished as Ponet’s was contemptible. Hooper was * 548 - 155 * IVA/a WICK ADMimSTRA TION' 417 made Bishop of Gloucester. For some time he hung back, refusing to wear the episcopal vestments as being a mark of Antichrist, but at last he allowed himself to be consecrated in them, though he cast them off as soon as the ceremony was over. 10. Latimer’s Sermons. 1548 — 1550. — Latimer had refused to return to the bishopric from which be had been thrust by Henry VIII.j but he lashed from the pulpit the vices of the age, speaking Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, 1550-1553 ; from the National Portrait Gallery. plainly in the presence of the court of its greed and oppression. It was not enough, he said, for sinners to repent : let them make restitu- tion of their ill-gotten gains. In 1550 the courtiers became tired of his reproofs, and he was no longer allowed to preach before the king. II. Warwick and Somerset. 1550—1552. — In 1550 Warwick was compelled to make a peace with France, and gave up Boulogne as its price. In 1551 he was very nearly drawn into war with the Emperor on account of his refusal to allow mass to be celebrated EDWARD VL 1551-1552 418 in the household of the king’s sister, Mary. Finally, however, he gave way, and peace was maintained. There was a fresh issue of base money, and a sharp rise of prices in consequence. Now that there were no monasteries left to plunder, bishoprics were stripped of their revenues, or compelled to surrender their lands. Hooper was given the ecclesiastical charge of the see of Worcester in addition to that of Gloucester, but he was driven to surrender all the income of the bishopric of Gloucester. The see of Durham was not filled up, and before the end of the reign it was suppressed by Act of Parliament, and ceased to have a legal existence till it was restored by Edward’s successor. So unpopular did Warwick become that Somerset began to talk as though he might supplant his supplanter. His rash words were carried to the young king, who had for some time shown an interest in public affairs, and who now took the part of Warwick, whom he created Duke of Northumberland, against his own uncle. Somerset was arrested, and in 1552 was tried and beheaded. 12. The Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. 1552. — In 1552 Parliament authorised the issue of a revised Prayer Book, known as the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. The first book had been framed by the modification of the old worship under the influence of Lutheranism. The second book was composed under the influence of the Swiss Reformers. The tendency of the two books may be gathered from the words ordered to be employed in the administration of the bread in the Communion. In the first Prayer Book they had been : “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto ever- lasting life.” In the second they were : “ Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.” There were some who urged that the Communion should no longer be received kneeling. It was significant that their leaders were foreigners — John Alasco, a Pole, and John Knox, a Scot, who was hereafter to be the father of a Scottish reformation more drastic than that of England. Cranmer withstood them successfully. The dispute marked the point beyond which the spirit of the Renascence refused to go. In the midst of his innovations Cranmer preserved not only a reverent spirit, but an admiration for the devotional style of the prayers of the medieval Church, which he therefore maintained even in the midst of the great changes made, mainly at least by himself, in the second Prayer Book. Happily, amidst these disputations, there was one point on which both parties could combine — namely, 1550-1551 POUNDATION OF GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS 419 on the encouragement of education. The reign of Edward VI. is marked by the foundation of grammar-schools — too scantily carried out, but yet in such a measure as to mark the tendencies of an age which was beginning to replace the mainly ecclesiastic education of the monasteries by the more secular education of modern times. 13. The Forty-two Articles. 1553. — Edward was now a pre- King Edward VI. : from a picture belonging to H. Hueks Gibbs, Esq. cocious youth, taught by much adulation to be confident in his own powers. He had learnt to regard all defection from Protestant orthodoxy as a crime. The statute which repealed the heresy laws did not altogether stop the burning of heretics, as the lawyers dis- covered that heresy was punishable by the common law. In 1550 Joan Bocher was burnt for denying the Incarnation, and in 1551 Van Parris, a Fleming, was burnt on the same charge. The persecution, 420 EDWARD VI. 1553 however, was much more restricted than in the preceding reign. Few persons were punished, and that only for opinions of an abnormal character. In 1553 forty- two articles of faith, after- wards, in the reign of Elizabeth, converted into thirty-nine, were set forth as a standard of the Church’s belief by the authority of the king. So completely did the reforming clergy recognise their entire dependence on the king, that by a slip of the pen Hooper once wrote of ‘the king’s majesty’s diocese of Worcester and Gloucester.’ 14. Northumberland’s Conspiracy. 1553. — A religious system built up solely on the will of the king, was hardly likely to survive him. By this time it was known that Edward was smitten with consumption, and could not live. Northumberland cared little for religion, but he cared much for himself He knew that Mary was, by Henry’s ^vdll sanctioned by Act of Parliament, the heiress of the throne, and that if Mary became queen he was hardly likely to escape the scaffold. He was daring as well as unscrupulous, and he persuaded Edward to leave the crown by will to Lady Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, the younger sister of Henry VIII. He secured (as he hoped) Lady Jane’s devotion by marrying her to his o^\^l son. Lord Guilford Dudley. As Lady Jane was a convinced Protestant, Edward at once consented. His father, he thought, had left the crown by wiU in the case of the failure of his own heirs (see p. 41 1), and why should not he ? He had been taught to think so highly of the kingship that he did not remember that his father had been authorised by Act of Parliament to will away the crown in the case of his children’s death without heirs, whereas no such authority had been given by Parliament to himself He forced — by com- mands and entreaties — the councillors and the judges to sign the will. Cranmer was the last to sign, and was only moved to do so by the sad aspect of his suffering pupil. Then Edward died, assured that he had provided best for the Church and nation. 15. Lady Jane Grey. 1553. — On July 10 Lady Jane Grey, a pure-minded, intelligent girl of sixteen, was proclaimed queen in London. She was a fervent Protestant, and there were many Protestants in London. Yet, so hated was Northumberland, that even Protestants would have nothing to say to one who had been advanced by him. Lady Jane passed through the streets amidst a dead silence. All England thought as London. In a few days Mary was at the head of 30,000 men. Northumberland led against her what troops he could gather, but his own soldiers threw their caps in the air and shouted for Queen Mary. On the 19th Mary 1553 MARTS FIRST PARLIAMENT 421 was proclaimed queen in London, and the unfortunate Jane passed from a throne to a prison.^ 16. Mary restores the Mass. 1553. — Mary, strong in her popularity, was inclined to be merciful. Amongst those who had combined against her only Northumberland and two others were executed — the miserable Northumberland declaring that he died in the old faith. Mary made Gardiner her Chancellor. Some of the leading Protestants were arrested, and many fled to the Continent. The bishops who had been deprived in Edward’s reign were rein- stated, and the mass was everywhere restored. The queen allowed herself to be called Supreme Head of the Church, and at first it seemed as though she would be content to restore the religious system of the last year of Henry’s reign, and to maintain the ecclesiastical independence of the country. 17. Mary’s First Parliament. 1553. — By taking this course Mary would probably have contented the great majority of her subjects, who were tired of the villainies which had been cloaked under the name of Protestantism, and who were still warmly at- tached to the religion of their fathers. She was, however, anxious to restore the authority of the Pope, and also to marry Philip, the eldest son of her cousin, the Emperor Charles V. It was natural that it should be so. Her mother’s life and her own youth had been made wretched, not by Protestants, but by those who, without being Protestants, had wrought the separation from Rome in the days of Henry, at a time when only the Pope’s adherents had main- tained the legitimacy of her own birth and of her mother’s marriage. In subsequent times of trouble Charles V. had sympathised with ^ Genealogy of the Greys : — Henry VII. {1485-1509) Henry VIII. Margaret = Janies IV. Mary (1509-1547) of Scotland m. (i) Louis XII of France ' r~ F ranees = Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset and Duke of Suffolk Jane’ Grey = Guilford Dudley Catherine Grey Mary Grey = (2) Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk 422 MARY 1553 her and it was by her intervention that she had been allowed to continue her mass in her brother’s reign. Mary also wished to restore to the Church its lands. On the other hand, when Parlia- Queen Mary Tudor ; from a painting by Lucas de Herre, dated 1554, belonging to the Society of Antiquaries, ment met it appeared that her subjects wished neither to submit to Rome, nor to surrender the property of which they had deprived the Church, though they were delighted to restore the worship and THE SPANISH MAP PI AGE 423 1554 practices which had prevailed before the death of Henry VIII. Parliament, therefore, authorised the re-establishment of the mass, and repealed the Act allowing the clergy to marry, but it presented a petition against a foreign marriage. Although the hatred of Spain which grew up a few years later was not yet felt, Englishmen did not wish their country to become a dependent province on any foreign monarchy whatever. Mary dissolved Parliament rather than take its advice. 1 8. Wyatt’s Rebellion. 1554. — The result was an insurrection, the aim of which was to place Mary’s half-sister, Elizabeth, on the throne. Lady Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, was to raise the Midlands and Sir Thomas Wyatt to raise Kent. Suffolk failed, but Wyatt, with a large following, crossed the Thames at Kingston, and pushed on towards the City. His men, however, were for the most part cut off in an engagement near Hyde Park corner, and it was with only three hundred followers that he reached Ludgate — to find the gate closed against him. ‘ I have kept touch,’ he said, and suffered himself to be led away a prisoner. Mary was no longer merciful. Not only Suffolk and Wyatt, but the innocent Lady Jane and her young husband, Guilford Dudley, were sent to the block. Elizabeth herself was committed to the Tower. She fully believed that she was to die, and sat herself down on a wet stone, refusing for some time to enter. In many ways she had shown that she bore no goodwill to her sister or her sister’s plans, but she had been far too prudent to commit to writing any words expressing sympathy with Wyatt. Being far too popular to be safely put to death on any testimony which was not convincing, Elizabeth was before long removed from the Tower and placed at Woodstock, under the charge of Sir Henry Bedingfield, but was after a few months allowed to retire to Hatfield. 19. The Queen’s Marriage. — A Parliament which met in April 1554 gave its consent to Mary’s marriage, but it would not pass Bills to restore the old statutes for the persecution of heretics. Though it was now settled that the queen was to marry Philip, yet never was a wooer so laggard. For some weeks he would not even write to his betrothed. The fact was that she was twelve years older than himself, and was neither healthy nor good-looking. Philip, however, loved the English crown better than he loved its wearer, and in July he crossed the sea and was married at Winchester to the queen of England. Philip received the title of king, and the names of Philip and Mary appeared together in all official docu- tnents and their heads on the coins. 424 MARY IS 54 -I 555 20. The Submission to Rome. 1554. — After the marriage a new Parliament was called, more subservient than the last. In most things it complied with Mary’s wishes. It re-enacted the statutes for the burning of heretics and agreed to the reconciliation of the Church of England to the see of Rome, but it would not sur- render the abbey lands. Only after their possession had been confirmed did it give its consent to the acknowledgment of the Pope’s authority. Then Cardinal Pole (see p. 399), who had been sent to England as the Pope’s legate, was allowed to receive the submission of England. The queen, the king, and both Houses knelt before him, confessed their sin of breaking away from the Roman see, and received absolution from his mouth. To Mary the moment was one of inexpressible joy. She had grieved over the separation from Rome as a sin burdening her own conscience, and she believed with all her heart that the one path to happiness, temporal and eternal, for herself and her realm, was to root out heresy, in the only way in which it seemed possible, by rooting out the heretics. 21. The Beginning of the Persecution. 1555. — It was not only Mary who thought it meet that heretics should be burnt. John Rogers, who was the first to suffer, had in the days of Edward pleaded for the death of Joan Bocher (see p. 419). He was followed to the stake by Bishop Hooper, who was carried to Gloucester, that he might die at the one of his two sees which he had stripped of its property to enrich the Crown (see p. 418). He and many another died bravely for their faith, as More and Forest had died for theirs (see pp. 394, 398). Rowland Taylor, for instance (a Suffolk clergyman), was condemned in London to be burnt, and sent to his own county to die. As he left his prison in the dark of the early morning he found his wife and children waiting for him in the street. He was allowed to stop for a moment, and knelt down on the stones, repeating the Lord’s Prayer with his family. “ Farewell, my dear wife,” he said, as soon as he had risen from his knees ; “ be of good comfort, for I am quiet in my conscience. God shall stir up a father for my children.” “Thanked be God,” he exclaimed when he at last reached the village where his voice had once been heard in the pulpit, and where now the stake rose up amidst the faggots which were to consume him, “ I am even at home ! ” After he had been tied to the stake a wretch threw a faggot at his face. “ O friend,” he said gently, “ I have harm enough : what needed that ? ” The flames blazed up around his suffering body, and Rowland Taylor entered into his rest. 1556 DEATHS OF EIDLEY AND LATIMER 425 Ridley and Latimer were burnt at Oxford, in the town ditch, in front of Balliol College. “ Be of good comfort. Master Ridley, and play the man,” cried Latimer, when the fire was lighted at his feet. “ We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” 22. Death of Cranmer. 1556. — Cranmer would have accom- panied Ridley and Latimer to the stake, but as he alone of the Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, 1535-39, burnt 1555: from the National Portrait G^lery. three had been consecrated a bishop in the days when the Pope's authority was accepted in England, it was thought right to await the Pope’s authority for the execution of his sentence. In 1556 that autho- rity arrived. CranmePs heart was as weak as his head was strong, and he six times recanted, hoping to save his life. Mary specially detested him, as having sat in judgment on her mother (see p. 389), and she was resolved that he should die. Finding his recantation useless, he recovered his better mind, and renounced his recantation. II. F F 426 MARY 1556-155S “ I have written,” he said, “ many things untrue ; and forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall be the first burnt.” He was hurried to the stake, and when the flames leapt up around him held his right hand steadily in the midst of them, that it might be ‘the first burnt.’ 23. Continuance of the Persecution. 1556—1558. — Immediately after Cranmer’s death Pole became Archbishop of Canterbury. The persecution lasted for two years more. The number of those who suffered has been reckoned at 277. Almost all of these were burnt in the eastern and south-eastern parts of England. It was there that the Protestants were the thickest. New opinions always flourish more in towns than in the country, and on this side of England were those trading towns, from which communication with the Protestants of the Continent was most easy. Sympathy with the sufferers made these parts of the kingdom more strongly Protestant than they had been before. 24. The Queen’s Disappointment. 1555 — 1556. — Mary was a sorrowful woman. Not only did Protestantism flourish all the more for the means which she took to suppress it, but her own domestic life was clouded. She had longed for an heir to carry on the work which she believed to be the work of God, and she had even imagined herself to be with child. It was long before she abandoned hope, and she then learnt also that her husband — to whom she was passionately attached — did not love her, and had never loved anything in England but her crown. In 1555 Philip left her. He had indeed cause to go abroad. His father, Charles V., was broken in health, and, his schemes for making himself master of Germany having ended in failure, he had resolved to abdicate. Charles was obliged to leave his Austrian possessions to his brother Ferdinand ; and the German electors, who detested Philip and his Spanish ways, insisted on having Ferdinand as Emperor. Charles could, however, leave his western possessions to his son, and in 1556 he completed the surrender of them. Mary’s husband then became Philip II. of Spam, ruling also over large territories in Italy, over Franche Comte, and the whole of the Netherlands, as well as over vast tracts in America, rich in mines of silver and gold, which had been appropriated by the hardihood, the cruelty, and the greed of Spanish adventurers. No prince in Europe had at his command so warlike an army, so powerful a fleet, and such an abounding revenue as Philip had at his disposal. Philip’s in- crease of power produced a strong increase of the anti-Spanish feeling in England, and conspiracies were formed against Mary DEATH OF MARY 1557-1558 427 who was believed to be ready to welcome a Spanish invading army. 25. War with France and the Loss of Calais. 1557 — 1558. — In 1557 Philip was at war with France, and, to please a husband who loved her not, Mary declared war against Philip’s enemy. She sent an English army to her husband’s support, but though Philip gained a crushing victory over the French at St. Quentin, the English troops gained no credit, as they did not arrive in time to take part in the battle. In the winter, Francis, Duke of Guise, an able French warrior, threatened Calais. Mary, who, after wringing a forced loan from her subjects in the summer, had spent it all, had little power to help the governor, Lord Wentworth, and persuaded herself that the place was in no danger. Guise, however, laid siege to the town. The walls were in disrepair and the garrison too small for defence. On January 6, 1558, Guise stormed Calais, and when, a few days afterwards, he also stormed the outlying post of Guisnes, the last port held by the English in France fell back into the hands of the French. Calais was now again a French town, after having been in the hands of strangers for 21 1 years. 26. Death of Mary. 1558. — The loss of Calais was no real misfortune to England, but it was felt as a deep mortification both by the queen and by her people. The people distrusted Mary too much to support her in the prosecution of the war. They were afraid of making Philip more powerful. Mary, hoping that Heaven might yet be gracious to her, pushed on the persecution, and sent Protestants in large numbers to the stake. Philip had visited her the year before, in order to persuade her to join him against France, and she again fancied herself to be with child. Her husband had once more deserted her, and she now knew that she was suffering — without hope — from dropsy. On November 17 she died, sad and lonely, wondering why all that she had done, as she believed on God’s behalf, had been followed by failure on every side — by the desertion of her husband and the hatred of her subjects. Happily for himself, Pole too died two days afterwards.^ 1 The 19th is the date of Machyn’s contemporary diary ; but other authori- ties make it the 17th or i8th. 428 CHAPTER XXVIII THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT IN CHURCH AND STATE 1558—1570 LEADING DATES Reign of Elizabeth, 1558—1603 Accession of Elizabeth ........ 1558 The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity .... 1559 The Treaty of Edinburgh . 1560 Mary Stuart lands in Scotland ...... 1561 End of the Council of Trenc 1563 Marriage of Mary and Darnley 1565 Murder of Darnley 1567 Escape of Mary into England 1568 The rising in the North . 1569 Papal excommunication of Elizabeth 1570 I. Elizabeth’s Difficulties. 1558. — Elizabeth, when she received the news of her sister’s death, was sitting under an oak in Hatfield Park (see p. 423). “ This,” she exclaimed, “ is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.” Her life’s work was to throw down all that Mary had attempted to build up, and to build up all that Mary had thrown down. It was no easy task that she had undertaken. The great majority of her subjects would have been well pleased with a return to the system of Henry VI 1 1. — that is to say, with the retention of the mass, together with its accompanying system of doctrine, under the protection of the royal supremacy, in complete disregard of the threats or warnings of the Pope. Eliza- beth was shrewd enough to see that this could not be. On the one hand, the Protestants, few as they were, were too active and intelligent to be suppressed, and, if Mary’s burnings had been unavailing, it was not likely that milder measures would succeed. On the other hand, the experience of the reign of Edward VI. had shown that immutability in doctrine and practice could only be secured by dependence upon the immutable Papacy, and Elizabeth had made up her mind that she would depend on no one but herself. She would no more place herself under the Pope than she would place herself under a husband. She cared nothing for theo- logy, though her inclinations drew her to a more elaborate ritual than that which the Protestants had to offer. She was, however, ECCLESIASTICAL UNITY 429 1558-1559 intensely national, and was resolved to govern so that England might be great and flourishing, especially as her own greatness would depend upon her success. For this end she must establish national unity in the Church, a unity which, as she was well aware, could only be attained if large advances were made in the direction of Protestantism. There must be as little persecution as possible, but extreme opinions must be silenced, because there was a danger lest those who came under their influence would sdr up civil war in order to make their own beliefs predominant. The first object of Elizabeth’s government was internal peace. 2. The Act of Uniformity and Supremacy. 1559. — Elizabeth marked her intentions by choosing for her secretary Sir William Cecil, a cautious supporter of Protestantism, the best and most faithful of her advisers. As Convocation refused to hear of any change in the Church services, she appointed a commission com- posed of divines of Protestant tendencies, who recommended the adoption, with certain alterations,^ of the second Prayer Book of Edward VI. Elizabeth’s first Parliament, which met in 1559, passed an Act of Uniformity forbidding the use of any form of public prayer other than that of the new Prayer Book. The same Parliament also passed a new Act of Supremacy, in which the title of Supreme Head of the Church was abandoned, but all the ancient jurisdiction of the Crown over ecclesiastical persons was claimed. This Act imposed an oath in which the queen was acknowledged to be the Supreme Governor of the Realm ‘as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things as temporal ’ ; but this oath, unlike that imposed by Henry VIII., was only to be taken by persons holding office or taking a university degree, whilst a refusal to swear was only followed by loss of office or degree. The maintenance of the authority of any foreign prince or prelate was to be followed by penalties increased upon a repetition of the offence, and reaching to a traitor’s death on the third occasion. 3. The new Bishops and the Ceremonies. 1559 — 1564. — All the bishops except one refusing to accept the new order of things, new ones were substituted for them, the old system of election by the chapters on a royal co?ige dUlire being restored (see pp. 391, 415). Matthew Parker, a moderate man after Elizabeth’s own heart, became Archbishop of Canterbury. Very few of the old clergy who had said mass in Mary’s reign refused to use the new Prayer ^ The most noteworthy of these alterations was the amalgamation of the forms used respectively in the two Prayer Books of Edward VI. at the ad- ministration of the Communion (see p. 418). 430 THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT 1559-1564 Book, and as Elizabeth prudently winked at cases in which persons of importance had mass said before them in private, she was able to hope that, by leaving things to take their course, a new genera- tion would grow up which would be too strong for the lovers of the old ways. The main difficulty of the bishops was with the Protestants. Many of those who had been in exile had returned with a strengthened belief that it was absolutely unchristian to adopt any vestments or other ceremonies which had been used in the Papal Church, and which they, therefore, contumeliously described as rags of Antichrist. A large number even of the bishops sympathised with them, and opposed them only on the ground that, though it would have been better if surplices and square caps had been prohibited, still, as such matters were in- different, the queen ought to be obeyed in all things indifferent. To Elizabeth refusal to wear the surplice was not only an act of insubordination, but likely to give offence to lukewarm supporters of the Church system which she had established, and had, therefore, a tendency to set the nation by the ears. In Parker she found a tower of strength. He was in every sense the successor of Cranmer, with all Cranmer’s strength but with none of Cranmer’s weakness. He fully grasped the principle that the Church of England v/as to test its doctrines and practices by those of the Church of the first six hundred years of Christianity, and he, therefore, claimed for it catholicity, which he denied to the Church of Rome; whilst he had all Cranmer’s feeling for the maintenance of external rites which did not directly imply the existence of beliefs repudiated by the Church of England. 4. Calvinism. — The returning exiles had brought home ideas even more distasteful to Elizabeth than the rejection of ceremonies. The weak point of the Lutherans in Germany, and of the reformers in England, had been their dependence upon the State. This de- pendence made them share the blame which fell upon rulers who, like Henry VII L, were bent on satisfying their passions, or, like Northumberland, on appropriating the goods of others. Even Elizabeth thought first of what was convenient for her government, and secondly, if she thought at all, of the quest after truth and purity. In Geneva the exiles had found a system in full working order which appeared to satisfy the cravings of their minds. It had been founded by a Frenchman, John Calvin, who in 1536 had published The Institution of the Christiaii Religion^ in which he treated his subject with a logical coherence which impressed itself on all Protestants who were in need of a definite creed. He had soon after- 559 CALVimSM 431 wards been summoned to Geneva, to take charge of the congrega- tion there, and had made it what was extensively believed to be, a model Church. With Calvin everything was rigid and defined, and he organised as severely as he taught. He established a discipline which was even more efficacious than his doctrine. His Church proclaimed itself, as the Popes had proclaimed themselves, to be independent of the State, and proposed to uphold truth and right irre- spective of the fancies and prejudices of kings. Bishops there were to be none, and the ministers were to be elected by the congregation. The congregation was also to elect lay-elders, whose duty it was to enforce morality of the strictest kind ; card-playing, singing profane songs, and following after amusements on the Sunday — or Sabbath as it was called in Geneva— being visited with excommunication. The magistrates were expected to inflict temporal penalties upon the offender. This Presbyterian system, as it was called, spread to other countries, especially to countries like France, where the Protestant congregations were persecuted by the Government. In France a final step was taken in the Presbyterian organisation. The scattered congregations elected representatives to meet in synods or assemblies, and the French Government, in this way, found itself confronted by an ecclesiastical representative republic. 5. Peace with France. 1559. — It was this Calvinistic system which was admired by many of the exiles returning to England, but which Elizabeth detested as challenging her own authority. Her only chance of resisting with success lay in her power of appealing to the national instinct, and of drawing men to think more of unity and peace at home than of that search after truth which inevitably divides, because all human conceptions of truth are necessarily imperfect, and are differently held by different minds. To do this she must be able to show that she could main- tain her independence of foreign powers. Though her heart was set on the recovery of Calais, she was obliged in 1559 to make peace with France, obtaining only a vague promise that it might be restored at a future time. Shortly afterwards peace was made between France and Spain at Citeau Cambresis. Elizabeth was aware that, though neither Philip II. of Spain nor Henry II. loved her, neither of them would allow the other to interfere to her detri- ment. She was therefore able to play them off one against the other. Her diplomacy was the diplomacy of her time. Elizabeth like her contemporaries, lied whenever it suited her to lie, and made promises which she never intended to perform. In this spirit she treated the subject of her marriage. She at once rejected Philip, 43 ^ THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT H5^ who, though he was her brother-in-law, proposed to marry her immediately after her accession, but when he suggested other candidates for her hand, she listened without giving a decided answer. It was convenient not to quarrel with Philip, but it would be ruinous to accept a husband at his choice. 6. The Reformation in Scotland. 1559. — Philip was formidable to Elizabeth because he might place himself at the head of the English Catholics. Henry was formidable because the old alliance between France and Scotland, confirmed by the recent marriage of the Dau- phin with Mary Stuart, made it easy for him to send French troops by way of Scotland into England. Early in Elizabeth’s reign, however, events occurred in Scotland which threatened to sever the links between that country and France. The Regent, Mary of Guise — mother of the absent queen and sister of the Duke of Guise, the French conqueror of Calais, and leader of the French Catholics — was hostile to the Protestants not only by conviction, but because there had long been a close alliance between the bishops and the Scottish kings in their struggle with the tur- bulent nobles. The wealth of the bishops, however, great according to the standard of so poor a country, tempted the avarice of the nobles, and their profligacy, openly displayed, offended all who cared for morality. In 1559 a combination was formed amongst a large number of the nobles, known as the Lords of the Congrega- tion, to assail the bishops. John Knox, the bravest and sternest of Calvinists, urged them on. The Regent was powerless before them. The mass was suppressed, images destroyed, and monas- teries pulled down. Before long, however, the flood seemed about to subside as rapidly as it rose. The forces of the lords consisted of untrained peasants, who could not keep the field when the labours of agriculture called them home, and rapidly melted away. Then the Lords of the Congregation, fearing disaster, called on Elizabeth for help. 7. The Claims of Mary Stuart. 1559. — Elizabeth was decided enough when she could see her way clearly. When she did not she was timid and hesitating, giving contradictory orders and making contradictory promises. She detested Calvinism, and regarded rebellion as of evil example. She especially abhorred Knox, because in her sister’s reign he had written a book against T/ze Monstrous Regimen of Woznen, disbelieving his assertion that she was herself an exception to the rule that no woman was fit to govern. It is therefore almost certain that she would have done nothing for the Lords of the Congregation if France had done i 550-1 5^0 MA/^Y QUMN of SCOTS 433 nothing for the Regent. Henry II., however, was killed by an accidental lance-thrust which pierced his eye in a tournament, and on the accession of his son as Francis II., Mary Stuart, now queen of France, assumed the arms and style of queen of England.^ The life-long quarrel between Elizabeth and Mary could hardly be staved off. Not only did they differ in religion, but there was also between them an irreconcilable political antagonism closely con- nected with their difference in religion. If the Papal authority was all that Mary believed it to be, Elizabeth was a bastard and a usurper. If the national Church of England had a right to in- dependent existence, and the national Parliament of England to independent authority, Mary’s challenge of Elizabeth’s title was an unjustifiable attack on a sovereignty acknowledged by the con- stitutional authorities of the English nation. 8. The Treaty of Edinburgh. 1560. — ^In spite of Cecil’s urgency Elizabeth was slow to assist the Scottish rebels. For some months Mary of Guise had been gathering French troops to her support, and she at last had a foreign army at her command powerful enough to make her mistress of Scotland, and to form the nucleus of a larger force which might afterwards be sufficiently powerful to make her mistress of England. This was more than Elizabeth could bear, and in January 1560 she sent her fleet with troops to the help of the Lords of the Congregation. The French retreated into Leith, where they were besieged by the allied forces. In June the Regent died, and in July Leith surrendered. By a treaty signed at Edinburgh the F rench agreed to leave Scotland, and to acknowledge Elizabeth’s title to the English crown. In December Francis II. died, and as his brother, who succeeded him as Charles IX., was too young to govern, his mother, Catherine de Medicis, acted as regent. Catherine was jealous of the Duke 01 Guise, and also of his niece, Mary Stuart, the widow of her eldest 1 Genealogy of the last Valois kings of France : — Francis I. Henry II. = Catherine de Medicis 1547-1559 1 Francis II. Charles IX. Henry III. 1559-1560 1560-1574 Duke of Anjou, king of France, 1574-1589 Francis, Duke of Alen9on, afterwards Duke of Anjou 434 THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT 1561 son.^ Mary, finding no longer a home in France, was driven for refuge to her own unruly realm of Scotland. 9. Scottish Presbyterianism. 1561. — The Scots had not failed to profit by the cessation of authority following on the death of Mary of Guise. They disclaimed the authority of the Pope and made it punishable to attend mass, the penalty for the third offence being death. The English Reformation had been the work of the king and of the clergy of the Renascence, and had, therefore, been carried on under the form of law. The Scottish Reformation had been the revolutionary work of the nobility and of the Calvinistic clergy. In England the power of the State had been strengthened. In Scotland it was weakened. Almost from the beginning the nobles who had taken part in the revolution showed signs of dis- agreement. A few of them were earnest Protestants, but there were more who cared only for political or personal ends. “ I have lived many years,” said the aged Lord Lindsay; “now that it hath pleased God to let me see this day ... I v/ill say with Simeon, ‘ Now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace.’ “ Hey then ! ” said Maitland of Lethington sarcastically, when he heard that the clergy claimed to govern the Church and own its property in the place of the bishops, “ we may all bear the barrow now to build the house of the Lord.” Knox organised the Church on a democratic and Presbyterian basis with Church Courts com- posed of the minister and lay elders in every parish, with repre- sentative Presbyteries in every group of parishes, and with a repre- sentative General Assembly for all Scotland. Like a prophet of old, Knox bitterly denounced those who laid a finger on the Church’s discipline. The nobles let him do as he would as far as religion was concerned, but they insisted on retaining nominal bishops, not 1 Genealogy of the Guises : — Claude, Duke of Guise Francis, Duke of Guise, killed at Dreux, 1563 Mary = James V. of Guise, king of died in Scotland 1560 Henry Charles, Louis, Cardinal Mary Stuart, Duke of Guise, Duke of of Guise, Queen of Scots murdered in 1588 Mayenne murdered in 1588 AfA/^V AND ELIZABETH 1561 43 S to rule the Church, but to hold the Church lands and pass the rents over to themselves. 10. Mary and Elizabeth. 1561.— In August 1561 Mary landed in Scotland, having come by sea because Elizabeth refused to allow her to pass through England unless she would renounce her claim to the English crown. Mary would perhaps have yielded if Elizabeth would have named her as her successor. Elizabeth would do nothing of the kind. She had a special dislike to fixing on any one as her successor. About this time she threw into prison Lady Catherine Grey for committing the offence of marrying with- out her leave. Lady Catherine was the next sister of Lady Jane Grey, and therefore Elizabeth’s heir if the will of Henry VIII. in favour of the Suffolk line (see p. 410) was to be held binding. Elizabeth no doubt had a political object in showing no favour to either of her expectant heirs. By encouraging Catherine’s hopes A ‘ milled ’ half-sovereign of Elizabeth, 1562-1568. she would drive her Catholic . subjects to desperation. By en- couraging Mary’s she would drive her Protestant subjects to des- peration. Yet there was also strong personal feeling to account for her conduct. She was resolved never to marry, however much her resolution might cost her. Yet she too was a very woman, hungry for manly companionship and care, and, though a politician to the core, was saddened and soured by the suppression of her womanly nature. To give herself a husband was to give herself a master, yet she dallied with the offers made to her, surely not from political craft alone. The thought of marriage, abhorrent to her brain, was pleasant to her heart, and she could not lightly speak the positive word of rejection. Even now, in the vain thought that she might rule a subject, even if she became his wife, she was toying with Lord Robert Dudley, the handsome and worthless son of the base Northumberland. So far did she carry 436 THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT 1562-1564 her flirtations that tales against her fair fame were spread abroad, but marry him she never did. Her treatment of the Lady Catherine was doubtless caused far less by her fear of the claims of the Suffolk line than by her reluctance to think of one so near to her as a happy wife, and as years grew upon her she bore hardly on those around her who refused to live in that state of maidenhood which she had inflicted on herself. 11. The French War. 1562 — 1564. — Elizabeth and Mary were not merely personal rivals. The deadly struggle on which they had entered was a European one, and the success or failure of the Catholic or the Protestant cause in some Continental country might determine the future history of Britain. In 1562 a civil war broke out between the French Protestants — or Huguenots,^ as they were usually called in France — and their Catholic fellow-subjects. The leaders of the Huguenots obtained Elizabeth’s aid by offering her Havre, which she hoped to exchange for Calais. The Huguenots were, however, defeated at the battle of Dreux, though Guise, who commanded the Catholics, was in the moment of victory shot dead by an assassin. In 1563 peace was patched up for a time between the French parties, but Elizabeth refused to surrender Havre, till a plague broke out amongst the English garrison, and drove the scanty remnants of it back to England. In 1564 Elizabeth was forced to make peace without recovering Calais. The war thus ended was the only one in which she ever took part except when absolutely no alternative was left to her. 12. End of the Council of Trent. 1563. — If Rome was to be victorious she must use other than carnal weapons. The main cause of the growth of Protestantism had been the revolt of honest minds against the profligacy of the Popes and the clergy. The Popes had after a long time learnt the lesson, and were now as austerely moral as Calvin himself. They had of late busied them- selves with bringing the doctrines of the Church into a coherent whole, in order that they might be referred to with as much cer- tainty as the Institution of Calvin was referred to by the Calvinist. This work was accomplished by an ecclesiastical council sitting at Trent, and composed mainly of Spanish and Italian prelates. The Council, having completed its task, broke up in 1563. 13. The Jesuits. — The main instruments of the Popes to win back those who had broken loose from their authority were the 1 Probably from Eidgenossen, the name of the Swiss Confederates, because the first Protestants who appeared at Geneva came from Switzerland, and no French-speaking mouth could pronounce such a word as ‘ Eidgenossen.’ 1540-1565 the JESUITS 437 members of the Society of Jesus, usually known as Jesuits. The society was founded in 1540 by Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish knight who, having been incapacitated by a wound for a military career, had devoted himself to the chivalry of religion. The members of the society which he instituted were not, like the monks, to devote themselves to setting an example of ascetic self-denial, nor, like the friars, to combine asceticism with preaching or well-doing. Each Jesuit was to give himself up to winning souls to the Church, whether from heathenism or from heresy. With this end, the old soldier who established the society placed it under more than military discipline. The first virtue of the Jesuit was obedience. He was to be in the hands of his superior as a stick in the hand of a man. He was to do as he was bidden, unless he was convinced that he was bidden to commit sin. What was hardest, perhaps, of all was that he was not allowed to judge his own character in choosing his work. He might think that he was admirably qualified to be a missionary in China, but if his superior ordered him to teach boys in a school, a schoolmaster he must become. He might believe himself to be a great scholar and fitted by nature to impart his knowledge to the young, but if his superior ordered him to go as a missionary to China, to China he must go. Discipline volun- tarily accepted is a great power in the world, and this power the Jesuits possessed. 14. The Danger from Scotland. 1561 — 1565. — Whilst the opposing forces of Calvinism and the reformed Papacy were laying the foundations of a struggle which would split western Europe in twain, Elizabeth was hampered in her efibrts to avert a dis- ruption of her own realm by the necessity of watching the proceedings of the Queen of Scots. If in Elizabeth the politician predominated over the woman, in Mary the woman predominated over the politician. She was keen of sight, strong in feeling, and capable of forming far-reaching schemes, till the gust of passion swept over her and ruined her plans and herself together. After her arrival in Scotland she not only acknowledged the new Calvin- istic establishment, but put down with a strong hand the Earl of Huntly, who attempted to resist it, whilst on the other hand she insisted, in defiance of Knox, on the retention of the mass in her own chapel. It is possible that there was in all this a settled design to await some favourable opportunity, as she knew that there were many in Scotland who cherished the old faith. It is possible, on the other hand, that she thought for a time of making the best of her uneasy position, and preferred to be met 438 THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT 1565-1566 with smiles rather than with frowns. Knox, however, took care that there should be frowns enough. There was no tolerant thought in that stern heart of his, and he knew well that Mary would in the end be found to be fighting for her creed and her party. Her dancing and light gaiety he held to be profane. The mass, he said, was idolatry, and according to Scripture the idolater must die. There was in Scotland as yet no broad middle class on which Mary could rely, and, feeling herself insulted both as a queen and as a woman, she took up Knox’s challenge. She had but the weapons of craft with which to fight, but she used them admirably, and before long, with her winning grace, she had the greater number of the nobility at her feet. 15. The Darnley Marriage. 1565. — The sense of mental superiority could not satisfy a woman such as Mary. Her life was a lonely one, and it was soon known that she was on the look-out for a husband. The choice of a husband by the ruler of Scotland could not be indifferent to Elizabeth, and in 1564 Elizabeth offered to Mary her own favourite Dudley, whom she created Earl of Leicester. Very likely Elizabeth imagined that Leicester would be as pleasing to Mary as he was to herself Mary could only regard the proposal as an insult. In 1565 she married her second cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.^ Elizabeth was alarmed, taking the marriage as a sign that Mary intended to defy her in everything, and urged the Scottish malcontents, at whose head was Mary’s illegitimate brother, the Earl of Murray, to rebel. Mary chased them into England, where .Elizabeth protested loudly and falsely that she knew nothing of their conspiracy. 16. The Murder of Rizzio. 1566.— Mary had taken a coarse- minded fool for her husband, and had to suffer from him all the tyranny which a heartless man has it in his power to inflict on a woman. Her heart craved for affection, and Darnley, who plunged ^ Genealogy of Maty and Darnley : — (i) James IV. = Margaret Tudor =(2) Archibald Douglas, 1488-1513 j I Earl of Angus Mary of Guise = James V. Matthew Stuart, = Margaret Douglas 1513-1542 Earl of Lennox j I Francis II. =Mary = Henry Stuart, King of 1542- I Lord Darnley France 1567 | I James VI. 1567-1625 THE MURDER OF DARNLEY 439 1566-1567 without scruple into the most degrading vice, believed, or affected to believe, that his wife had sacrificed her honour to David Rizzio, a cultivated Italian who acted as her secretary, and carried on her correspondence with the Continental powers. A league for the mur- der of Rizzio — such things were common in Scotland — was formed between Darnley and the Protestant lords. On March 9, 1566, they burst into Mary’s supper-room at Holyrood. Rizzio clung to his patroness’s robe, but was dragged off and slain. Murray with his fellow-conspirators came back to Scotland. Mary, however, with loving looks and words, won over the husband whom she despised, broke up the confederacy, and drove most of the con- federates out of the country. 17. The Murder of Darnley. 1567. — On June 19, 1566, Mary gave birth to a son, afterwards James VI. of Scotland, and James I. of England. His birth gave strength to the party in England which was anxious to have Mary named heiress of the crown. Whatever little chance there was of Elizabeth’s consent being won was wrecked through a catastrophe in which Mary became involved. Mary despised her miserable husband as thoroughly as he deserved. He at least, weak as water, could give her no help in her struggle with the nobles. Her passionate heart found in the Earl of Both- well one who seemed likely to give her all that she needed — a strong will in a strong body, and a brutal directness which might form a complement to her own intellectual keenness. Mary and Bothwell were both married, but Bothwell at least was not to be deterred by such an obstacle as this. The evidence on Mary’s conduct is conflicting, and modern enquirers have not succeeded in coming to an agreement about it. It is possible that she did not actually give her assent to the evil deed which set her free ; but it can hardly be doubted that she at least willingly closed her eyes to the preparations made for her husband’s murder. Whatever the truth as to her own complicity may be, it is certain that on February 10, 1567, Darnley was blown up by gunpowder at Kirk o’ Field, a lonely house near Edinburgh, and slain by Bothwell, or by Bothwell’s orders, as he was attempting to escape. Bothwell then obtained a divorce from his own wife, carried Mary off— not, as was firmly believed at the time, against her will — and married her. 18. The Deposition and Flight of Mary. 1567 — 1568. — Mary, in gaining a husband, had lost Scotland. Her subjects rose against her as an adulteress and a murderess. At Carberry Hill, on June 15, 1567, her own followers refused to defend her, and she was forced to surrender, whilst Bothwell fled to Denmark, remaining 440 THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT 1567-1569 Silver-gilt standing cup made in London in *569-70, and given to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by Archbishop Parker. in exile for the rest of his life. Mary was imprisoned in a castle on an island in Loch Leven, and on July 24 she was forced to abdicate in favour of her son. Murray acted as regent in the infant’s name. On May 2, 1568, Mary effected her escape, and rallied to her side the family of the Hamiltons, which was all- powerful in Clydesdale. On May 13 she was defeated by Murray at Langside, near Glasgow. Rid- ing hard for the Solway Firth, she threw herself into a boat, and found herself safe in Cum- berland. She at once appealed to Elizabeth, asking not for pro- tection only, but for an English army to replace her on the throne of Scotland. 19. Mary’s Case before Eng- lish Commissioners. 1568 — 1569. Elizabeth could hardly replace her rival in power, and was still less inclined to set her at liberty, lest she should go to France, and bring with her to Scotland another French army. After innumerable changes of mind Elizabeth appointed a body of commissioners to consider the case against Mary. Before them Murray produced certain letters contained in a casket, and taken after Bothwell’s flight. The cas- ket letters, as they are called, were alleged to be in Mary’s handwriting, and, if genuine, place out of doubt her guilty passion for Bothwell, and her connivance in her husband’s THE RISING IN THE NORTH 441 1568-1570 murder. They were acknowledged by the commissioners, with the concurrence of certain English lords who were politically partisans of Mary, to be in her hand. Mary — either, as her adversaries allege, because she knew that she was guilty, or as her supporters allege, because she was afraid that she could not obtain justice — withdrew her advocates, and pleaded with Elizabeth for a personal interview. This Elizabeth refused to grant, but on the other hand she denied the right of the Scots to depose their queen. Mary remained virtually a prisoner in England. She was an interesting prisoner, and in spite of all her faults there were many who saw in her claim to the English crown the easiest means of re-establishing the old Church and the old nobility. 20. The Rising in the North. 1569. — The old Church and the old nobility were strongest in the North, where the Pilgrimage of Grace had broken out in 1536 (see p. 397). The northern lords, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, longed to free Mary, to proclaim her queen of England, and to depose Elizabeth. They were, however, prepared to content themselves with driving Cecil from power, with forcing Elizabeth to acknowledge Mary as her heir, and to withdraw her support from Protestantism. Mary, according to this latter plan, was to marry the Duke of Norfolk, the son of that Earl of Surrey who had been executed in the last days of Henry VIII. (see p. 411). On October 18 Elizabeth, suspecting that Norfolk was entangling himself with the Queen of Scots, sent him to the Tower. Northumberland and Westmorland hesitated what course to pursue, but a message from the Queen requiring their presence at Court decided them, and they rose in insurrec- tion. On November 14, with the northern gentry and yeomanry at their heels, they entered Durham Cathedral, tore in pieces the English Bible and Prayer Book, and knelt in fervour of devotion whilst mass was said for the last time in any one of the old cathedrals of England. Elizabeth sent an army against the earls. Both of them were timorous and unwarlike, and they fled to Scotland before the year was ended, leaving their followers to the vengeance of Elizabeth. Little mercy was shown to the insurgents, and cruel executions fol- lowed this unwise attempt to check the progress of the Reformation. 21. The Papal Excommunication. 1570. — Elizabeth, it seemed for all her triumph over the earls, had a hard struggle still before her. In January 1570 the regent Murray was assassinated by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, and Mary’s friends began again to raise their heads in Scotland. In April Pope Pius V. excommuni- cated Elizabeth and absolved her subjects from their allegiance. lie G G 442 THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT 1570 In May, a fanatic named Felton affixed the Pope’s bull of excom- munication to the door of the Bishop of London’s house. Felton was eventually seized and executed, but his deed was a challenge which Elizabeth would be compelled to take up. Hitherto she had trusted to time to bring her subjects into one way of thinking, knowing that the younger generation was likely to be on her side. She had taken care to deal as lightly as possible v/ith those who shrank from abandoning the religion of their childhood, and she had recently announced that they were free to believe what they would if only they would accept her supremacy. The Pope had now made it clear that he would not sanction this compromise. English- men must choose between him and their queen. On the side of the Pope it might be argued with truth that with Elizabeth on the throne it would be impossible to maintain the Roman Catholic faith and organisation. On the side of the queen it might be argued that if the Papal claims were admitted it would be impossible to maintain the authority of the national government. A deadly conflict was imminent, in which the liberty of individuals would suffer whichever side gained the upper hand. Nations, like per- sons, cannot attend to more than one important matter at a time, and the great question at issue in Elizabeth’s reign was whether the nation was to be independent of all foreign powers in ecclesi- astical as well as in civil affairs. CHAPTER XXIX ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT. 1570— 1587 LEADING DATES Reign of Elizabeth, 1558—1603 The Execution of the Duke of Norfolk . . . 1572 The foundation of the Dutch Republic 1572 The arrival of the J esuits 1580 The Association 1584 Babington’s Plot ... 1586 Execution of Mary Stuart 1587 I. The Continental Powers. 1566 — 1570. — If the Catholic powers of the Continent had been able to assist the English Catholics Elizabeth would hardly have suppressed the rising in the North. It happened, however, that neither in the Spanish Nether- 443 1566-1570 FRANCE, SPAIN, AND SCOTLAND lands nor in France were the governments in a position to quarrel with her. In the Netherlands Philip, who burnt and slaughtered Protestants without mercy, was in 1566 opposed by the nobility, and in 1568 he sent the Duke of Alva, a relentless soldier, to Brussels with a Spanish army to establish the absolute authority of the king and the absolute authority of the Papacy. In 1569 Alva believed himself to have accomplished his task by wholesale executions, and by the destruction of the constitutional privileges of the Netherlanders. His rule was a grinding tyranny, rousing both Catholics and Protestants to cry out for the preservation of their customs and liberties from the intruding Spanish army. Alva had therefore no men to spare to send to aid the English Catholics. In France the civil war had broken out afresh in 1568, and in 1569 the Catholics headed by Henry, Duke of Guise, the son of the murdered Duke Francis (see p. 436), and by Henry, Duke of Anjou, the brother of the young king, Charles IX., won victories at Jarnac and Moncontour. Charles and his mother took alarm lest the Catholics should become too powerful for the royal authority, and in 1570 a peace was signed once more, the French king refusing to be the instrument of persecution and being very much afraid of the establishment of a Catholic government in England which might give support to the Catholics of France. Accordingly in 1570, France would not interfere in England if she could, whilst Spain could not interfere if she would. 2. The Anjou Marriage Treaty and the Ridolfi Plot. 1570 — 1571. — For all that, Elizabeth’s danger was great. In 1570 she had done her best to embroil parties in Scotland lest they should join against herself. The bulk of the nobility in that country had thrown themselves on the side of Mary, and were fighting against the new regent, Lennox, having taken alarm at the growth of the popular Church organisation of Knox and the Presbyterians, who sheltered themselves under the title of the little James VI. At home Elizabeth expected a fresh outbreak, and could not be certain that Alva would be unable to support it when it occurred. Cecil accordingly pleaded hard with her to marry the frivolous Duke of Anjou. He thought that unless she married and had children, her subjects would turn from her to Mary, who, having already a son, would give them an assured succession. If she was to many, an alliance with the tolerant Government of France was better than any other. Elizabeth indeed consented to open negotiations for the marriage, though it was most unlikely that she would ever really make up her mind to it. The English Catholics, in conse- 444 ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1566-1571 quence^ flung themselves into the arms of the king of Spain, and in March 1571, Ridolfi, a Florentine banker residing in England, who carried on their correspondence with Alva, crossed to the Nether- lands to inform him that the great majority of the lay peers had invited him to send 6,000 Spanish soldiers to dethrone Elizabeth and to put Mary in her place. Norfolk, who had been released from the Tower (see p. 441), was then to become the husband of Mary, and it was hoped that there would spring from the marriage a long line of Catholic sovereigns ready to support the Papal Church. 3. Elizabeth and the Puritans. — Elizabeth’s temporising policy had naturally strengthened the Calvinism of the Calvinistic clergy. In every generation there are some who ask not what is expedient but what is true, and the very fact that they aim at truth, in defiance of all earthly considerations, not merely assures them influence, but diffuses around them a life and vigour which would be entirely wanting if all men were content to support that which is politically or socially convenient. Such were the best of the English Puritans, so called because, though they did not insist upon the abolition of Episcopacy or the establishment of the Calvinistic discipline (see p. 431), they contended for what they called purity of worship, which meant the rejection of such rites and vestments as reminded them of what they termed the idolatry of the Roman Church. Elizabeth and Parker had from time to time interfered, and some of the Puritan leaders had been deprived of their bene- fices for refusing to wear the cap and surplice. 4. Elizabeth and Parliament. 1566. — From 1566 to 1571 Elizabeth abstained from summoning a Parliament, having been far more economical than any one of the last three sovereigns. Early in her reign she had restored the currency, and after the session of 1566 had actually returned to her subjects a subsidy which had been voted to her and which had been already collected. Her reason for avoiding Parliaments was political. Neither of the Houses was likely to favour her ecclesiastical policy. The House of Lords v/antedher to go backwards — to declare Mary her successor and to restore the mass. The House of Commons wanted her to go forwards — to marry, and have children of her own, and to alter the Prayer Book in a Puritan direction. In 1566, if the House of Commons had really represented the average opinion of the nation, she would have been obliged to yield. That i A subsidy was a tax on lands and goods voted by Parliament to the Crown, resembling in many respects the modern income-tax. ELIZABETH AND PURITANISM 445 1566-1571 it did not was partly owing to the imposition in 1562 of i*he oath of supremacy upon its members, by which all who favoured the Pope’s authority were excluded from its benches, but still more on account of the difficulty of packing a Parliament so as to suit the queen’s moderate ideas. Those who admired the existing Church system were but few. The majority of the nation, even if those who refused to accept the Royal supremacy were left out of account, was undoubtedly sufficiently attached to the old state of things to be favourable at least to Mary’s claim to be acknowledged as heir to the throne. To Elizabeth it was of the first importance that the influence of the Crown should be used to reduce the numbers of such men in the House of Commons. If, however, they were kept out, there was nothing to be done but to favour the election of Puritans, or at least of those who had a leaning towards Puritanism. The queen, therefore, having to make her choice between those who objected to her proceedings as too Protestant and those who objected to them as not Protestant enough, not unnaturally pre- ferred the latter. 5. A Puritan Parliament. 1571. — In 1571 Elizabeth had to deal with a Puritan House of Commons. The House granted supplies, and wanted to impose new penalties on the Roman Catholics and to suppress ecclesiastical abuses. One of the members named Strickland, having proposed to ask leave to amend the Prayer Book, the Queen ordered him to absent himself from the House. The House was proceeding to remonstrate when Elizabeth, too prudent to allow a quarrel to spring up, gave him permission to return. She had her way, however, and the Prayer Book remained untouched. She was herself a better representative of the nation than the House of Commons, but as yet she represented it only as standing between two hostile parties ; though she hoped that the time would come when she would have a strong middle party of her own. 6. The Duke of Norfolk’s Plot and Execution. 1571 — 1572. For the present Elizabeth’s chief enemies were the conspirators who were aiming at placing Mary on her throne. In April 1571 Ridolfi reached the Netherlands, and urged Alva to send a Spanish army to England. Alva was cautious, and thought the attempt dangerous unless Elizabeth had first been killed or captured. Philip was consulted, gave his approval to the murder, but after- wards drew back, though he ordered Alva to proceed with the invasion. In the meanwhile Cecil, who had just been made Lord Burghley, came upon traces of the plot. Norfolk was arrested, and 446 ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1571-1572 before the end of the year everything was knowTi. Though the proposal of a marriage between Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou had lately broken down, she now, in her anxiety to find support in France against Spain, entered into a negotiation to marry Anjou’s brother, the Duke of Alencon, a vicious lad twenty-one years younger than herself. Then she was free to act. She drove the Spanish ambassador out of England, and Norfolk was tried and convicted of treason. A fresh Parliament meeting in 1572 urged the queen to consent to the execution of ^Slaiy^ Elizabeth refused, but she sent Norfolk to the block. 7. The Admonition to Parliament. 1572. — The rising in the North and the invitation to bring a Spanish anny into England could not but fan the zeal of the Puritans. At the beginning of the reign they had contented themselves with calling for the abolition of certain ceremonies. A more decided party now added a demand for the abolition of episcopacy and the establishment of Presby- terianism and of the complete Calvinistic discipline. The leader of this party was Thomas Cartwright, a theological professor at Cambridge, the university ^vhich had produced the greater number of the reformers, as it now produced the greater number of Puritans. In 1570, Cartwright was expelled from his Professorship. He sym- pathised with An Admo 7 iition to PmHament w’ritten in 1572 by two of his disciples, and himself wrote A Seco 7 id Ad 77 io 7 iitio 7 i to Parlia 77 ie 7 it^ to second their view-s. Cartwright Avas far from claiming for the Puritans the position of a sect to be tolerated. He had no thought of establishing religious liberty in his mind. He declared the Presbyterian Church to be the only divinely appointed one, and asked that all Englishmen should be forced to submit to its ordinances. The civil magistrate was to have no control over its ministers. All active religious feeling being enlisted either on the Papal or the Puritanical side, Elizabeth’s reformed, but not Puritan, Church seemed likely to be crushed betw^een two forces. It was saved by the existence of a large body of men who cared for other things more than for religious disputes, and who were ready to defend the Queen as ruler of the nation without any special regard for the ecclesiastical system which she maintained. 8. Mariners and Pirates. — Of all Elizabeth’s subjects there were none who stood their countr}^ in such good stead in the impending conflict with Spain and the Papacy as the mariners. Hardy and reckless, they cared little for theological distinctions or for forms of Church government, their first instinct being to fill their own purses either by honest trade if it might be, or by piracy if that seemed W]£STWARD tiOt 447 likely to be more profitable. Even before Elizabeth’s accession, the Channel and the seas beyond it swarmed with English pirates. Though the pirates cared nothing for the nationality of the vessels which they plunderedj it was inevitable that the greatest loss should fall on Spain. Spain was the first maritime power in the world, and her galleons as they passed Up to Antwerp to exchange the silks and spices of the East for the commodities of Europe, fell an easy prey to the swift and well-armed cruisers which put out from English harbours. The Spaniards retaliated by seizing English sailors wherever they could lay their hands upon them, sometimes hanging them out of hand, sometimes destroying them with starvation and misery in fetid dungeons, sometimes handing them over to the Inquisition — a court the function of which was the suppression of heresy — in other words, to the torture-room Oi: the stake. 9. Westward Ho ! — Every year the hatred between the mariherS of Spain and England grew more bitter, and it was not long before English sailors angered the king of Spain by crossing the Atlantic to trade or plunder in the West Indies, where both the islands and the mainland of Mexico and South America were full of Spanish settle- ments. In those days a country which sent out colonies claimed the sole right of trading with them ; besides which the king of Spain claimed a right of refusing to foreigners an entrance into his American dominions because, towards the end of the fifteenth cen- tury, Pope Alexander VI. being called on to mediate between Spain and Portugal, had drawn a line on the map to the east of which was to be the Portuguese colony of Brazil, whilst all the rest of America to the west of it was to be Spanish. From this the Spaniards reasoned that all America except Brazil was theirs by the gift of the Pope — which in their eyes was equivalent to the gift of God. English sailors refusing to recognise this pretension, sailed to the Spanish settlements to trade, and attacked the Spanish officials who tried to prevent them. The Spanish settlers were eager to get negro slaves to cultivate their plantations, and Englishmen were equally eager to kidnap negroes in Africa and to sell them in the West Indies. A curious combination of the love of gain and of Protestantism sprang up amongst the sailors, who had no idea that to sell black men was in any way wrong. One engaged in this villanous work explained how he had been saved from the perils of the sea by ‘Almighty God, who never suffers his elect to perish ! ’ There was money enough to be got, and sometimes there would be hard fighting atid the g^ain or loss of all. 44 § ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1572 10. Francis Drake’s Voyage to Panama. 1572. — The noblest o t ese mariners was F rancis Drake. Sickened by one experience Sir Francis Drake, in his 43rd year : from the engraving by Elstracke. of the slave trade, and refusing to take any further part in it, he flew at the wealth of the Spanish Government. In 1572 he sailed for Nombre de Dios, on the Atlantic side of the isthmus of 1572-1576 THE DUTCH STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM 449 Panama. Thither were brought once a year gold and silver from the mines of Peru. In the governor’s house Drake found a pile of silver bars. ‘‘ I have now,” he said to his men, “ brought you to the mouth of the treasury of the world.” He himself was wounded, and his followers, having little spirit to fight without their leader, were beaten off. “ I am resolved,” he said somewhat later to a Spaniard, “ by the help of God, to reap some of the golden harvest which you have got out of the earth and sent to Spain to trouble the earth,” It was his firm conviction that he was serving God in robbing the king of Spain. Before he returned some Indians showed him from a tree on the isthmus the waters of the Pacific, ivhich no civilised people except the Spaniards had ever navigated. Drake threw himself on his knees, praying to God to give him life and to allow him to sail an English vessel on those seas. 11. The Seizure of Brill, and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. 1572. — Exiles from the Netherlands took refuge on the sea from Alva’s tyranny, and plundered Spanish vessels as Englishmen had done before. In 1572 a party of these seized Brill and laid the foundations of the Dutch Republic. They called on Charles IX. of France to help them, and he (being under the influence of Coligny, Ihe leader of the Huguenots) was eager to make war on Spain on their behalf. Charles’s mother, Catherine de Medicis, was, how- ever, alarmed lest the Huguenots should grow too powerful, and frightened her son with a tale that they were conspiring against him. He was an excitable youth, and turned savagely on the Huguenots, encouraging a fearful butchery of them, which is known as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, because it took place on August 24, which was St. Bartholomew’s day. Coligny himself was among the victims. 12. The Growth of the Dutch Republic. 1572—1578. — By this time the provinces of Holland and Zeeland had risen against Spain. They placed at their head the Prince of Orange with the title of Stadtholder or Lieutenant, as if he had been still the lieu- tenant of the king of Spain whom he resisted. The rebels had but a scanty force wherewith to defend themselves against the vast armies of Spain. Alva took town after town, sacked them, and butchered man, woman and child within. In 1574 Leyden was saved from his attack. Holland is below the sea-level, and the Dutch cut the dykes which kept off the sea, and when the tide rushed in, sent flat-bottomed vessels over what had once been land, and rescued the town from the besiegers. Alva, disgusted at his failure, returned to Spain. In 1576 his successor Requesens died. Spain, with all the wealth 450 ELIZABETH AND THE EC/EOBEaN CONFLICT 1576-157^ of the Indies pouring into it, was impoverished by the vastness of the work which Philip had undertaken in trying to maintain the power of the Roman Catholic Church in all western Europe. The expenses of the war in the Netherlands exhausted his treasury, and on the death of Requesens, the Spanish army mutinied, plundered even that part of the country which was friendly to Spain, and sacked Antwerp with barbarous cruelty. Then the whole of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands drove Out the Spaniards, and bound themselves by the Pacification of Ghent into a con- federate Republic. In 1578 Alexander, duke of Parma, arrived as the Spanish governor. He was a great warrior and statesman, and he won over the Catholic provinces of the southern Netherlands to his side. By the Union of Utrecht the Prince of Orange formed a new confederate republic of the seven northern provinces, which were mainly Protestant. 13. Quiet Times in England. 1572—1577. — The Spaniards were no longer able to interfere in England. Elizabeth was equally safe from the side of France. In 1574 Charles IX. died, and was succeeded by Elizabeth’s old suitor Anjou as Henry MI. There were fresh civil wars which gave him enough to do at home. In 1573 Elizabeth sent aid to the party of the young king m Scotland, and suppressed the last remnants of Mar/s party there. In England she pursued her old policy. Men might think what they would, but they must not discuss their opinions openly. There must be as little preaching as possible, and when the clergy began to hold meetings called prophesyings for discussion on the Scriptures, she ordered Grindal, who had succeeded Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury, to suppress them, and on his refusal in 1577 suspended him from his office, and put down the prophesyings herself. 14. Drake’s Voyage. 1577 — 1580. — Elizabeth had no sympathy with the heroic Netherlanders, who fought for liberty and conscience, but she had sympathy with the mariners who by fair means or foul brought treasure into the realm. In 1577 Drake sailed for that Pacific which he had long been eager to enter. Passing through the Straits of Magellan, he found himself alone on the unknown ccean with the ‘ Pelican,’ a little ship of 100 tons. He ranged up the coast of South America, seizing treasure where ho landed, but never doing any cruel deed. The Spaniards, not thinking it pos- sible that an English ship could be there, took the ‘ Pelican ’ for one of their own vessels, and were easily caught. At Tarapaca, for instance, Drake found a Spaniard asleep with bars of silver by his side. At another landing place he found eight llamas laden with i 547 ‘I 58 o /Iceland and the reformation 45 * silver. So he went on, till he took a great vessel with jewels in plenty, thirteen chests of silver coin, eighty pounds’ weight of gold, and twenty-six tons of silver. With all this he sailed home by way of the Cape of Good Hope, arriving in England in 1580, being the first commander who had circumnavigated the globe. ^ The king of Spain was furious, and demanded back the wealth of which his subjects had been robbed. Elizabeth gave him good words, but not a penny of money or money’s worth. 15. Ireland and the Reformation. 1547. — Since the death of Henry VIII. the manage- ment of Ireland had been increasingly diffi- cult. An attempt had been made in the reign of Edward VI. to establish the reformed religion. All that was then done had been over- thrown by Mary, and what Mary did was in turn overthrown by Elizabeth. As yet, however, the orders of the English Government to make re- ligious changes in Ireland were of compara- tively little importance. The power of the Government did not reach far, and even in the districts to which it extended there was none of that mental preparation for the reception of the new doctrines which was to be found in England. The Reformation was accepted by very few, except by English officials, who were ready to accept anything to please the Govern- ment. Those who clung to the old ways, how- ever, were not at all zealous for their faith, and there was as yet no likelihood that any reli- gious insurrection like the Pilgrimage of Grace or the rising in the North would be heard of in Ireland. The lives of the Celtic chiefs and the Anglo-Norman lords were passed in blood- shedding and looseness of life, which made them very unfit to be champions of any religion whatever. 16. Ireland under Edward VI. and Mary. 1547 — 1558. — The real difficulty of the English Government in Ireland lay in its rela- tions with tto Irish tribes, whether under Celtic chiefs or Anglo- Norman lords. At the end of the reign of Edward VI. an attempt had been made to revert to the better part of the policy of Henry ^ Magellan died on the way, though his ship completed the voyage round the world. Armour as worn during the reign of Eliza- beth : from the brass of Francis Clopton, 1577, at Long Mel- ford, Suffolk. 452 ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT i 547 -i 579 VIII., and the heads of the tribes were entrusted by the government with powers to keep order in the hope that they would gradually settle down into civilisation and obedience. Such a policy required almost infinite patience on the part of the Government, and the Earl of Sussex, who was Lord Deputy under Mary, began again the old mischief of making warlike attacks upon the Irish which he had not force or money enough to render effectual, it was Mary and not a Protestant sovereign who first sent English colonists to occupy the lands of the turbulent Irish in King’s County and Queen’s County — then much smaller than at present. A war of extermination at once began. The natives massacred the intruders and the intruders massacred the natives, till — far on in Elizabeth’s reign — the natives had been all slaughtered or expelled. There was thus introduced into the heart of Ireland a body of Englishmen who, no doubt, were far more advanced in the arts of life than the Irish around them, but who treated the Irish with utter contempt, and put them to death without mercy. 17. Elizabeth and Ireland. 1558— 1578.— From the time of the settlement of King’s and Queen’s Counties all chance of a peaceable arrangement was at an end. Elizabeth had not money enough to pay an army capable of subduing Ireland, nor had the Irish tribes sufficient trust in one another to unite in national resistance. There was, in fact, no Irish nation. Even Shan O’Neill, the most formidable Irish opponent of the English Government, who was predominant in the North during the early part of Elizabeth’s reign, failed because he tried to reduce the other Ulster chiefs to subjection to himself, and in 1567 was overthrown by the O’Don- nells, and not by an English army. When the English officials gained power, they were apt to treat the Irish as if they were vermin to be destroyed. New attempts at colonisation were made, but the Irish drove out the colonists, and Ireland was in a more chaotic state than if it had been left to its own disorder. 18. The Landing at Smervsrick, and the Desmond Rising. 1579—1583- — Elizabeth’s servants were the more anxious to subdue Ireland by the process of exterminating Irishmen, because they believed that the Irish would welcome Spaniards if they came to establish a government in Ireland hostile to Elizabeth. On the other hand, the English Catholics, and especially the English Catholic clergy in exile on the Continent, fancied, wrongly, that the Irish were fighting for the papacy, and not for tribal independence, or, rather, for bare life, which tribal independence alone secured. In 1579 Sir James Fitzmaurice landed with a few men at Dingle, 579-1580 453 THE JESUITS IN ENGLAND under the authority of the Pope, but was soon defeated and slain. In 1580 a large number of Spaniards and Italians landed at Smer- wick, but was overpowered and slaughtered by Lord Grey, the Lord Deputy. Then the Earl of Desmond, the head of a branch of the family of Fitzgerald, all-powerful in Munster, rose. The insurrection was put down, and Desmond himself slain, in 1583. It is said that in 1582 no less than 30,000 perished — mostly of starvation — in a single year. It is an English witness who tells us of the poor wretches who survived, that ‘ out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them ; they spoke like ghosts crying out of their graves ; they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them.’ 19. The Jesuits in England. 1580. — In England the landing of a papal force at Smerwick produced the greater alarm because Parma (see p. 450) had been gaining ground in the Netherlands, and the time might soon come when a Spanish army would be available for the invasion of England. For the present what the Government feared was any interruption to the process by which the new religion was replacing the old. In 1571 there had been an act of Parliament in answer to the Papal Bull of Deposition (see p. 442), declaring all who brought Bulls into the country, and all who "were themselves reconciled to the see of Rome, or who recon- ciled others to be traitors, but for a long time no use was made by Elizabeth of these powers. The Catholic exiles, however, had wit- nessed with sorrow the gradual decay of their religion in England, and in 1568 William Allen, one of their number, had founded a college at Douai (removed in 1578 to Reims) as a seminary for missionaries to England. It was not long before seminary priests, as the missionaries were called, began to land in England to revive the zeal of their countrymen, but it was not till 1577 that one of them, Cuthbert Mayne, was executed, technically for bringing in a copy of a Bull of a trivial character, but really for maintaining that Catholics would be justified in rising to assist a foreign force sent to reduce England to obedience to the Papacy. There were, in fact, two rival powers inconsistent with one another. If the Papal power was to prevail, the Queen’s authority must be got rid of. If the Queen’s power was to prevail, the Pope’s authority must be got rid of In 1580 two Jesuits, Campion and Parsons, landed. They brought with them an explanation of the Bull of Deposition, which practically meant that no one need act on it till it was convenient to do so. They went about making converts and strengthening the lukewarm in the resolution to stand by their faith. ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1580-1581 20. The Recusancy Laws. 1581. — Elizabeth in her dread of religious strife had done her best to silence religious discussion and even religious teaching. Men in an age of religious contro- versy are eager to believe something. All the more vigorous of the Protestants were at this time Puritans, and now the more vigorous of those who could not be Puritans welcomed the Jesuits with joy. There were never many Jesuits in England, but for a time they gave life and vigour to the seminary priests who were not Jesuits. In 1581 Parliament, seeing nothing in what had hap- pened but a conspiracy against the Crown, passed the first of the acts which became known as the Recusancy laws. In addition to the penalties on reconciliation to Rome and the introduction of Bulls, fines and imprisonment were to be inflicted for hearing or saying mass, and fines upon lay recusants —that is to say, persons who refused to go to church. Catholics were from this time fre- quently subjected to torture to drive them to give information which would lead to the apprehension of the priests. Campion was arrested and executed after cruel torture ; Parsons escaped. If the Government and the Parliament did not see the whole of the causes of the Jesuit revival, they were not wrong in seeing that there was political danger. Campion was an enthusiast. Parsons was a cool-headed intriguer, and he continued from the Continent to direct the threads of a conspiracy which aimed at Elizabeth’s life. 21. Growing Danger of Elizabeth. 1580—1584. — Elizabeth was seldom startled, but her ministers were the more frightened because the power of Spain was growing. In 1580 Philip took possession of Portugal and the Portuguese colonies, whilst in the Netherlands Parma was steadily gaining ground. Elizabeth had long been nursing the idea of the Alengon marriage (see p. 446), and in 1581 it seemed as if she was in earnest about it. She enter- tained the Duke at Greenwich, gave him a kiss and a ring, then changing her mind sent him off to the Netherlands, where he hoped to be appointed by the Dutch to the sovereignty of the independent states. In the spring of 1582 a fanatic, Jaureguy, tried to murder the Prince of Orange at Philip’s instigation. Through the summer of that year Parsons and Allen were plotting with Philip and the Duke of Guise, for the assassination of Elizabeth, on the under- standing that as soon as Elizabeth had been killed. Guise was to send or lead an army to invade England. They hoped that such an army would receive assistance from Scotland, where the young James had become the tool of a Catholic intriguer whom he made 1583 SCOTLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS 455 Duke of Lennox. Philip, however, was too dilatory to succeed. In August James was seized by some Protestant Lords, and Lennox Hall of Burghley House, Northamptonshire, built about 1580; from Drummond’s H istories of Noble British Families, vol. i. was soon driven from the country. In 1583 there was a renewal of the danger. The foolish Alengon, wishing to carve out a princi- pality for himself, made a violent attack on Antwerp and other 456 ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1583-1585 Flemish towns which had allied themselves with him, and was consequently driven from the country ; whilst Parma, taking advantage of this split amongst his enemies, conquered most of the towns — Antwerp, however, being still able to resist. He now held part of the coast line, and a Spanish invasion of England from the Netherlands once more became feasible. In November 1583 a certain Francis Throgmorton, having been arrested and racked, made known to Elizabeth the whole story of the intended invasion of the army of Guise. In January 1584 she sent the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, out of England. On June 29 Balthazar Gerard assassinated the Prince of Orange. 22. The Association. 1584 — 1585. — Those who had planned the murder of the Prince of Orange were planning the murder of Elizabeth. In their eyes she was a usurper, who by main force held her subjects from all hope of salvation by keeping them in ignorance of the teaching of the true Church, and they accordingly drew the inference that it was lawful to murder her and to place Mary on her throne. They did not see that they had to do with a nation and not with a queen alone, and that, whether the nation was as yet Protestant or not, it was heart and soul with Elizabeth against assassins and invaders. In November 1584, at the instigation of the Council, the mass of Englishmen — irrespective of creed — bound themselves in an association not only to defend the Queen, but, in case of her murder, to put to death the person for whose sake the crime had been committed — or, in other words, to send Mary to the grave instead of to the throne. In 1585 this association, with con- siderable modifications, was confirmed by Parliament. At the same time an act was passed banishing all Jesuits and seminary priests, and directing that they should be put to death if they returned. 23. Growth of Philip’s Power. 1584 — 1585. — In the meantime Philip’s power was still growing. The wretched Alencon died in 1584, and a far distant cousin of the childless Henry HI,, Henry king of Navarre, who was a Huguenot, became heir to the French throne. Guise and the ardent Catholics formed themselves into a league to exclude Huguenots from the succession, and placed themselves under the direction of the king of Spain. A civil war broke out once more in 1585, and if the league should win (as at first seemed likely) Philip would be able to dispose of the resources of France in addition to his own. As Guise had now enough to do at home, Philip took the invasion of England into his own hands. He had first to extend his power in the Netherlands. In August the great port of Antwerp surrendered to Parma. The Dutch had SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 457 1586 offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign, and, though she had prudently refused, she sent an army to their aid, but neutralised the gift by placing the wretched Leicester at its head, and by giving him not a penny wherewith to pay his men. In 1586, after an attempt (after Alen^on’s fashion) to seize the government for himself, Leicester returned to England, having accomplished nothing. What Elizabeth did not do was done by a crowd of young Englishmen who pressed over to the Netherlands to fight as volun- teers for Dutch freedom. The best known of these was Sir Philip Sidney, whose head and heart alike seemed to qualify him for a foremost place amongst the new generation of Englishmen. Unhappily he was slain in battle near Zutphen. As he lay dying he handed a cup of water untasted to another wounded man. ‘ Thy necessity,’ he said to him, ‘ is greater than mine.’ Parma took Zutphen, and the territory of the Dutch Republic — the bulwark of England — was the smaller by its loss. By sea England more than held her own, and in 1586 Drake returned from a voyage to the West Indies laden with spoils. 24. Babington’s Plot, and the Trial of Mary Stuart. 1586. — The Spanish invasion being still delayed, a new plot for murdering Elizabeth was formed. A number of young Catholics (of whom Anthony Babington was the most prominent) had been allowed to remain at Court by Elizabeth, who was perfectly fearless. Acting under the instructions of a priest named Ballard, they now sought basely to take advantage of their easy access to her person to assas- sinate her. They were detected and executed, and Walsingham, the Secretary of State who conducted the detective department of the government, discovered, or said that he had discovered, evidence of Mary Stuart’s approving knowledge of the conspiracy. Elizabeth’s servants felt that there was but one way of saving the life of the queen, and that was by taking the life of her whose existence made it worth while to assassinate Elizabeth. Mary was brought to trial and condemned to death on a charge of complicity in Babington’s plot. When Parliament met it petitioned Elizabeth to execute the sentence. Elizabeth could not make up her mind. She knew that Mary’s execution would save herself and the country from enormous danger, but she shrank from ordering the deed to be done. She signed the warrant for Mary’s death, and then asked Mary’s gaoler Paulet to save her from responsibility by murdering his prisoner. On Paulet’s refusal she continued her vacillations, till the Council authorised Davison, Walsingham’s colleague in the Secretaryship, to send off the warrant without further orders. II. n n 458 ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1587-1588 25. Execution of Mary Stuart. 1587. — On February 8, 1587, Mary Stuart was beheaded at Fotheringhay. Elizabeth carried out to the last the part which she had assumed, threw the blame on Davison, dismissed him from her service, and fined him heavily. After Mary’s death the attack on England would have to be con- ducted in open day. It would be no advantage to Philip and the Pope that Elizabeth should be murdered if her place was to be taken, not by Mary, but by Mary’s Protestant son, James of Scotland. CHAPTER XXX ELIZABETH’S YEARS OF TRIUMPH. 1587— 1603 LEADING DATES Reign of Elizabeth, 1558—1603 Drake singes the King of Spain’s beard .... 1587 The defeat of the Armada 1588 The rising of O’Neill i594 The taking of Cadiz 1596 Essex arrives in Ireland i599 Mountjoy arrives in Ireland ....... 1600 The Monopolies withdrawn 1601 Conquest of Ireland, and death of Elizabeth . 1&03 1. The Singeing of the King of Spain’s Beard. 1587. — After Mary’s execution Philip claimed the crown of England for himself or his daughter the Infanta Isabella, on the plea that he was descended from a daughter of John of Gaunt, and prepared a great fleet in the Spanish and Portuguese harbours for the invasion of England. In attempting to overthrow Elizabeth he was eager not merely to suppress English Protestantism, but to put an end to Eng- lish smuggling and piracy in Spanish America, and to stop the assis- tance given by Englishmen to the Netherlanders who had rebelled against him. Before his fleet was ready to sail Drake appeared off his coast, running into his ports, burning his store-ships, and thus making an invasion impossible for that year (1587). Drake, as he said on his return, had singed the king of Spain’s beard. 2. The Approach of the Armada. 1588. — The Invincible Armada,^ as some foolish Spaniards called Philip’s great fleet, set 1 ‘ Armada ’ was the Spanish nanie for any armed fleet. THE SPANISH ARMADA 459 1588 out at last in 1588. It was to sail up the Channel to Flanders, and to transport Parma and his army to England. Parma’s soldiers were the best disciplined veterans in Europe, while Elizabeth’s were raw militia, who had never seen a shot fired in actual war. If, therefore, Parma succeeded in landing, it would probably go Sir Martin Frobisher, died 1594 : from a picture belonging to the Earl of Carlisle. hard with England. It was, therefore, in England’s interest to fight the Armada at sea rather than on land. 3. The Equipment of the Armada. 1588. — Even at sea the odds were in appearance against the English. The Spanish ships were not indeed so much larger than the largest English vessels as has often been said, but they were somewhat larger, and thev were 46 o EL2ZABETITS YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1588 built so as to rise much higher out of the water, and to carry a greater number of men. In fact, the superiority was all on the English side. In great military or naval struggles the superiority of the victor is usually a superiority of intelligence, which shows itself in the preparation of weapons as much as in conduct in action. The Spanish ships were prepared for a mode of warfare which had hitherto been customary. In such ships the soldiers were more numerous than the sailors, and the decks were raised high above the water, in order that the soldiers might command with their muskets the decks of smaller vessels at close quarters. The Spaniards, trusting to this method of fighting, had not troubled themselves to improve their marine artillery. The cannon of their largest ships were few, and the shot which they were capable of firing was light. Philip’s system of requiring absolute submission in Church and State had resulted in an uninventive frame of mind in those who carried out his orders. He had himself shown how little he cared for ability in his selection of an admiral for his fleet. That post having become vacant by the death of the best seaman in Spain, Philip ordered the Duke of Medina Sidonia to take his place. The Duke answered — with perfect truth— that he knew nothing about the sea and nothing about war ; but Philip, in spite of his candour, bade him go, and go he did. 4. The Equipment of the English Fleet. 1588. — Very different was the equipment of the English fleet. Composed partly of the queen’s ships, but mainly of volunteers from every port, it was commanded by Lord Howard of Effingham, a Catholic by convic- tion. The very presence of such a man was a token of a patriotic fervour of which Philip and the Jesuits had taken no account, but which made the great majority of Catholics draw their swords for their queen and country. With him were old sailors like Frobisher, who had made his way through the ice of Arctic seas, or like Drake, who had beaten Spaniards till they knew their own superi- ority. That superiority was based not merely on greater skill as sailors, but on the possession of better ships. English ship- builders had adopted an improved style of naval architecture, hav- ing constructed vessels which would sail faster and be more easily handled than those of the older fashion, and — what was of still greater importance — had built them so as to carry more and heavier cannon. Hence, the English fleet, on board of which the number of sailors exceeded that of the soldiers, was in reality — if only it could avoid fighting at close quarters — far superior to that of the enemy, THE ARMAEfA W THE CHANNEL 461 IS88 462 ELIZABETH'S YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1588 5. The Defeat of the Armada. 1588. — When the Armada was sighted at the mouth of the Channel, the English commander was playing bowls with his captains on Plymouth Hoe. Drake refused to break off his amusement, saying that there was time to finish the game and to beat the Spaniards too. The wind was blowing strongly from the south-west, and he recommended Lord Howard to let the Spaniards pass, that the English fleet might follow them up with the wind behind it. When once they had gone by they were at the mercy of their English pursuers, who kept out of their way whenever the Spaniards turned in pursuit. The superiority of the English gunnery soon told, and, after losing ships in the voyage up the Channel, the Armada put into Calais. The English captains sent in fire-ships and drove the Spaniards out. Then came a fight off Gravelines — if fight it could be called — in which the helpless mass of the Armada was riddled with English shot. The wind rose into a storm, and pursuers and pursued were driven on past the coast of Flanders, where Parma’s soldiers were blockaded by a Dutch fleet. Parma had hoped that the Armada when it came would set him free, and convoy him across to England. As he saw the tall ships of Spain hurrying past before the enemy and the storm, he learnt that the enterprise on which he had set his heart could never be carried out. 6. The Destruction of the Armada. 1588. — The Spanish fleet was driven northwards without hope of return, and narrowly escaped wreck on the flats of Holland. “ There was never anything pleased me better,” wrote Drake, as he followed hard, “ than seeing the enemy flying with a southerly wind to the northwards. . . . With the grace of God, if we live, I doubt not, ere it be long, so to handle the matter with the Duke of Sidonia as he shall wish himself at St. Mary Port^ amongst his orange trees.” Before long even Drake had had enough. Elizabeth, having with her usual economy kept the ships short of powder, they were forced to come back. The Spaniards had been too roughly handled to return home by the way they came. Round the north of Scotland and the west of Ireland they went, strewing the coast with wrecks. About 120 of their ships had entered the Channel, but only 54 returned. “ I sent you,” said Philip to his admiral, “ to fight against men, and not with the winds.” Elizabeth, too, credited the storms with her success. She struck a medal with the inscription, “ God blew with his wind and they were scattered.” The winds had done their 1 A place near Cadiz where the Duke’s residence w^as. 5^8 S/I^ WALTER RALEIGH 463 Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) and his eldest son Walter, at the age of eight : from a picture, dated 1602, belonging to Sir J. F. Lennard, Bart. 4^4 £UZaB£TITS YEABB OP TRIUMPH 15^8-1596 part, but the victory was mainly due to the seamanship of English mariners and the skill of English shipwrights. 7. Philip II. and France. 1588 — 1593. — Philip’s hopes of con- trolling France were before long baffled as completely as his hopes of controlling England. In 1588 Guise, the partisan of Spain, was murdered at Blois by the order of the king in his very presence. In 1589 Henry III. was murdered in revenge by a fanatic, and the Huguenot king of Navarre claimed the crown as Henry IV. The League declared that no Huguenot should reign in France. A struggle ensued, and twice when Henry seemed to be gaining the upper hand Philip sent Parma to aid the League. The feeling of the French people was against a Huguenot king, but it was also against Spanish interference. When in 1593 Henry IV. declared himself a Catholic, Paris cheerfully submitted to him, and its example was speedily followed by the rest of France. Elizabeth saw in Henry IV. a king whose position as a national sovereign re- sisting Spanish interference much resembled her own, and in 1589 and again in 1591 she sent him men and money. A close alliance against Spain sprang up between France and England. 8. Maritime Enterprises. 1589 — 1596. — It was chiefly at sea, however, that Englishmen revenged themselves for the attack of the Armada. In 1592 Drake and Sir John Norris sacked Corunna but failed to take Lisbon. Other less notable sailors plundered and destroyed in the West Indies. In 1595 Drake died at sea- In the same year Sir Walter Raleigh, who was alike distinguished as a courtier, a soldier, and a sailor, sailed up the Orinoco in search of wealth. In 1596 Raleigh, together with Lord Howard of Efflngham and the young Earl of Essex, who was in high favour with the Queen, took and sacked Cadiz. Essex was generous and impetuous, but intensely vain, and the victory was followed by a squabble between the commanders as to their respective merits. 9. Increasing Prosperity. — It was not so much the victories as the energy which made the victories possible that diffused wealth and prosperity over England. Trade grew together with piracy and war. Manufactures increased, and the manufacturers growing in numbers needed to be fed. Landed proprietors, in consequence, found it profitable to grow corn instead of turning their arable lands into pasture, as they had done at the beginning of the century. The complaints about inclosures (see pp. 368, 415) died away. The results of wealth appeared in the show and splendour of the court, where men decked themselves in gorgeous attire, but still more in the gradual rise of the general standard of comfort. 1588-1596 mckEASE OE COMEOkT 46s 10. Buildings. — Even in Mary’s days the good food of English- men had been the wonder of foreigners. “ These English,” said a Spaniard, “ have their houses of sticks and dirt, but they fare com- monly as well as the king.” In Elizabeth’s time the houses were improved. Many windows, which had, except in the houses of the great, been guarded with horn or lattice, were now glazed, and even in the man- sions of the nobility large windows stood in striking contrast with the narrow open- ings of the build- ings of the middle ages. Glass was wel- come, because men no longer lived — as they had lived in the days when internal wars were frequent — in fortified castles, where, for the sake of defence, the open- ings were narrow and infrequent. Elizabe- than manor-houses, as they are now termed, sometimes built in the shape of the letter E, in honour, as is some- times supposed, of the Queen’s name, rose all over the country to take the place of the old castles. They had chimneys to carry off the smoke, which, in former days, had, in all but the largest houses, been allowed to escape through a hole in the roof. See pp. 466, 467, 469-471. 11. Furniture. — The furniture within the houses underwent a change as great as the houses themselves. When Elizabeth came to the throne people of the middle class were content to lie on a straw pallet, with a log of wood, or at the best a bag of chaff, under their heads. It was a common saying that pillows were fit only A mounted soldier at the end of the sixteenth century; from a broadside printed in 1596. 466 BLIZaBETWS VEAkS OF TRIUMPH 1580-1588 Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire ; built by Thorpe for Sir Francis Willoughby about 1580-1588. 1597 ELIZABETHAN ARCHITECTURE 467 Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire ; built by Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, about 1597. 4 ^^ ELiZABBTirS YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1580-1583 for sick women. Before many years had passed comfortable bedding had been introduced. Pewter platters and tin spoons re- placed wooden ones. Along with these improvements was noticed a universal chase after wealth, and farmers complained that landlords not only exacted higher rents, but themselves engaged in the sale of the produce of their lands. 12. Growing Strength of the House of Commons. — This in- crease of general prosperity could not but strengthen the House of Commons. It was mainly composed of country gentlemen, and it had been the policy of the Tudors to rely upon that class as a counterpoise to the old nobility. Many of the country gentlemen were employed as Justices of the Peace, and Elizabeth had gladly increased their powers. When, therefore, they came to fulfil their duties as members of Parliament, they were not mere talkers unac- quainted wdth business, but practical men, who had been used to deal with their own local affairs before being called on to discuss the affairs of the country. Various causes made their opinions more important as the reign went on. In the first place, the national uprising against Spain drew with it a rapid increase of Protestantism in the younger generation, and, for this reason, the House of Commons, which, at the beginning of the reign, represented only a Protestant minority in the nation itself (see p. 428), at the end of the reign represented a Protestant majority, and gained strength in consequence. In the secpnd place, Puritanism tended to de- velope independence of character, whilst the queen was not only unable to overawe the Puritan members of the House, but, unlike her father, had no means of keeping the more worldly-minded in submission by the distribution of abbey lands. 13. Archbishop Whitgift and the Court of High Commission. 1583. — The Jesuit attack in 1580 and 1581 strengthened the queen’s resolution to put an end to the divisions which weakened the English Church, as she was still afraid lest Puritanism, if un- checked, might give offence to her more moderately-minded subjects and drive them into the arms of the Papacy. In 1583, on Grindal’s death, she appointed to the Archbishopric of Canterbury WTiitgift, who had taken a leading part in opposing CartwTight (see p. 446). WTiitgift held that as questions about vestments and ceremonies were unimportant, the queen’s pleasure in such matters ought to be the rule of the Church. He was, however, a strict disciplinarian, and he was as anxious as the queen to force into conformity those clergy who broke the unity of the Church for the sake of what he regarded as mere crotchets of their owm, especially i6oi ELIZABETHAN ARCHITECTURE 469 L. E-shaped house, Beaudesert, Stafiordshire ; built by Thomas, Lord Paget, about 1601. 470 ELIZABETHS YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1584-1588 as some of them were violent assailants of the established order. In virtue of a clause in the Act of Supremacy, passed in 1559, the queen had in that year erected a Court of High Commission. Though many laymen were members of this court, they seldom attended its sittings, and it was practically managed by bishops and ecclesiastical lawyers. Its business was to enforce conformity on the clergy, and now under Whitgift it acted most energetically, sitting permanently, and driving from their livings and committing to prison clergymen who refused to conform. 14. The House of Commons and Puritanism. 1584. — The severity of the High Commission roused some of the Puritan clergy to attempt — in private meetings — to bring into existence something of the system of Presbyterianism, but the attempt was soon aban- doned. Few amongst the Protestant laity had any liking for Presbyterianism, which they regarded as oppressive and intolerant, and it had no deep roots even amongst the Puritan clergy. If many members of the House of Commons were attracted to Puritanism, as opposed to Presbyterianism, it was partly because at the time of a national struggle against Rome, they preferred those amongst the clergy whose views were most antagonistic to those of Rome ; but still more because they admired the Puritans as defenders of morality. Not only were the Church courts op- pressive and meddlesome, but plain men were disgusted at a system in which ignorant and lazy ministers who conformed to the Prayer Book were left untouched, whilst able and energetic preachers who refused to adopt its ceremonies were silenced. 15. The Separatists. — The desire for a higher standard of morality, which made so many support the Puritan demand for a further reformation of the Church, drove others to denounce the Church as apostate. Robert Browne, a clergyman, was the firrt to declare in favour of a system which was neither Episcopal nor Presbyterian. He held it to be the duty of all true Christians to separate themselves from the Church, and to form congregations apart, to which only those whose religion and morality were beyond (question should be admitted. These separatists, as they called themselves, were known as Brownists in common speech. Un- fortunately their zeal made them uncharitably contemptuous of those who were less zealous than themselves, and it was from amongst them that there came forth — beginning in 1588 — a series of virulent and libellous attacks on the bishops, known as the Mar- prelate Tracts, printed anonymously at a secret press. Browne and his followers advocated complete religious liberty — denying the right of the State to interfere with the conscience. The doctrine ELIZABETHAN ARCHITECTURE 471 1601 Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire ; 472 ELIZABETH'S YEATS OF TRIUMPH 1588-1593 was too advanced for general acceptance, and the violence of the Marprelate Tracts gave offence even to the Puritans. Englishmen might differ as to what sort of church the national church should be, but almost all were as yet agreed that there ought to be one national church and not a number of disconnected sects. In 1593 an act of Parliament was passed imposing punishment on those who attended conventicles or private religious assemblies, and in the course of the year three of the leading separatists — Barrow, Greenwood, and Penry — were hanged, on charges of sedition. 16. Whitgift and Hooker. — The Church of England would certainly not have sustained itself against the Puritans unless it had found a champion of a higher order than Whitgift. Whitgift maintained its organisation, but he did no more. Cranmer, at the beginning of the Reformation, had declared the Bible as interpreted by the writers of the first six centuries to be the test of doctrine, but this assertion had been met during the greater part of Eliza- beth’s reign, on the one hand by the Catholics, who asserted that the Church of the first six centuries differed much from the Church of England of their day, and on the other hand by the Puritans, who asserted that the testimony of the first six centuries was irrelevant, and that the Bible alone was to be con- sulted. Whitgift had called both parties to obedience, on the ground that they ought to submit to the queen in indifferent matters. Hooker in the opening of his Ecclesiastical Polity called the Puritans to peace. “ This unhappy controversy,” he declared, “ about the received ceremonies and discipline of the Church of England, which hath so long time withdrawn so many of her ministers from their principal work and employed their studies in contentious opposi- tions, hath, by the unnatural growth and dangerous fruits thereof, made known to the world that it never received blessing from the Father of peace.” Hooker’s teaching was distinguished by the importance which he assigned to ‘law,’ as against the blind acceptance of Papal decisions on the one side and against the Puritan reverence for the letter of the scriptures on the other. The Puritans were wrong, as he taught, not because they disobeyed the queen, but because they did not recognise that God revealed Himself in the natural laws of the world as well as in the letter of Scripture. “ Of law,” he wrote, “ there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world : all things in heaven and earth do her homage — the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power : both angels and men and creatures of what condition ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 473 1588-1603 soever — though each in different sort and manner, yet all with universal consent — admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.” It was therefore unnecessary, according to Hooker’s teaching, to defend certain usages on the ground of their sanction by tradi- tion or by Papal authority, as it was unreasonable to attack them on the ground that they were not mentioned in Scripture. It was sufficient that they were fitting expressions of the feelings of reverence which had been implanted by God in human nature itself. Coaches in the reign of Elizabeth ; from A rchaologia 17. Spenser, Shakspere, and Bacon. — With the stately periods of Hooker English prose entered on a new stage. For the first time it sought to charm and to invigorate, as well as to inform the world. In Spenser and Shakspere are to be discerned the same influences as those which made Hooker great. They, too, are filled with reverence for the reign of law. Spenser, in his Faerie Queen^ set forth the greatness of man in following the laws which «■ H 474 ELIZABETH'S YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1588-1603 rule the moral world — the laws of purity and temperance and justice ; whilst Shakspere, in the plays which he now began to pour forth, taught them to recognise the penalties which follow hard on him who disregards not only the moral but also the physical laws of the world in which he lives, and to appraise the worth of William ShaKsperc ; irom the bust on his tomb at Stratford-on-Avon. man by what he is and not by the dogmas which he accepts. That nothing might be wanting to point out the ways in which future generations were to walk, young Francis Bacon began to dream of a larger science than had hitherto been possible — a science based on a reverent inquiry into the laws of nature, IS95-I599 aNEILUS RISING 475 1 8. Condition of the Catholics. 1588 — 1603. — Bacon cared for many matters, and one of his earliest recommendations to Eliza- beth had been to make a distinction between the Catholics who would take an oath to defend her against all enemies and those who would not. The patriotism with which many Catholics had taken her side when the Armada appeared ought to have procured the acceptance of this proposal. It is seldom, however, that either men or nations change their ways till long after the time when they ought to change them. Spain and the Pope still threatened, and all Catholics were still treated as allies of Spain and the Pope, and the laws against them were made even more severe during the remainder of the reign. 19. Irish Difficulties. 1583 — 1594. — The dread of a renewal of a Spanish invasion was productive of even greater mischief in Ireland than in England. After the suppression of the Desmond insurrection, an attempt was made to colonise the desolate lands of Munster (see p. 453) with English. The attempt failed, chiefly because — though courtiers willingly accepted large grants of lands — English farmers refused to go to Ireland in sufficient numbers to till the soil. On the other hand. Irishmen enough reappeared to claim their old lands, to rob, and sometimes murder, the few settlers who came from England. The settlers retaliated by acts of violence. All over Ireland the soldiers, left without pay, spoiled and maltreated the unfortunate inhabitants. The Irish, exasperated by theii cruelty, longed for someone to take up their cause, and in 1594 a rising in Ulster was headed by Hugh O’Neill, known in England as the Earl of Tyrone. How bitter the Irish feeling was against England is shown by the fact that the other Ulster chiefs, who usually quarrelled with one another, now placed themselves under O’Neill. 20. O’Neill and the Earl of Essex. 1595 — 1600. — In 1595 O’Neill applied to the king of Spain for help ; but Spain was weaker now than in former years, and though Philip promised help, he died in 1598 without fulfilling his engagement, being succeeded by his son, Philip III. In the same year O’Neill utterly defeated an English army under Bagenal on the Blackwater. All Celtic Ireland rose in his support, and in 1599 Elizabeth sent her favourite, Essex, to conquer Ireland in good earnest, lest it should fall into the hands of the king of Spain. Essex, through mismanagement, failed entirely, and after a great part of his army had melted away he came back to England without leave. On his arrival, knowing Elizabeth’s fondpess for him, he hoped to surprise her into forgiye- 476 ELIZA BE TITS YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1599-1600 ness of his disobedience, and rushed into Elizabeth’s presence in his muddy and travel-stained clothes. 21. Essex’s Imprisonment and Execution. 1599 — 1601. — The queen, who was * not accustomed to allow even her favourites to run away from their posts without permission, ordered him into confinement. In 1600, indeed, she restored him to liberty, but forbade him to come to court. Essex could not brook the dis- Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, K.G ; 1567-1601 : from a painting by Van Somer, dated 1599, belonging to the Earl of Essex. grace, especially as the queen made him suffer in his pocket for his misconduct. As she had little money to give away, Elizabeth was in the habit of rewarding her courtiers by grants of monopoly— that is to say, of the sole right of selling certain articles, thus enabling them to make a profit by asking a higher price than they could have got if they had been subjected to competition. To Essejs she had given a monopoly of sweet wines for a term of i6oo-i6o3 THE MONOPOLIES 477 years, and now that the term was at an end she refused to renew the grant. Early in i6oi Essex — professing not to want to injure the queen, but merely to force her to change her ministers— rode Queen Elizabeth, 1558-1603 : from a painting belonging to the University of Cambiidge. ac the head of a few followers Into the City, calling on the citizens to rise in his favour. He was promptly arrested, and in the course of the enquiries made into his conduct it was discovered that when 478 ELIZABETH'S YEARS OF TRIUMPH i6ol he was in Ireland he had entered into treasonable negotiations with James VI. At his trial, Bacon, who had been most kindly treated by Essex, shocked at the disclosure of these traitorous proceedings, turned against him, and, as a lawyer, argued strongly that he had been guilty The Eail was convicted and executed. 22. Mountjoy’s Conquest of Ireland. 1600 — 1603. — In i600j after Essex had deserted Ireland, Lord Mountjoy was sent to take his place. He completed the conquest systematically, building forts as places of retreat for his soldiers whenever they were attacked by overwhelming numbers, and from which he could send out flying columns to devastate the country after the enemy had retreated. In 1601 a Spanish fleet and a small Spanish army at last arrived to the help of the Irish, and seized Kinsale. The English forces hemmed them in, defeated the Irish army which came to their support, and compelled the Spaniards to withdraw. The horrid work of conquering Ireland by starvation was carried to the end. “ No spectacle,” wrote Mountjoy’s English secretary, “ was more frequent in the ditches of the towns, and especially in wasted countries, than to see multitudes of these poor people dead, with their mouths all coloured green by eating nettles, docks, and all things they could rend up above ground.” In one place a band of women enticed little children to come among them, and murdered them for food. At last, m 1603, O’Neill submitted. Ireland had been conquered by England as it had never been conquered before. 23. Parliament and the Monopolies. 1601. — The conquest of Ireland was expensive and in 1601 Elizabeth summoned Parliament to ask for supplies. The House of Commons voted the money cheerfully, but raised an outcry against the monopolies. Elizabeth knew when to give way, and she announced her intention of can- celling all monopolies which could be shown to be burdensome. “ I have more cause to thank you all than you me,” she said to the Commons when they waited on her to express their gratitude; “for had I not received a knowledge from you, I might have fallen into the lap of an error, only for lack of true information. I have ever used to set the last judgment-day before mine eyes, and so to rule as I shall be judged to answer before a higher Judge — to whose judgment-seat I do appeal, that never thought was cherished in my heart that tended not to my people’s good. Though you have had, and may have, many princes, more mighty and wise, sitting in this seat, yet you never had, or ever shall have, any that will be more careful and loving.” t6o!-l603 Tiik WORK OF kLIZABkTH 24. The Last Days of Elizabeth. 1601 — 1603. — These were the last words spoken by Elizabeth to her people. She had many faults, but she cared for England, and, more than any one else, she had made England united and prosperous. She had found it distracted, but by her moderation she had staved off civil war, till the country had rallied round the throne. No doubt those who worked most hard towards this great end were men like Burghley William Cecil, Lord Burghley, K.G., 1520-1598 : from a painting in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. and Walsingham in the State, and men like Drake and Raleigh at sea ; but it was Elizabeth who, being what she was, had given to each his opportunity. If either Edward VI. or Mary had been in her place, such men would have found no sphere in which their work could have been done, and, instead of telling of ‘ the spacious times of great Elizabeth,’ the historian would have had to narrate the progress of civil strife and of the mutual conflict of ever-narrowing creeds. The last days of the great queen were gloomy, as far as Math ot MizaBeTH 4§0 she was personally concerned. Burghley, the wisest of het ministers, died in 1598. In his last days he had urged the queen to bring to an end the war with Spain, which no longer served any useful purpose ; and when Essex pleaded for its continuance, the aged statesman opened the Bible at the text, “ Bloody and deceit- ful men shall not live out half their days.” In 1603 Elizabeth her- self died at the age of sixty-nine. According to law, the heir to the crown was William Seymour, who, being the son of the Earl of Hertford and Lady Catherine Grey, inherited the claims of the Suffolk line (see pp. 41 1, 435). There were, how'ever, doubts about his legitimacy, as, though his parents had been married in due form, the ceremony had taken place in private, and it was believed by many that it had never taken place at all. Elizabeth had always refused to allow her heir to be designated ; but as death approached she indicated her preference for James, as having claim to the inheritance by descent from her own eldest aunt, Margaret (see p. 411). “ My seat,” she said, “ hath been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascal to succeed me,” “And who,” she added. “ should that be but our cousin of Scotland ? ” Books recommended for further study of Part V , Brewer, J. S. The Reign of Henry VIII. from his Accession to the Death of Wolsey. Dixon, Canon R. W. History of the Church of England from the Abolition of the Roman Jurisdiction. Froude, J. a. History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vols. v.-xii. Motley, J. L. The Rise of the Dutch Republic. The History of the United Netherlands. Mullinger, j. B. History of the University of Cambridge, Vol. ii. Strype, J. Annals of the Reformation. Life and Acts of Aylmer. ,, ,, Grindal. ,, ,, Whitgift. Nicolas, Sir W. H. Life of Sir C. Hatton. ,, W, Davison. Shedding, T. Letters and Life of Francis Bacon. Vol. i.-iii. p. 58. Edwards, E. The Life of Sir W. Raleigh. Fisher, H. A. L. The Political History of England. Vol. v. From the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of Henry \ III. {1485- POLLARD, A. F. The Political History of England. Vol. vi. From the Accession of Edward VI. to the Death of Elizabeth {i547“ 1603). 4^1 PART VI THE PURITAN REVOLUTION. 1603—1660 CHAPTER XXXI JAMES I. 1603—1625 LEADING DATES Accession of James I . 1603 The Hampton Court Conference 1604 Gunpowder Plot 1605 Foundation of Virginia ...... 1607 The Great Contract 1610 Beginning of the Thirty Years’ War .... 1618 Foundation of New England 1620 Condemnation of the Monopolies and fall of Bacon , 1621 Prince Charles’s visit to Madrid 1623 Breach with Spain 1624 Death of James 1 1625 1. The Peace with Spain. 1603—1604. — At the end of Elizabeth’s reign there had been much talk of various claimants to the throne, but when she died no one thought seriously of any one but James. The new king at once put an end to the war' with Spain, though no actual treaty of peace was signed till 1604. James gave his confidence to Sir Robert Cecil, Lord Burghley’s second son, whom he continued in the office of Secretary of State, which had been conferred on him by Elizabeth. The leader of the war-party was Raleigh, who was first dismissed from his offices and afterwards accused of treason, on the charge of having invited the Spaniards to invade England. It is most unlikely that the charge was true, but as Raleigh was angry at his dismissal, he may have spoken rashly. He was condemned to death, but James commuted the sentence to imprisonment. 2. The Hampton Court Conference. 1604. — The most im- portant question which James had to decide on his accession was 4§i /AMMS L ido3-t6o4 that of religious toleration. Many of the Puritan clergy signed a petition to him known as the Millenary Petition, because it was intended to be signed by a thousand ministers. A conference was held on January 14, 1604, in the king’s presence at Hampton Court, in which some of the bishops took part, as well as a deputation of Puritan ministers who were permitted to argue in favour of the demands put forward in the petition. The Puritan Clergy had by this time abandoned Cartwright’s Presbyterian ideas (see p. 446) and merely asked that those who thought it wrong to wear surplices and to use certain other ceremonies might be excused from doing so, without breaking away from the national, church. James listened quietly to them, till one of them used the word Presbytery. He at once flew into a passion. “A Scottish Presbytery,” he said, “agreeth as well with a monarchy as God with the devil. Then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet, and at their pleasures cen- sure me and my council. . . . Until you find that I grow lazy — let that alone.” J ames ordered them to conform or to leave the ministry. He adopted the motto, “No bishop, no king!” Like Elizabeth, he used the bishops to keep the clergy from gaining power independent of the Crown. The bishops were delighted, and one of them said that ‘ his Majesty spoke by the inspiration of God.’ 3. James and the House of Commons. — In 1604 Parliament met. The members of the House of Commons had no more wish than James to overthrow the bishops, but they thought that able and pious ministers should be allowed to preach even if they would not wear surplices, and they were dis- satisfied with the king’s decision at Hampton Court. On the other hand, James was anxious to obtain their consent to a union with Scotland, which the Commons disliked, partly because the king had brought many Scotsmen with him, and had supplied them with English lands and money. Financial difficulties also arose, and the session ended in a quarrel between the king and the House of Commons. Before the year was over he had deprived of their livings many of the clergy who refused to conform. Royal Arms borne by James I. and succeeding Stuart sovereigns. GUNPOWDER PLOT 1605-1607 483 4. Gunpowder Plot. 1604 — 1605. — Not only the Puritans, but the Catholics as Well^ had appealed to James for toleration. In the first year of his reiigh he remitted the recusancy fines (see p. 454). As might be expected, the number of recusants increased, pro- bably because many t^lio had attended church to avoid paying fines stayed away as sobh as the fines ceased to be required. James took alarm, artel irt February 1604 banished the priests from Londort. On tllis, a Catholic named Robert Catesby proposed to a few of his flriends a plot to blow up king. Lords, and Commons with gunpdwder at the opening of Parliament. The king had two sons, Henry and Charles, and a little daughter, Ebzabeth, Catesby, expecting that the two princes would be destroyed with their father, intended to make Elizabeth queen, and to take care that she was brought up as a Roman Catholic. Guy Fawkes, a cool soldier, was sent for from Fkhders to manage the scheme. The plotters took a house next to the House of Lords, and began to dig through the wall to enable them to carry the powder into the base- ment. The wall, however, was nine feet thick, and they, being little used to mason’s work, made but little way. In the spring of 1605 James increased the exasperation of the plotters by re-imposing the recusancy fines on the Catholic laity. Soon afterwards their task was made more easy by the discovery that a coal-cellar reaching under the floor of the House of Lords was to be let. One of their number hired the cellar, and introduced into it barrels of powder, covering them with coals and billets of wood. Parliament was to be opened for its second session on November 5, and in the pre- ceding evening Fawkes went to the cellar with a lantern, ready to fire the train in the morning. One of the plotters, however, had betrayed the secret. FaNvkes was seized, and his companions were pursued. All the conspirators who were taken alive were executed, and the persecution of the Catholics grew hotter than before. 5. The Post-nati. 1606 — 1608.— When another session opened in 1606 James repeated his efforts to induce the Commons to do something for the union with Scotland. He wanted them to esta- blish free trade between the countries, and to naturalise his Scottish subjects in England. Finding that he could obtain neither of his wishes from Parliament, he obtained from the judges a decision that all his Scottish subjects born after his accession in England— the Post-nati^ as they were called — were legally natu- ralised, and were thus capable of holding land in England. He had to give up all hope of obtaining freedom of trade. 6. Irish Difficulties. 1603 — 1610.— James was the first English 4^4 JaM&S i. i6o3-i6io so.vereign who was the master of the whole of Ireland. He tried tb win the affection of the tribes by giving them the protection of English law against the exactions of their chiefs. Naturally, the chiefs resented the change, while the tribesmen distrusted the interference of Englishmen from whom they had suffered so much. In 1607 the chiefs of the Ulster tribes of O’Neill and O’Donnell—' known in England as the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell — seeing resistance hopeless, fled to Spain. James ignored the Irish doctrine that the land belonged to the tribe, and confiscated six counties as if they had been the property of the chiefs, according to the feudal principles of English law. He then poured in English and Scottish colonists, leaving to the natives only the leavings to live on. 7. Bate’s Case and the New Impositions. 1606 — 1608. — The state of James’s finances was almost hopeless. Elizabeth, stingy as she was, had scarcely succeeded in making both ends meet, and James, who had the expense of providing for a family, from which Elizabeth had been free, would hardly have been able to meet his expenditure even if he had been economical. He was, however, far from economical, and had given away lands and money to his Scottish favourites. There was, therefore, a large deficit, and James wanted all the money he could get. In 1606 a merchant named Bate challenged his right to levy an imposition on currants, which had already been levied by Elizabeth. The Court of Exchequer, however, decided that the king had the right of levying impositions — that is to say, duties raised by the sole authority of the king— without a grant from Parliament — holding that the Vonfirmatio Cartarum (see p. 221), to which Bate’s counsel appealed, only restricted that right in a very few cases. Whether the argument of the judges was right or wrong, they were the constitutional exponents of the law, and when Cecil (who had been James’s chief minister from the beginning of the reign, and was created Earl of Salisbury in 1605) was made Lord Treasurer as well as Secretary in 1608, he at once levied new impositions to the amount of about 70,000/. a year, on the plea that more money was needed in. consequence of the troubles in Ireland. 8. The Great Contract. 1610— 1611.— Even the new imposi- tions did not fill up the deficit, and Parliament was summoned in 1610 to meet the difficulty. It entered into a bargain — the Great Contract, as it was called — by which, on receiving 200,000/. a year, James was to abandon certain antiquated feudal dues, such as those of wardship and marriage (see p. 116). An agreement was also come to on the impositions. James voluntarily remitted the i6o5-i6ii HATFIELD HOUSE 485 JAMES /. 486 1601-1614 most burdensome to the amount of 20,000/. a year, and the House of Commons agreed to grant him the remainder on his passing an Act declaring illegal all further levy of impositions without a Parliamentary grant. Unfortunately, before the details of the Great Contract were finally settled, fresh disputes arose, and early in 1611, James dissolved his first Parliament in anger without settling anything either about the feudal dues or about the im- positions. 9. Bacon and Somerset. 1612 — 1613. — In 1612 Salisbury died, and Bacon, always ready with good advice, recommended James to abandon Salisbury’s policy of bargaining with the Commons. Bacon was a warm supporter of monarchy, because he was anxious for reforms, and he believed that reforms were more likely to come from the king and his Council than from a House of’ Commons — which was mainly composed of country gentlemen, with little knowledge of affairs of State. Bacon, however, knew what were the conditions under which alone a monarchical system could be maintained, and reminded James that king and Parliament were members of one body, with common interests, and that he could only expect the Commons to grant supplies if he stepped forward as their leader by setting forth a policy which would commend itself to them. James had no idea of leading, and, instead of taking Bacon’s advice, resolved to do as long as he could with- out a Parliament. A few years before he had taken a fancy to a handsome young Scot named P^obert Carr, thinking that Carr would be not only a boon companion, but also an instrument to carry out his orders, and relieve him from the trouble of dispensing patronage. He enriched Carr in various ways, especially by giving him the estate of Sherborne, which he took from Raleigh on the ground of a flaw in the title — though he made Raleigh some compensation for his loss. In 1613 he married Carr to Lady Essex, who had been divorced from her husband under very disgraceful circumstances, and created him Earl of Somerset. Somerset was brought by this marriage into connection with the family of the Howards — his wife’s father, the Earl of Suffolk, being a Howard. As the Howards were for the most part Roman Catholics at heart, if not openly, Somerset’s influence was henceforth used in opposi- tion to the Protestant aims which had found favour in the House of Commons. 10. The Addled Parliament. 1614. — In spite of Somerset and the Howards, James’s want of money drove him, in 1614, to call ^pother Parliament. Instead of following Bacon’s advice that J]e THE UNDERTAKERS 1614 487 should win popularity by useful legislative projects, he tried first to secure its submission by encouraging persons who were known as the Undertakers because they undertook that candidates who supported the king’s interests should be returned. When this failed, he again tried, as he had tried under Salisbur/s influence An unknown gentleman : from a painting belonging to T. A. Hope, Esq. in 1610, to enter into a bargain with the Commons. The Commons, however, replied by asking him to abandon the impositions and to restore the nonconforming clergy ejected in 1604 (see p. 482). On this James dissolved Parliament. As it granted no supplies, and passed no act, it became known as the Addled Parliament. JAMES I. 1614-1618 11. The Spanish Alliance. 1614 — 1617. — James was always anxious to be the peacemaker of Europe, being wnse enough to see that the religious wars which had long been devastating the Conti- nent might be brought to an end if only the contending parties would be more tolerant. It was partly in the hope of gaining influence to enable him to carry out his pacificatory policy that he aimed, early in his reign, at marrying his children into influential families on the Continent. In 1613 he gave his daughter Eliza- beth to Frederick V., Elector Palatine, who was the leader of the German Calvinists, and he had long before projected a marriage between his eldest son, Prince Henry, and a Spanish Infanta. Prince Henry, however, died in 1612, and, though James’s only surviving son, Charles, was still young, there had been a talk of marrying him to a French princess. The breaking-up of the Par- liament of 1614 left James in great want of money ; and, as he had reason to believe that Spain would give a much larger portion than would be given with a French princess, he became keenly eager to marry his son to the Infanta Maria, the daughter of Philip 1 1 1 . of Spain. N egotiations with this object were not formally opened till 1617, and in 1618 James learnt that the marriage could not take place unless he engaged to give religious liberty to the English Roman Catholics. He then offered to write a letter to the king of.Spain, promising to relieve the Roman Catholics as long as they gave no offence, but Philip insisted on a more binding and permanent engagement, and, on James’s refusal to do more than he had offered to do, Gondomar, the very able Spanish ambassador who had hitherto kept James in good humour, was withdrawn from England, and the negotiation was, for the time, allowed to drop. 12. The rise of Buckingham. 1615 — 1618. — In 1615 Somerset and his wife were accused of poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury. There can be no doubt that the Countess was guilty, but it is less certain what Somerset’s own part in the matter was. In 1616 they were both found guilty, and, though James spared their lives, he never saw either of them again. He had already found a new favourite in George Villiers, a handsome youth who could dance and ride gracefully, and could entertain the king with lively con- versation. The opponents of the Spanish alliance had supported Villiers against Somerset, but they soon found that Villiers was ready to throw himself on the side of Spain as soon as he found that it Avould please the king. James gav^e him large estates, and rapidly advanced him in the peerage, till, in 1618, he created him Marquis of Buckingham. He ^Iso made him Lord Admiral in the i6i7-i6i8 RALEIGH'S VOYAGE TO GUIANA 489 hope that he would improve the navy, and allowed all the patronage of England to pass through his hands. Statesmen and lawyers had to bow down to Buckingham if they wished to rise. No wonder the young man felt as if the nation was at his feet, and gave him- self airs which disgusted all who wished to preserve independence of character. 13. The Voyage and Execution of Raleigh. 1617 — 1618. — In 1617 Raleigh, having been liberated through Buckingham’s influ- ence, sailed for the Orinoco in search of a gold-mine, of which he had heard in an earlier voyage in Elizabeth’s reign (see p. 464). He engaged, before he sailed, not to touch the land of the king of Spain, and James let him know that, if he broke his promise, he would lose his head. It was, indeed, difficult to say where the lands of the king of Spain began or ended, but James left the burden of proving this on Raleigh ; whilst Raleigh, imagining that if only he could find gold he would not be held to his promise, sent his men up the river, without distinct orders to avoid fighting. They attacked and burnt a Spanish village, but never reached the mine. Heart-broken at their failure, Raleigh proposed to lie in wait for the Spanish treasure-ships, and, on the refusal of his captains to follow him in piracy, returned to England with nothing in his hands. James sent him to the scaffold for a fault which he should never have been given the chance of committing. Raleigh was the last of the Elizabethan heroes — a many-sided man : soldier, sailor, statesman, historian, and poet. He was as firmly convinced as Drake had been that there was no peace in American waters, and that to rob and plunder Spaniards in time of peace was in itself a virtue. James’s unwise attempt to form a close alliance with Spain made Raleigh a popular hero. 14. Colonisation of Virginia and New England. 1607 — 1620. — Gradually Englishmen learned to prefer peaceable commerce and colonisation to piratical enterprises. In 1585 Raleigh had sent out colonists to a region in North America to which he gave the name of Virginia, in honour of Elizabeth, but the colonists either returned to England or were destroyed by the Indians. In 1607 a fresh attempt was made, and, after passing through terrible hardships, the Colony of Virginia grew into a tobacco-planting, well-to-do community. In 1608 a congregation of Separatists emigrated from England to Holland, and, after a while, settled at Leyden, where, anxious to escape from the temptations of the world, many of them resolved to emigrate to America, where they might lead an ideally religious life. In 1620 the emigrants, a hundred in all, ‘ lifting up II. K. K 490 i 6 i 8- i 621 JAMES I. their eyes to heaven, their dearest country,’ crossed the Atlantic in the ‘ Mayflower,’ and found a new home which they named Plymouth. These first emigrants, the Pilgrim Fathers, as their descendants fondly called them, lost half their number by cold and disease in the first winter, but the remainder held on to form a nucleus for the Puritan New England of the future. 15. The Beginning of the Thirty Years’ War. 1618—1620. — As yet, however, these small beginnings of a colonial empire attracted little attention in England. Men’s thoughts ran far more on a great war — the Thirty Years’ War — which, in 1618, began to desolate Germany. In that year a revolution took place in Bohemia, where the Protestant nobility rose against their king, Matthias, a Catholic, who was at the same time Emperor, and, in 1619, after the death of Matthias, they deposed his successor, Ferdinand, and chose Frederick, the Elector Palatine, James’s Calvinist son-in-law, as king in his place. Almost at the same time Ferdinand became by election the Emperor Ferdinand II. James was urged to interfere on behalf of Frederick, but he could not make up his mind that the cause of his son-in-law was righteous, and he therefore left him to his fate. Frederick’s cause was, however, popular in Ei\gland, and in 1620, when there were rumours that a Spanish force was about to occupy the Palatinate in order to compel Frederick to abandon Bohemia, James — drawing a distinction between helping his son- in-law to keep his own and supporting him in taking the land of another — went so far as to allow English volunteers, under Sir Horace Vere, to garrison the fortresses of the Palatinate. In the summer of that year, a Spanish army, under Spinola, actually occu- pied the Western Palatinate, and James, angry at the news, sum- moned Parliament in order to obtain a vote of supplies for war. Before Parliament could meet, Frederick had been crushingly defeated on the White Hill, near Prague, and driven out of Bohemia. 16. The Meeting of James’s Third Parliament. 1621. — Parlia- ment, when it met in 1621, was the more distrustful of James, as Gondomar had returned to England in 1620 and had revived the Spanish marriage treaty. When the Houses met, they were disappointed to find that James did not propose to go to war at once. James fancied that, because he himself wished to act justly and fairly, every one of the other Princes would be regardless of his own interests, and, although he had already sent several ambas- sadors to settle matters without producing any results, he now proposed to send niore ambassadors, and only to fight if negotia- 1621 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 49i tion failed. On learning this, the House of Commons only voted him a small supply, not being willing to grant war-taxes unless it King James I. ; from a painting by P. van Somer, dated 1621, in the National Portrait Gallery. 492 JAMES /. 1616-1621 was sure that there was to be a war. Probably James was right in not engaging England in hostilities, as ambition had as much to do with Frederick’s proceedings as religion, and as, if James had helped his German allies, he could have exercised no control over them ; but he had too little decision or real knowledge of the situation to inspire confidence either at home or abroad ; and the Commons, as soon as they had granted a supply, began to criticise his govern- ment in domestic matters. 17. The Royal Prerogative. 1616 — 1621. — Elizabeth had been high-handed enough, but she had talked little of the rights which she claimed, and had set herself to gain the affection of her subjects. James, on the other hand, liked to talk of his rights, whilst he took no trouble to make himself popular. It was his business, he held, to see that the judges did not break the law under pretence of ad- ministering it. “ This,” he said in 1616, “ is a thing regal and proper to a king, to keep every court within its true bounds.” More startling was the language which followed. “As for the absolute prerogative of the Crown,” he declared, “ that is no subject for the tongue of a lawyer, nor is it lawful to be disputed. It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God can do : good Christians content themselves with His will revealed in His word; so it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do, or say that a king cannot do this or that ; but rest in that which is the king’s will revealed in his law.” What James meant was that there must be in every state a power above the law to provide for emergencies as they arise, and to keep the authorities — judicial and administrative — from jostling with one another. At present this power belongs to Parliament. When Elizabeth handed on the government to James, it belonged to the Crown. What James did not understand was that, in the long run, no one — either king or Parliament— will be allowed to exercise powers which are unwisely used. Such an idea probably never entered into James’s mind, because he was convinced that he was himself not only the best but the wisest of men, whereas he was in reality —as Henry IV. of France had said of him — ‘the wisest fool in Christendom.’ 18. Financial Reform. 1619. — ^James not only thought tpp Civil costume about 1620: from a contemporary broadside. i6i9-i6il THE BANQUETING HALL 493 The Banqueting Hall of the Palace of Whitehall (from the north-east) ; built from the designs of Inigo Jones. t6t9-t62i. 404 Jambs /. 1621 highly of his own powers of government, but was also too careless to check the misdeeds of his favourites. For some time his want of money led him to have recourse to strange expedients. In i6ii he founded the order of baronets, making each of those created pay him 1,080/. a year for three years to enable him to support soldiers for the defence of Ulster. After the first few years, however, the money, though regularly required of new baronets, was invariably repaid to them. More disgraceful was the sale of peerages, of which there were examples in i6i8. In 1619, however, through the exer- tions of Lionel Cranfield, a city merchant recommended to James by Buckingham, financial order was comparatively restored, and in quiet times the expenditure no longer much exceeded the revenue. 19. Favouritism and Corruption. — Though James did not ob- tain much money in irregular ways, he did not keep a watchful eye on his favourites and ministers. The salaries of Ministers were low, and were in part themselves made up by the presents of suitors. Candidates for office, who looked forward to being enriched by the gifts of others, knew that they must pay dearly for the goodwill of the favourites through whom they gained promo- tion. In 1620 Chief Justice Montague was appointed Lord Treasurer. “ Take care, my lord,” said Bacon to him, when he started for Newmarket to receive from the king the staff which was the symbol of his office, “wood is dearer at Newmarket than in any other place in England.” Montague, in fact, had to pay 20,000/. for his place. Others, who were bachelors or widowers, received promotion on condition of marrying one of the many penniless young ladies of Buckingham’s kindred. 20. The Monopolies Condemned. 1621. — The Commons, therefore, in looking for abuses, had no lack of subjects on which to complain. They lighted upon monopolies. James, soon after his accession, had abolished most of those left by Elizabeth, but the number had been increased partly through a wish to encourage home manufactures, and partly from a desire to regulate commerce. One set of persons, for example, had the sole right of making glass, because they bound themselves to heat their furnaces with coal instead of w^ood, and thus spared the trees needed for ship- building. Others had the sole right of making gold and silver thread, because they engaged to import all the precious metals they wanted, it being thought, in those days, that the precious metals alone constituted wealth, and that England would therefore be impoverished if English gold and silver were wasted on personal adornment. There is no doubt that courtiers received payments i621 bacon and the monopolies 495 from persons interested in these grants, but the amount of such payments was grossly exaggerated, and the Commons imagined that these and similar grievances owed their existence merely to the desire to fill the pockets of Buckingham and his favourites. There was, therefore, a loud outcry in Parliament. One of the main promoters of these schemes. Sir Giles Mompesson, fled the kingdom. Others were punished, and the monopolies recalled by Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban, Lord Chancellor : from the National Portrait Gallery. the king, though as yet no act was passed declaring them to be illegal. 21. The Fall of Bacon. 1621. — After this the Commons turned upon Bacon. He was now Lord Chancellor, and had lived to find that his good advice was never followed. He had, neverthe- less, been an active and upright judge. The Commons, however, distrusted him as having supported grants of monopolies, and, 49 ^ Jambs i. when charges of bribery were brought against him, sent them up to the Lords for enquiry. At first Bacon thought a political trick was being played against him. He soon discovered that he had thoughtlessly taken gifts even before judgment had been given, though if they had been taken after judgment, he would — according to the custom of the time — have been considered innocent. His own opinion of the case was probably the true one. His sentence, he said, was ‘just, and for reformation’s sake fit.’ Yet he was ‘the justest Chancellor’ that had been since his father’s time, his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, having creditably occupied under Elizabeth the post which he himself filled under James. He was stripped of office, fined, and imprisoned. His imprisonment, how- ever, was extremely brief, and his fine was ultimately remitted. Though his trial was not exactly like that of the old impeachments, it was practically the revival of the system of impeachments which had been disused since the days of Henry VI, It was a sign that the power of Parliament was increasing and that of the king growing less. 22. Digby’s Mission, and the Dissolution of Parliament. 1621. —The king announced to Parliament that he was about to send an ambassador to Vienna to induce the Emperor Ferdinand to be content with the re-conquest of Bohemia, and to leave Frederick undisturbed in the Palatinate. Parliament was therefore adjourned, in order to give time for the result of this embassy to be known ; and the Commons, at their last sitting, declared — with wild enthusiasm — that, if the embassy failed, they would support Frederick with their lives and fortunes. When Lord Digby, who was the chosen ambassador, returned, he had done no good. Ferdinand was too anxious to push his success further, and Frederick was too anxious to make good his losses for any negotiation to be successful. The Imperialists invaded the Palatinate, and in the winter James called on Parliament — which had by that time re-assembled after the adjournment — for money sufficient to defend the Palatinate till he had made one more diplomatic effort. The Commons, believing that the king’s alliance with Spain was the root of all evil, petitioned him to marry his son to a Protestant lady, and plainly showed their wish to see him at war with Spain. James replied that the Commons had no right to discuss matters on which he had not consulted them. They drew up a protestation asserting their right to discuss all matters of public concernment. James tore it out of their journal-book, and dissolved Parliament, though it had not yet granted him a penny. 1622-1623 Prince Charles in sPain 49 ? 23. The Loss of the Palatinate. 1622. — In 1614, James, being in want of money, had had recourse to a benevolence — the lawyers having advised him that, though the Act of Richard III. (see p. 342) made it illegal for him to compel its payment, there was no law against his asking his subjects to pay it voluntarily. He took the same course in 1622, and got enough to support the garrisons in the Palatinate for a few months, as many who did hot like to give the money feared to provoke the king’s displeasure by a refusal. Before the end of the year, however, the whole Palatinate, with the exception of one fortress, had been lost. 24. Charles’s Journey to Madrid. 1623. — It was now time to try if the Spanish alliance was worth anything. Early in 1623, Prince Charles, accompanied by Bucking- ham, started for Madrid to woo the Infanta in person. The young men imagined that the king of Spain would be so pleased with this un- usual compliment, that he would use his influence — and, if necessary, his troops — to obtain the restitution of the Palatinate to Charles’s brother-in-law, the Elector Frede- rick. The Infanta’s brother, Philip IV., was now king of Spain, and he had lately been informed by his sister that she was resolved not to marry a heretic. Her confessor had urged her to refuse. “ What a com- fortable bedfellow you will have ! ” he said to her : “ he who lies by ‘ dated 1623. your side, and will be the father of your children, is certain to go to hell.” Philip and his prime minister Olivares feared lest, if they announced this refusal, it would lead to a war with England. They first tried to convert the prince to their religion, and when that failed, secretly invited the Pope to refuse to grant a dispensation for the marriage. The Pope, however, fearing that, if he caused a breach, James and Charles would punish him by increasing the persecution of the English Catholics, informed Philip that he should have the dispen- sation for his sister, on condition not only that James and Charles should swear to grant religious liberty to the Catholics in England, Costume of a lawyer : from a broadside, 498 JAMES I. 1623 but that he should himself swear that James and Charles would keep their word. 25. The Prince’s Return. 1623. — Philip referred the point whether he could conscientiously take the oath to a committee of theologians. In the meantime, Charles attempted to pay court to the Infanta. Spanish etiquette was, however, strict, and he was not allowed to speak to her, except in public and on rare occasions. The Upper House of Convocation i from a broadside, dated 1623. 1623 CONVOCATION 499 $66 James i . 1623-1624 Once he jumped over a wall into a garden in which she was. The poor girl shrieked and fled. At last Charles was informed that the theologians had come to a decision. He might marry if he pleased, but, the moment that the ceremony was over, he was to leave for England. If, at the end of six months, he had not only promised religious liberty to the Catholics, but had actually put them in the enjoyment of it, then, and only then, his wife should be sent after him. Charles was indignant— the more so because he learnt that there was little chance that the king of Spain would interfere to restore the Protestant Frederick by force — and returned to England eager for war with Spain. Never before or after was he so popular as when he landed at Portsmouth — not so much because he had come back, as because he had not brought the Infanta with him. 26. The Last Parliament of James I. 1624. — James’s foreign policy had now hopelessly broken, down. He had expected that simply because it seemed to him to be just, Philip would quarrel with the Emperor for the sake of restoring the Palatinate to a Protestant. When he found that this could not be, he had nothing more to propose. His son and his favourite, who had been created Duke of Buckingham whilst he was in Spain, urged him to go to war, and eaily in 1624 James summoned a new Parliament, which was entirely out of his control. For the time Buckingham, who urged on the war, was the most popular man in England. A large grant of supply was given, but the Commons distrusting James, ordered the money to be paid to treasurers appointed by themselves, and to be spent only upon four objects — the repairing of forts in England, the increase of the army in Ireland, the fitting-out of a fleet, and the support of the Dutch Republic, which was still at war with Spain, and of other allies of the king. The king, on his part, engaged to invite friendly states to join him in war for the recovery of the Palatinate, and to summon Parliament in the autumn to announce the result. The Commons were the less anxious to trust J ames with money as they were in favour of a maritime war against Spain, whilst they believed him to be in favour of a military war in Germany. They had reason to think that Cranfield, who was now Earl of Middlesex and Lord Treasurer, had used his influence with the king to keep him from a breach with Spain \ and, with Charles and Buckingham hounding them on, they now impeached Middle- sex on charges of malversation, and drove him from office. It was generally believed that the Lord Treasurer owed his fall to his dislike of a war which would be ruinous to the finances 501 i622-i62S the french MARRIAGE TREATY which it was his business to guard. The old king could not resist, but he told his son that, in supporting an impeachment, he was preparing a rod for himself. Before the end of the session the king agreed to an act abolishing monopolies, except in the case of new inventions. 27. The French Alliance. — Even before Parliament was pro- rogued, a negotiation was opened for a marriage between Charles and Henrietta Maria, the sister of Louis XIII., king of France. Both James and Charles had promised Parliament that, if the future queen were a Roman Catholic, no religious liberty should be granted to the English Catholics by the marriage treaty. Both James and Charles gave way when they found that Louis insisted on this concession, and promised religious liberty to the Catholics. Con- sequently, they did not venture to summon Parliament till the marriage was over and it was too late to complain. Yet Bucking- ham, who was more firmly rooted in Charles’s favour than he had ever been in that of his father, had promised money in all directions. Before the end of the year he had engaged to find large sums for the Dutch Republic to fight Spain, 30,000/. a month for Christian IV., king of Denmark, to make war in Germany against the Emperor, 20,000/. a month for Count Mansfeld, a German adventurer, to advance to the Palatinate, and anything that might be needed for a fleet to attack the Spanish ports. James, in short, was for a war by land, the Commons for a war by sea, and Buckingham for both. 28. Mansfeld’s Expedition, and the Death of James I. 1624 — 1625. — Before the end of 1624, twelve thousand Englishmen were gathered at Dover to go with Mansfeld to the Palatinate. The king of France, who had promised to help them, refused to allow them to land in his dominions. It was accordingly resolved that they should pass through Holland. James, however, had nothing to give them, and they were consequently sent across the sea without money and without provisions. On their arrival in Holland they were put on board open boats to make their way up the Rhine. Frost set in, and the boats were unable to stir. In a few weeks three-fourths of the men were dead or dying. It was Buckingham’s first experience of making war without money and without Parlia- mentary support. Before anything further could be done, James was attacked by a fever, and, on March 27, 1625, he died. Though his reign did not witness a revolution, it witnessed that loosening of the bonds of sympathy between the ruler and the ruled which is pften the precursor of revolution. 502 CHAPTER XXXII THE GROWTH OF THE PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES I. 1625—1634 LEADING DATES The Reign of Charles I., 1625-1649 Charles’s first Parliament and the expedition to Cadiz . 1625 Charles’s second Parliament and the impeachment of Buckingham 1626 The expedition to Re 1627 Charles’s third Parliament and the Petition of Right . 1628 Dissolution of Charles’s third Parliament .... 1629 Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury 1633 Prynne’s sentence executed 1634 1. Charles I. and Buckingham. 1625. — The new king, Charles I., was more dignified than his father, and was conscientiously desirous of governing well. He was, unfortunately, extremely unwise, being both obstinate in persisting in any line of conduct which he had himself chosen, and ready to give way to the advice of others in matters of detail. Buckingham, who sympathised with him in his plans, and who was never at a loss when called on to express an opinion on any subject whatever, had now made himself com- pletely master of the young king, and was, in reality, the governor of England far more than Charles himself On May i Charles was married by proxy to Henrietta Maria, and Buckingham fetched home the bride. 2. Charles’s First Parliament. 1625. — Charles was eager to meet his first Parliament, because he thought that it would grant him enormous sums of money to carry on the war with Spain, on which he had set his heart. . He forgot that its members would be disgusted at the mismanagement of Mansfeld’s expedition, and at the favour shown by himself to the Catholics in consequence of his marriage. When Parliament met on June 18, the House of Commons voted a small sum of 140,000/., and asked him to put in execution the recusancy laws. Charles adjourned Parliament to Oxford, as the plague was raging in London, in order that he might urge it to vote him a larger sum. It met at Oxford on August i, but the Commons refused to vote more money, unless counsellors in whom they could confide— in other words, counsellors other than l62S CHARLES I. AND THE COMMONS 503 Buckingham — had the spending of it. Charles seeing that, if the Commons could force him to accept ministers against his wish, they would soon control himself, dissolved the Parliament. On everything else he was ready to give way — making no objection to the renewal of the persecution of the Catholics, whom a few months ago he had solemnly promised in his marriage treaty to protect. Though the question now raised was whether England was to be ruled by the king or by the House of Commons, it would be a mistake to think that the Commons were consciously aiming at sovereignty. They saw that there was mismanagement, and all that they wanted was to stop it. 3. The Expedition to Cadiz. 1625.— Charles thought that, if he could gain a great victory, there would be no further talk about mismanagement. Scraping together what money he could, he sent a great fleet and army, under the command of Sir Edward Cecil, to take Cadiz, the harbour of which was the port at which the Spanish treasure ships arrived from America once a year, laden with silver and gold from the mines of America. The greater part of Cecil’s fleet was made up of merchant-vessels pressed by force into the king’s service. Neither soldiers nor sailors had any heart in the matter. The masters of the merchant vessels did all they could to keep themselves out of danger. The soldiers after landing outside the town got drunk in a body, and would have been slaughtered if any Spaniards had been near. Cecil failed to take Cadiz, and after he left it, the Spanish treasure-ships from America, which he hoped to capture, got safely into Cadiz harbour, whilst he was looking for them in another part of the sea. The great expedition sent by Buckingham to Cadiz was as complete a failure as that which he had sent out the year before under Mansfeld. Whilst Cecil was employed in Spain Buckingham himself went to the Hague to form a conti- nental alliance for the recovery of the Palatinate, hoping especially to secure the services of Christian IV., king of Denmark. Finding Christian quite ready to fight, Buckingham tried to pawn the king’s jewels at Amsterdam in order to supply him with 30,000/. a month, which he had promised to him. No one would lend money on the jewels, and Buckingham came back, hoping that a second Parliament would be more compliant than the first. 4. Charles’s Second Parliament. 1626. — The new Parliament met on February 6, 1626. Charles, in order to secure himself against what he believed to be the attacks of interested and ambitious men, had hit on th^ clever expedient of making sheriffs 504 PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES L 1626 of the leaders of the Opposition, so as to secure their detention in their own counties. The Opposition, however, found a leader in Sir John Eliot, who, though he had formerly been a friend of Buckingham, was now shocked at the misconduct of the favourite and regarded him as a selfish and unprincipled adventurer. Eliot was not only a natural orator, but one of the most pure-minded of patriots, though the vehemence of his temperament often carried him to impute more evil to men of whom he thought badly than they were really guilty of. At present, he was roused to indignation against Buckingham, not only on account of the recent failures, but because, in the preceding summer, he had lent some English ships to the French, who wanted to use them for suppressing the Huguenots of Rochelle, then in rebellion against their king, Louis XIII. Before long the Commons* under Eliot’s guidancCi 1626 BUCKINGHAM IMPEACHED 505 impeached Buckingham of all kinds of crime, making against him charges of some of which he was quite innocent, whilst others were much exaggerated. The fact that the only way to get rid of an unpopular minister was to accuse him of crime, made those who would otherwise have been content with his dismissal ready to believe in his guilt. Charles’s vexation reached its height when he heard that Eliot had branded Buckingham as Sejanus. “ If he is Queen Henrietta Marla, wife of Charles I. : from a painting by Van Dyck. Sejanus,” he said, “ I must be Tiberius.” Rather than abandon his minister, he dissolved Parliament, before it had voted him a sixpence. 5. The Forced Loan. 1626. — If the war was to go on, money must in some way or other be had. Charles asked his subjects to bestow on him a free gift for the purpose. Scarcely any one gave him anything. Then came news that the king of Denmark, to whom the promised 30,000/. a month had not been paid (see II. hh 5o6 personal government or CHARLES L 1626-1627 p. 501, 503 ), had been signally defeated at Lutter, so that the recovery of the Palatinate was further off than ever. Some clever person suggested to Charles that, though the Statute of Benevolences (see p. 342) prohibited him from making his subjects give him money, no law forbade him to make them lend, even though there was no chance that he would ever be able to repay what he borrowed. He at once gave orders for the collection of a forced loan. Before this was gathered in, troubles arose with France. Louis XIII. was preparing to besiege Rochelle, and Charles believed himself to be in honour bound to defend it because Louis had at one time promised him that he would admit his Huguenot subjects to terms. Besides, he had offended Louis by sending out of the country the queen’s French attendants, thinking, probably with truth, that they encouraged her to resent his breach of promise about the English Catholics (see p. 501). 6. The Expedition to Re. 1627. — In 1627 war broke out be- tween France and England. Payment of the forced loan was urged in order to supply the means. Chief Justice Crewe, refusing to acknowledge its legality, was dismissed. Poor men were forced to serve as soldiers ; rich men were sent to prison. By such means a considerable sum was got together. A small force was sent to help the king of Denmark, and a fleet of a hundred sail, carrying soldiers on board, was sent to relieve Rochelle, under the command of Buckingham himself. On July 12 Buckingham landed on the Isle of Re, which would form a good base of operations for the relief of Rochelle. He laid siege to the fort of St. Martin’s on the island, and had almost starv^ed it into surrender, when, on September 27, a relieving force of French boats dashed through the English blockading fleet, and re-victualled the place. Buckingham, whose own numbers had dwindled away, called for reinforcements from England. Charles did what he could, but Englishmen would lend no money to succour the hated Bucking- ham ; and, before reinforcements could arrive, a French army landed on the Isle of Re, and drove Buckingham back to his ships. Out of 6,800 soldiers, less than 3,000— worn by hunger and sickness — returned to England. 7. The Five Knights’ Case. 1627. — Buckingham was more unpopular than ever. “ Since England was England,” we find in a letter of the time, “ it received not so dishonourable a blow.” Attention was, however, chiefly turned to domestic grievances. Soldiers had been billeted on householders without their consent, and i^a,rtial law had been ex^cised ov^ civili^s wjall 51^ THE EXPEDITION TO Rif 507 1627 soldiers. Moreover, the forced loan had been exacted, and some of those who refused to pay had been imprisoned by the mere order of the king and the Privy Council. Against this last injury, five knights, who had been imprisoned, appealed to the Court of King’s Bench. A writ of habeas corpus was issued — that is to say, an order was given to the gaoler to produce the prisoners before the Court, together with a return showing the cause of committal. All that the gaoler could show was that the prisoners had been com- mitted by order of the king, signified by the Privy Council. The lawyers employed by the five knights argued that every prisoner had a right to be tried or liberated on bail ; that, unless cause was shown — that is to say, unless a charge was brought against him — there was nothing on which he could be tried ; and that, therefore, these prisoners ought to be bailed. The lawyers for the Crown argued that when the safety of the state was concerned, the king had always been allowed to imprison without showing cause, and that his discretion must be trusted not to imprison any one ex- cepting in cases of necessity. The judges did not decide this point, but sent the five knights back to prison. In a few days, all the prisoners were set free, and Charles summoned a third Parha- 5o8 personal government of CHARLES /. 1627-1628 ment, hoping that it would vote money for a fresh expedition to relieve Rochelle. 8. Wentworth and Eliot in the Third Parliament of Charles I. 1628. — Charles’s third Parliament met on March 17, 1628. The leadership was at once taken by Sir Thomas Wentworth, who, as well as Eliot, had been imprisoned for refusing to pay the loan. Though the two men now worked together, they were, in most points, opposed to one another. Eliot had been a warm advocate of the war with Spain, till he found it useless to carry on the war under Buckingham’s guidance. Wentworth disliked all wars, and especially a war with Spain. Eliot believed in the wisdom of the House of Commons, and thought that, if the king always took its advice, he was sure to be in the right. Wentworth thought that the House of Commons often blundered, and that the king was more likely to be in the right if he took advice from wise counsellors. Wentworth, however, believed that in this case Charles had unfor- tunately preferred to take the advice of foolish counsellors, and though not sharing the opinions of Eliot and his friends, threw himself into the struggle in which the House of Commons was trying to stop Buckingham in his rash course. From time to time Wentworth contrived to show that he was no enemy of the king, or of a strong government such as that which had existed in the reign of Elizabeth. He was, however, an ardent and impetuous speaker, and threw himself into any cause which he defended with fnore violence than he could, in calmer moments, have justified to himself. He saw clearly that the late aggressions on the liberty of the subject weakened, instead of strengthening, the Crown ; and he now proposed a bill which should declare them illegal in the future. Charles refused to accept the bill, and Wentworth, unwilling to take a prominent part in a struggle with the king himself, retired into the background for the remainder of the session. 9. The Petition of Right. 1628. — Instead of Wentworth’s bill, Eliot and the lawyers — Coke and Selden being prominent amongst them — brought forward a Petition of Right, not merely providing for the future, but also declaring that right had actually been vio- lated in the past. Charles was willing to promise everything else asked of him, but he resisted the attempt to force him to promise never to imprison without showing cause, and thus to strip himself of the power of punishing offences directed against the safety of the State. The Commons, who held that he had directed his powers against men who were patriots, proved inexorable. Charles *^28 THE PETITION OF RIGHT 5^9 tieeded money for another fleet which he was preparing for the relief of Rochelle, which was straitly besieged by the French king. He tried hard to get over the difficulty by an evasive answer, but at last, on June 7, he gave way, and the Petition of Right became the law of the land. After that, so far as the George ViTliers, first Duke of Buckingham, 1592-1628 : from the National Portrait Gallery. law went, there was to be no more martial law or enforced billeting, no forced loans or taxes imposed without a Parliamentary grant, or imprisonment without cause shown. 10. Tonnage and Poundage. 1628.— Before the end of the session a fresh question was raised. For many reigns Parliament had voted to each king for life, at the beginning of his reign, certain Sio PERSdML government OP CNaRLES /. 1628 customs duties known as Tonnage and Poundage. In addition to these James had added the impositions (see p. 484) without a Parliamentary grant. In the first Parliament of Charles, the Commons, probably wishing to settle the question of impositions before permanently granting Tonnage and Poundage, had passed a bill granting the latter for a single year ; but that Parliament had been dissolved before the bill had passed the Lords. The second Parliament was dissolved before the Commons had even discussed the subject, and the third Parliament now sitting had found no time to attend to it till after the Petition of Right had been granted. Now that the session was drawing to a close the Commons again proposed to grant Tonnage and Poundage for a year only. Charles, who had been levying the duties ever since his accession, refused to accept a grant on these terms, and the Commons then asserted that the clause of the Petition of Right forbidding him to levy taxes without a vote of Parliament made his raising of Tonnage and Poundage illegal. It was a nice legal point whether customs were properly called taxes, and Charles answered that he did not think that in demanding the petition they had meant to ask him to yield his right to Tonnage and Poundage, and that he was sure he had not meant to do so. The Commons then attacked Buckingham, and on June 26 Charles prorogued Parliament. 11. Buckingham’s Murder. 1628. — In return for the Petition of Right Charles had received a grant of money large enough to enable him to send out his fleet. In August Buckingham went to Portsmouth to take the command. He was followed by J ohn F elton, an officer to whom he had refused employment, and who had not been paid for his former services. Language used by the House of Commons in their recent attack on Buckingham persuaded Felton that he would render service to God and man by slaying the enemy of both. On August 23 he stabbed the Duke as he came out from breakfast, crying, ‘ God have mercy on thy soul ! ’ Buckingham fell dead on the spot. The fleet went out under the command of the Earl of Lindsey to relieve Rochelle, but it failed utterly. There was no heart in the sailors or resolution in the commanders. Rochelle surrendered to the King of France, and Charles was left to bear the weight of the unpopularity of his late favourite. 12. The Question of Sovereignty. 1628. — Charles was anxious to come to terms with his Parliament on the question of Tonnage and Poundage, and would probably have consented to accept the compromise proposed in 1610 (see p. 486). Neither party, indeed, could afford to surrender completely to the other. The customs 1S2S-1628 ‘RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES 511 duties were already more than a third of the revenue, and, if Charles could levy what he pleased, he might so increase his income as to have no further need of parliaments ; whereas, if the Commons refused to make the grant, the king would soon be in a state of bankruptcy. The financial question, in short, involved the further question whether Charles or the Parliament was to have the sovereignty. Dangerous as it would be for both parties to enter upon a quarrel which led up to such issues, it was the more difficult to avoid it because the king and the Commons were already at variance on another subject of pre-eminent importance. 13. Protestantism of the House of Commons. 1625 — 1628. — That subject was the subject of religion. The country gentlemen, who almost entirely filled the benches of the House of Commons, were not Puritan in the sense in which Cartwright had been Puritan in Elizabeth’s reign (see p. 446). They did not wish to abolish epis- copacy or the Prayer Book ; but they were strongly Protestant, and their Protestantism had been strengthened by a sense of danger from the engagements in favour of the English Catholics into which James and Charles had entered. Lately, too, the power of the Catholic States on the Continent had been growing. In 1626 the King of Denmark had been defeated at Lutter. In 1628 the French Huguenots had been defeated at Rochelle. It was probably in consequence of these events that there was in England a revival of that attachment to Calvinistic doctrines which had accompanied the Elizabethan struggle against Spain and the Pope. 14. Religious Differences. 1625 — 1628. — On the other hand, a small but growing number amongst the clergy were breaking away from the dogmas of Calvinism, and especially from its stern doctrine on the subject of predestination. The House of Commons claimed to represent the nation, and it upheld the unity of the national belief as strongly as it had been upheld by Henry VIII. In 1625 the House summoned to its bar Richard Montague, who had challenged the received Calvinist opinions on the ground that they were not the doctrines of the Church of England. In 1626 it impeached him. Naturally, Montague and those who agreed with him warmly supported the royal power, and in 1627 urged the duty of paying the forced loan. Another clergyman, Roger Manwaring, preached sermons in which Parliaments were treated with con- tempt, and the Commons retaliated by impeaching the preacher. Charles would have acted in a spirit in advance of his times, and certainly in advance of his opponents, if he had merely upheld the right of the minority to liberty of speech. Instead of contenting y§i2 PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OR CHARLES L iSd-iSig himself with this he made Montague Bishop of Chichester and gave Man waring a good living. 15. The King’s Declaration. 1628. — With the intention of smoothing matters down, Charles issued a declaration prefixed to the Articles, which would, as he hoped, make for peace. No one was in future to speak in public on the controverted points. Charles probably believed himself to be acting fairly, whilst, in reality, his compromise was most unfair. The Calvinists, who believed their views about predestination to be of the utmost importance to the souls of Christians, were hardly treated by the order to hold their tongues on the subject. Their opponents did not care about the doctrine at all, and would be only too glad if nothing more was heard of it. Charles, however, was but following in Elizabeth’s steps in imposing silence and calling it peace. But the times were different. There was no longer a Catholic claimant of the throne or a foreign enemy at the gates to cause moderate men to support the government, even in its errors. 16. The Second Session of the Third Parliament of Charles I. 1629.— The Houses met for a second session on January 20, 1629. The Commons attacked the clergy on a side on which they were especially vulnerable. Some of those who had challenged the Calvinistic doctrines had revived certain ceremonial forms which had generally fallen into disuse. In Durham Cathedral espe- cially, parts of the service had been sung which had not been sung before, and the Communion table, which had hitherto stood at the north door and had been moved to the middle of the choir when needed, had been permanently fixed at the east end of the chancel. The Commons were indignant at what they styled Popish practices, and summoned the offenders before them. Then they turned to Tonnage and Poundage. Eliot, instead of con- fronting the difficulty directly, attempted to make it a question of privilege. The goods of a member of the House, named Rolle, had been seized for non-payment of Tonnage and Poundage, and Eliot wished to summon the Custom House officers to the bar, not for seizing the goods of an Englishman, but for a breach of privi- lege in seizing the goods of a member of Parliament. Pym, who occupied a prominent position amongst the popular party, urged the House to take broader ground : “ The liberties of this House,” he said, “are inferior to the liberties of this kingdom. To determine the privileges of this House is but a mean matter, and the main end is to establish possession of the subjects.” ^ Eliot carried the 1 i.e. to establish the right of the subjects to possess their property. 1^29 THE STRUGGLE FOR SOVEREIGHTV House with him, but Charles supported his ofhcers, and refused to allow them to appear at the bar of the House. Once more the ques- tion of sovereignty was raised. The House was adjourned by the king’s order in the hope that a compromise might be discovered. 17. Breach between the King and the Commons. 1629. — No compromise could be found, and on March 2 a fresh order for adjournment was given. When Finch, the Speaker, rose to announce it, two strong young members. Holies and Valentine, pushed him back into his chair whilst Eliot read three resolutions to the effect that whoever brought in innovations in religion, or introduced opinions differing from those of the true and orthodox church ; whoever advised the levy of Tonnage and Poundage without a grant by Parliament ; and whoever voluntarily paid those duties, was an enemy to the kingdom and a betrayer of its liberties. A wild tumult arose. A rush was made to free the Speaker, and another rush to hold him down. One member, at least, laid his hand on his sword. The doors were locked, and, amidst the hubbub, Holies repeated the resolutions, which were accepted with shouts of ‘ Aye, aye.’ Then the doors were opened, and the mem- bers poured out. The king at once dissolved Parliament, and for eleven years no Parliament met again in England. 18. The Constitutional Dispute. 1629. — The constitutional system of the Tudor monarchy had practically broken down. The nation had, in the sixteenth century, entered upon a struggle for national independence. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had headed it in that struggle, and the House of Commons had but represented the nation in accepting Henry VIII. and Elizabeth as supreme rulers. The House of Commons now refused to admit that Charles was its supreme ruler, because he could neither head the nation, nor understand either its wants or its true needs. Yet the House had not as yet shown its capacity for taking his place. It had criticised his methods of government effectively, but had displayed its own intolerance and disregard for individual liberty. Yet, till it could learn to respect individual liberty, it would not be likely to gain the sovereignty at which it aimed. A king becomes powerful when men want a strong government to put down enemies abroad or petty tyrants at home. A Parliament becomes powerful when men want to discuss political questions, and political discussion cannot thrive when voices disagreeable to the majority are silenced. The House of Commons had thought more of opposing the king than of laying a wide basis for its own power, and now it was, for a time at least, silenced. $14 PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OP CHARLES L 1629-163^ 19. The Victory of Personal Government. 1629 — 1632. — Charles was now to show whether he could do better than the Commons. He had gained one great convert soon after the end of the first session of the last Parliament. Wentworth, satisfied, it is to be supposed, with the Petition of Right, and dissatisfied with the claim to sovereignty put forward by the Commons, came over to his side and was made first a baron and then a viscount, after which before the end of 1628 he was made President of the Council of the North (see p. 397). Wentworth was no Puritan, and the claim of the Commons, in the second session, to meddle with religion no doubt strengthened him in his conviction that he had chosen the right side. Before the end of 1629 he became a Privy Councillor. The most influential member of Charles’s Council, however, was Weston, the Lord Treasurer. Peace was made with France in 1629, and with Spain in 1630. To bring the finances into order, the king insisted on collecting the customs without a Parliamentary grant, and Chambers, a merchant who refused to pay, was summoned before the Council, and then fined 2,000/. and imprisoned for saying that mer- chants were more wrung in England than they were in Turkey. The leading members who had been concerned in the disturbance at the last meeting of Parliament were imprisoned, and three of them, Eliot, Holies, and Valentine, were charged before the King’s Bench with riot and sedition. They declined to plead, on the ground that the judges had no jurisdiction over things done in Parliament. The judges held that riot and sedition must be punished somewhere, and that as Parliament was not always sitting it must be punished by themselves. As the accused still refused to plead they were fined and imprisoned. Eliot died of consumption in the Tower in 1632. Charles had refused to allow him to go into the country to recover his health, and after his death he refused to allow his children to dispose of his body. Eliot was the martyr, not of individual liberty, but of Parliamentary supremacy. Charles hated him because he regarded him as the factious accuser of Bucking- ham. 20. Star Chamber Sentences. 1630— 1633. —The first years of unparliamentary government were, on the whole, years of peace and quiet. The Star Chamber, which under Henry VII. had put down the old nobility, was now ready to put down the opponents of the king. Its numbers had grown with its work, and all of the Privy Councillors were now members of it, the only other members being two judges. It was therefore a mere instrument in the king’s hands. In 1630 Alexander Leighton was flogged and staJ^ ctiAMBkk Punishments 515 1633 mutilated by order of the Star Chamber for having written a virulent libel against the bishops ; in which he blamed them for all existing mischiefs, including the extravagance of the dress of the ladies, and ended by advising that they should be smitten under the fifth rib. In 1633 the same court fined Henry Sherfieldfor breaking a church window which he held to be superstitious. The bulk of Englishmen were not touched by these sentences, and there was more indigna- tion when, in order to pay off debts contracted in time of war, Charles ordered the enforcement of fines upon all men holding by military tenure lands worth 40/. a year who had neglected to be knighted. The Court of Exchequer held that the fines were legal ; but the whole system of military tenure was obsolete, and those who suffered regarded themselves as wronged through a mere technicality. 5 i 6 PBRSbl^AL GOVPRNMMNT OF CJPARlES I. 163 j 21. Laud’s Intellectual Position. 1629 — 1633. — For all matters relating to the Church Charles’s principal adviser was William Laud, now Bishop of London. As far as doctrine was concerned Laud carried on the teaching of Cranmer and Hooker. He held that the basis of belief was the Bible, but that the Bible was to be interpreted by the tradition of the early church, and that all doubtful points were to be subjected, not to heated arguments in the pulpits, but to sober discussion by learned men. His mind, in short, like those of the earlier English reformers, combined the Protestant reliance on the Scriptures with reverence for ancient tradition and with the critical spirit of the Renascence. Laud’s diffi- culty lay, as theirs had lain, in the impossibility of gaining over any large number of his fellow-countrymen. Intelligent criticism and intelligent study were only for the few. Laud, as he himself plain- tively declared, was in danger of being crushed between the upper and lower mill-stones of Puritanism and the Papacy. 22. Laud as the Upholder of Uniformity. — In all this there was nothing peculiar to Laud. What was peculiar to him was his perception that intellectual religion could not maintain itself by intellect alone. Hooker’s appeals to Church history and to the supremacy of reason had rolled over the heads of men who knew nothing about Church history, and who did not reason. Laud fell back upon the influence of ceremonial. “ I laboured nothing more,” he afterwards said, “ than that the external public worship of God — too much slighted in most parts of the kingdom — might be pre- served, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be ; being still of opinion that unity cannot long continue in the Church when uniformity is shut out of the Church door.” He, like Eliot and the Parliamentarians, was convinced that there could be but one Church in the nation. As they sought to retain their hold on it by the enforcement of uniformity of doctrine. Laud sought to retain his hold on it by enforcing uniformity of worship. To do this he attempted to put in force the existing law of the Church as opposed to the existing practice. What he urged men to do he believed to be wholly right. He himself clung with all his heart to the doctrine of the divine right of episcopacy, of the efficacy of the Sacraments, and to the sobering influence of appointed prayers and appointed ceremonies. What he lacked was broad human sympathy and respect for the endeavour of each earnest man to grow towards perfection in the way which seems to him to be best. Men were to obey for their own good, and to hold their tongues. The king was the supreme governor, and with his authority, as exercised ARCHBISHOP LAUD 1633 S17 in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, Laud hoped to rescue England from Pope and Puritan. 23. The Beginning of Laud’s Archbishopric. 1633 — 1634. — In 1633 Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury. He at once made his hand felt in every direction. By his advice, in consequence of an attempt of the judges to put an end to Sunday amusements, Charles republished the Declaration of Sports which had been Archbishop Laud : from a copy in the National ^Portrait Gallery by Henry Stone, from the Van Dyck at Lambeth. issued by his father, authorising such amusements under certain restrictions. Where, however, James had contented himself with giving orders, Charles insisted on having the Declaration read in church by all the clergy, and roused the resistance of those who regarded Sunday amusements as a breach of the Sabbath. Laud was also anxious to see the Communion table standing everywhere at the east end of the church. No doubt his anxiety came in part 5 i 8 FEIiSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES /. 1633-1634 from his reverence of the holy sacrament for which it was set apart, but it also arose from his dislike to the base purposes for which it Silver-gilt tankard made at London in 1634-35, iiow belonging to the Corporation of Bristol. was often made to serve. Men often put their hats on it, or used it as a writing table. The canons, or laws of the Church, indeed, directed that the position Qf th^ t^ble shouldj when not in use, be at 1633-1634 HIS TRIOMASTIX 519 the east end, though at the time of Communion it was to be placed in that part of the church or chancel from which the minister could best be heard. A case was brought before the king and the Privy Council in 1633, and it was then decided that the bishop or other proper authority should settle what was the position from which the minister could best be heard. Of course the bishops settled that that place was the east end of the chancel. 24. Laud and Prynne. 1633—1634. — Amongst the most virulent opponents of Laud was William Prynne, a lawyer whose extensive study of theology had not tended to smooth away the asperities of his temper. He was, moreover, a voluminous writer, and had written books against drinking healths and against the wearing of long hair by men, in which these follies had been treated as equally blameworthy with the grossest sins. Struck by the immorality of the existing drama, he attacked it in a heavy work called Histrio- mastix^ or The scourge of stage players, in which he held the frequenting of theatres to be the cause of every crime under the sun. He pointed out that all the Roman emperors who had patronised the drama had come to a bad end, and this was held by the courtiers to be a reflection on Charles, who patronised the drama. He inserted in the index a vile charge against all actresses, and this was held to be an insult to the queen, who was at the time taking part in the rehearsal of a theatrical representation. Ac- cordingly in 1633 Prynne was sentenced by the Star Chamber to lose his ears in the pillory, to a heavy fine, and to imprisonment during the king’s pleasure. In 1634 the sentence was carried out. Prynne’s case, however, awakened no general sympathy, and the king does not appear to have as yet become widely unpopular. The young lawyers came to Whitehall to give a masque or drama- tic representation in presence of the king and queen, in order to show their detestation of Prynne’s conduct, whilst John Milton, the strictest and most pure-minded of poets, wrote a masque, Comus, to show how little sympathy he had with Prynne’s sweeping denunciations. Yet, though Milton opposed Prynne’s exaggeration, his own poetry was a protest against Laud’s attempt to reach the mind through the senses. Milton held to the higher part of the Puritan teaching, that the soul is to lead the body, and not the body the soul. “ So dear,” he wrote in Comus, to Heaven is saintly chastity, That, when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her. Driving fax off each thing of sin and guilt 520 PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES/. 1634 And, in clear dream and solemn vision, Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear. Till oft converse with heavenly habitants Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape, The unpolluted temple of'the mind. And turns it by degrees to the soul’s essence, Till all be made immortal. CHAPTER XXXIII THE OVERTHROW OF THE PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES I. 1634— 1641 LEADING DATES The Reign of Charles L, 1625—1649 The Metropolitical Visitation 1634 First Ship-money Writ (to the port-towns) . . 1634 Second Ship-money Writ (to all the counties) . . 1635 Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick in the pillory . . . 1637 Riot in Edinburgh 1637 Scottish National Covenant 1638 Judgment in Hampden’s Case 1637-1638 First Bishops’ War 1639 Short Parliament 1640 Second Bishops’ War 1640 Meeting of the Long Parliament 1640 Execution of Strafford, and Constitutional Reforms . 1641 I. The Metropolitical Visitation. 1634 — 1637. — The antagonism which Laud had begun to rouse in the first months of his arch- bishopric became far more widely spread in the three years beginning in 1634 ending in 1637, in consequence of a Metropolitical Visitation — that is to say, a visitation which he conducted by the Metropolitan or Archbishop — either in person or by deputy — to enquire into the condition of the clergy and churches of the Province of Canterbury ; a similar visitation being held in the Province of Y ork by the authority of the Archbishop of Y ork. Every clergyman who refused to conform to the Prayer Book, who resisted the removal of the Communion table to the east end of the chancel, or who objected to bow when the sacred name of Jesus was pro- nounced, was called in question, and if obstinate, was brought before the High Commission and suspended from the exercise of his functions or deprived of his living. Laud wanted to reach 521 1634-1637 the laudian system enforced unity through uniformity, and made the canons of the Church his standard of uniformity. Even moderate men suspected that he sought to subject England again to the Pope. The queen, too, entertained a Papal agent at her Court, and a few successful con- versions, brought about by Con, who at one time resided with her in that capacity, frightened the country into the belief that a plot existed to overthrow Protestantism. Some of Laud’s clerical sup- porters favoured this idea, by talking about such topics as altars and the invocation of the saints, which had hitherto been held to have no place m Protestant teaching. The result was that moderate Protestants now joined the Puritans in opposing Laud. 2. Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton. 1637. — Laud had little hope of being able to abate the storm. One of his best qualities was that he was no respecter of persons, and he had roused animosity in the upper classes by punishing gentlemen guilty of immorality or of breaches of church discipline as freely as he punished more lowly offenders. In 1637 he characteristically at- tempted to defend himself from the charge of being a Papist and an innovator in religion by bringing three of his most virulent assailants — Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton — before the Star Cham- ber. The trial afforded him the opportunity of making a speech in his own defence, to which nobody paid the least attention. As a matter of course the accused were heavily punished, being sentenced to lose their ears in the pillory, to pay a fine of 5,000/., and to imprisonment for life. It was not now as it had been in 1634, when Prynne stood alone in the pillory, no man regarding him. The three victims had a triumphal reception on their way to the pillory. Flowers and sweet herbs were strewed in their path. The crowd applauded them whilst they suffered. On their way to their several prisons in distant parts of the country men flocked to greet them as martyrs. 3. Financial Pressure. 1635 — 1637. — Revolutions are never successful without the guidance of men devoted to ideas ; but on the other hand they are not caused only by grievances felt by religious or high-minded people. To stir large masses of men to resistance, their pockets must be touched as well as their souls. In 1635 Weston, who had been created Earl of Portland, died, and a body of Commissioners of the Treasury, who succeeded him, laid additional impositions on commerce and established corporations for exercising various manufac- tures under the protection of monopolies. This proceeding was according to the letter of the law, as corporations had been II. M M ‘ Sovereign of the Seas,’ built for the Royal Navy in 1637 ; from a contemporary engraving by John Payne. SHI MONEY 523 1634-1637 exempted from the act in restraint of monopolies which had been passed in 1624 (see p. 501). So, too, was a claim put forward by Charles in 1637 to fines from those who had encroached on the old boundaries of the forests. It is true that, in the teeth of the opposition roused, Charles exacted but a small part of the fines imposed, but he incurred almost as much obloquy as if he had taken the whole of the money. 4. Ship-money. 1634 — 1637. — More important was Charles’s effort to provide himself with a fleet. As the Dutch navy was powerful, and the French navy was rapidly growing in strength, Charles, not unnaturally, thought that England ought to be able to meet their combined forces at sea. In 1634, by the advice of Attorney-General Noy, he issued writs to the port towns, to furnish him with ships. He took care to ask for ships larger than any port — except London — had got, and then offered to supply ships of his own, on condition that the port towns should equip and man them. In 1635 — Noy having died in the meantime — Charles asked for ships not merely from the ports, but from the inland as well as from the maritime counties. Again London alone provided ships ; in all the rest of England money had to be found to pay for the equipment and manning of ships belonging to the king. In this way Charles got a strong navy which he manned with sailors in the habit of managing ships of war, and entirely at his own orders. The experience of the Cadiz voyage had shown him that merchant-sailors, such as those who had done good service against the Armada, were not to be trusted to fight in enterprises in which they took no interest, and it is from the ship-money fleet that the separation of the naval and mercantile marine dates. Necessarily, however, Englishmen began to com- plain, not that they had a navy, but that the money needed for the navy was taken from them without a Parliamentary grant. Year after year ship-money was levied, and the murmurs against it increased. In February, 1637, Charles consulted the judges, and ten out of the twelve judges declared that the king had a right to do what was necessary for the defence of the realm in time of danger, and that the king was the sole judge of the existence of danger. 5. Hampden’s Case. 1637 — 1638. — It was admitted that, in accordance with the Petition of Right, Charles could not levy a tax without a Parliamentary grant. Charles, however, held that ship-money was not a tax, but money paid in commutation of the duty of all Englishmen to defend their country. Common sense held that, whether ship-money was a tax or not, it had been 524 OVERTHROW OF PERSONAL GOVERNMENT 1638 levied without consulting Parliament, simply because the king shrank from consulting Parliament ; o.r, in other words, because he was afraid that Parliament would ask him to put an end to Laud’s system of managing the Church. Charles was ready, as he said, to allow to Parliament liberty of counsel, but not of control. The sense of irritation was now so great that the nation wanted to control the Government, and knew that it would never be able to do so if Charles could, by a subterfuge, take what money he needed without summoning Parliament. Of this feeling John Hampden, a Buckinghamshire squire, became the mouthpiece. He refused to pay 20J“. levied on his estate for ship-money. His case was argued before the twelve judges sitting in the Exchequer Chamber. In 1638 two pronounced distinctly in his favour, three supported him on technical grounds, and seven pronounced for the king. Charles continued to levy ship-money, but the arguments of Hampden’s lawyers were circulated in the country, and the judg- ment of the majority on the Bench was ascribed to cowardice or obsequiousness. Their decision ranged against the king all who cared about preserving their property, as the Metropolitical visi- tation had ranged against him all who cared for religion in a distinctly Protestant form. Yet, even now, the Tudor monarchy had done its work too thoroughly, and had filled the minds of men too completely with the belief that armed resistance to a king was unjustifiable, to make Englishmen ripe for rebellion. They pre- ferred to wait till some opportunity should arrive which would enable them to express their disgust in a constitutional way. 6. Scottish Episcopacy. 1572 — 1612. — The social condition of Scotland was very different from that of England. The nobles there had never been crushed as they had been in England, and they had tried to make the reformation conduce to their own profit. In 1572 they obtained the appointment of what were known as Tulchan bishops, who, performing no episcopal function, received the revenues of their sees and then handed them over to certain nobles.^ The Presbyterian clergy, however, represented the popular element in the nation — and that element, though it had hitherto been weak, was growing strong through the discipline which it received in consequence of the leading share assigned to the middle and lower classes in the Church Courts (see p. 434). The disagreement between these classes and the nobles gave to James the part of arbitrator, and thus conferred on him a power which no Scottish ‘ A Tulchan was a stuffed calf’s skin set by a cow to induce her to give her milk freely. tS92-i63S THB SCOTTISH CHURCH $25 king had had before. After much vacillation, he consented, in 1592, to an act fully re-establishing the Presbyterian system. It was not long before he repented. The Presbyterian clergy attacked his actions from the pulpit, and one of them, Andrew Melville, plucking him by the sleeve, called him ‘ God’s silly vassal.’ The nobles, too, were angry because the clergy assailed their vices, and tried to subject them to the discipline of the Church. Though their ancestors had, at almost all times, been the adver- saries of the kings, they now made common cause with James. Gradually episcopacy was restored. Bishops were re-appointed in 1599. Step by step episcopal authority was regained for them. In 1610 three of their number were consecrated in England, and in 1612 the Scottish Parliament ratified all that had been done. 7. The Scottish Bishops and Clergy. 1612 — 1637. — In Eng- land bishops had a party (lay and clerical) behind them. In Scot- land they were mere instruments of the king and the nobles to keep the clergy quiet. In 1618, James, supported by the bishops and the nobles, forced upon a general assembly the acceptance of the Five Articles of Perth, the most important of which was a direction that the Communion should be received in a kneeling posture. Yet, in spite of all that James had done, the local popular Church courts still existed, and the worship of the Church remained still distinctly Calvinistic and Puritan. Charles was more eager than his father to alter the worship of the Scottish Church, and, in 1637, his command, certain Scottish bishops— often referring for advice to Laud — completed a new Prayer Book, not unlike that in use in England, but differing from it, for the most part, in a sense adverse to Puritanism. The clergy declared against it, and this time the clergy had on their side the nobles, who not only feared lest Charles should take from them the Church lands appropriated by their fathers, but were also irritated at the promotion of some bishops to high offices which they claimed for themselves. 8. The Riot at Edinburgh and the Covenant. 1637 — 1638. — On July 23, 1637, an attempt was made to read the new service in St. Giles’s, at Edinburgh. The women present burst into a riot, and one of them threw her stool at the head of the officiating minister, fortunately missing him. All Scotland took part with the rioters. The new Prayer Book was hated, not only because it was said to be Popish, but also because it was English. In November four committees, known as the Tables, practically assumed the government of Scotland. In February, 1638, all good Scots were signing a National Covenant. Nothing was said in it 526 OVERTHROW OF PERSONAL GOVERNMENT 1638-1649 about episcopacy, but those who signed it bound themselves to labour, by all means lawful, to recover the purity and liberty of the Gospel, as it was established and professed before the recent innovations. 9. The Assembly of Glasgow, and the Abolition of Episco- pacy. 1638. — The greater part of 1638 was passed by Charles in an endeavour to come to an understanding with the Scots. On September 2 he revoked the Prayer Book, and offered to limit the powers of the bishops. On November 21a general assembly met at Glasgow, in which ninety-six lay members — for the most part noblemen — sat with 144 clergymen, and which may therefore be regarded as a sort of Ecclesiastical Parliament in which the clergy predominated as the nobles predominated in the single house which made up the real Parliament. The Assembly claimed to judge the bishops, on which the king’s commissioner, the Marquis of Hamilton, dissolved the Assembly rather than admit its claim. The Assembly, however, on the ground that it possessed a Divine right to settle all affairs relating to the Church independently of che King, sat on, as if nothing had happened, deposed the bishops, and re-established the Presbyterian system. 10. The First Bishops’ War. 1639. — In refusing to obey the order for dissolution, the Scottish General Assembly had practically made itself independent of the king, and Charles was driven — unless he cared to allow the establishment of a precedent, which might some day be quoted against him in England — to make war upon the Scots. Yet he dared not summon the English Parliament, lest it should follow their example, and he had to set forth on what came to be known as the First Bishops’ War — because it was waged in the cause of the bishops — with no more money than he could get from a voluntary contribution, not much exceeding 50,000/. Soon after he reached Berwick with his army, he found that the Scots had, on Dunse Law,^ an army almost equal to his own in numbers, commanded by Alexander Leslie, an old soldier who had fought in the German wars, and mainly composed of veterans, who had seen much service on the Continent, whilst his own men were raw recruits. His money soon came to an end, and it was then found impossible to keep the army together. The war was one in which there was no fighting, and in which only one man was killed, and he by an accident. On June 24 Charles signed the Treaty of Berwick. Both sides passed over in silence the deeds of the Glasgow Assembly, but a promise was given that all affairs civil 1 ‘ Law,’ in the Lowlands of Scotland, means a solitary hill. WENTWORTH IN IRELAND 527 1^32-1639 and ecclesiastical should be settled in an assembly and Parliament. Assembly and Parliament met at Edinburgh, and declared in favour of the abolition of episcopacy ; but Charles, who could not, even now, make up his mind to submit, ordered the adjourn- ment of the Parliament, and prepared for a new attack on Scotland. 1 1. Wentworth in Ireland. 1633 — 1639. — In preparing for a new war, Charles had Went- worth by his side. Went- worth, who was by far the ablest of his advisers, after ruling the north of England (see p. 514) in a high-handed fashion, had, in 1632, been appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland. In 1634 sum- moned an Irish Parliament, taking care that the English Protestant settlers and the Irish Catholics should be so evenly balanced that he could do what he would with it. He carried through it admir- able laws and a vote of money which enabled him to be in- dependent of Parliament for some time to come. As far as its material interests were concerned, Ireland had never been so prosperous. Trade grew, and the flax industry of the North sprang into exist- ence under Wentworth’s pro- tection. Churches which had lain in ruins since the deso- Soldier armed with a pike ; from a oroadside* printed circa 1630. Soldier with musket and crutch : from a broad- side printed about 1630. 528 OVERTHROW OF PERSONAL GOVERNMENT 1633-163^ lating wars of Elizabeth’s reign were rebuilt, and able and active ministers were invited from England. The Earl of Cork, who had illegally seized Church property to his own use, was heavily fined, and Lord Mountnorris, a self-seeking official, who refused to resign his office, was brought before a court-martial and condemned to death ; though Wentworth let him know that his life was in no danger, and that all that was wanted of him was the resignation of an office which he was unfitted to fill. Wentworth required all the officers of the Crown to live up to the motto of ‘ Thorough,’ which he had adopted for himself, by which he meant a ‘ thorough ’ de- votion to the service of the king and the State, without regard for private interests. 12. The Proposed Plantation of Connaught. — Wentworth gave great offence to the English officials and settlers by the harsh and overbearing way in which he kept them in order. His conduct to the Celtic population was less violent than that of some other lord deputies, but he had no more idea than his predecessors of leaving the Irish permanently to their own customs and religion. He believed that, both for their own good and for the safety of the English Crown, they must be made as like Englishmen as possible, and that, to effect this, it would be necessary to settle more Englishmen in Ireland to overawe them. Accordingly, in 1635, he visited Connaught, where he raked up an old claim of the king’s to the whole land of the province, though Charles had promised not to put forward any such claim at all. In every county of Connaught except Galway, a jury was found to give a verdict in favour of the king’s claim. The jury in County Galway re- fused to do his bidding, and Wentworth had the jurymen fined, and the land of the county seized by the order of the Irish Court of Exchequer, which pronounced judgment without a jury. He then invited English settlers to Connaught ; but he found that few English settlers would go to such a distance from their homes. Perhaps many refused to come because they distrusted Wentworth. Yet, for the moment, his government appeared successful. In 1639 he visited England, and Charles, who needed an able counsellor, made him Earl of Strafford, and from that time took him for his chief adviser. 13. The Short Parliament. 1640. — Strafford’s advice was that Charles should summon an English Parliament, whilst he himself held a Parliament in Dublin, which might show an example of loyalty. The Irish Parliament did all that was expected of it, the Catholic members being especially forward in voting supplies in THE SHORT PARLIAMENT 529 1640 the hope that, if they helped Charles to conquer the Scots, he would allow freedom of religion in Ireland. In England, Parliament met on April 13. Pym at once laid before the Commons a statement of the grievances of the nation, after which the House resolved to ask for redress of these grievances before granting supply. Charles offered to abandon ship-money if the Commons would give him twelve subsidies equal to about 960,000/. The Commons hesitated about granting so much, and wished the king to yield on other points as well as upon ship-money. In the end they prepared to advise Charles to abandon the war with Scotland altogether, and, to avoid this, he dissolved Parliament on May 5. As it had sat for scarcely more than three weeks, it is known as the Short Parliament. 14. The Second Bishops’ War. 1640. — In spite of the failure of the Parliament, Charles gathered an army by pressing men from all parts of England, and found money to pay them for a time by buying a large quantity of pepper on credit and selling it at once for less than it was worth. The soldiers, as they marched north- wards, broke into the churches, burnt the Communion rails, and removed the Communion tables to the middle of the building. There was no wish amongst Englishmen to see the Scots beaten. The Scots, knowing this, crossed the Tweed, and, on August 28, routed a part of the English army at Newburn on the Tyne. Even Strafford did not venture to advise a prolongation of the war. Negotiations were opened at Ripon, and Northumberland and Durham were left in the hands of the Scots as a pledge for the payment of 850/. a day for the maintenance of their army, till a permanent treaty could be arranged. Charles, whose money was already exhausted, summoned a Great Council, consisting of Peers alone, to meet at York. All that the Great Council could do was to advise him to summon another Parliament, and that advice he was obliged to take. 15. The Meeting of the Long Parliament. 1640. — On No- vember 3, 1640, the new Parliament, which was to be known as the Long Parliament, met. Pym once more took the lead, and proposed the impeachment of Strafford, as the king’s chief adviser in the attempt to carry on war in defiance of Parliament. Strafford had also collected an Irish army for an attack on Scotland, and it was strongly believed that he had advised the king to use that army to reduce England as well as Scotland under arbitrary government. The mere suspicion that he had threatened to bring an Irish army irjto England roused more than ordinary indignation, as, in those days. Irishmen were both detested and despised in England. 530 0 VE^ THRO W OR PERSONAL GO VERNMENT 1640-1641 Strafford was therefore impeached, and sent to the Tower. Laud was also imprisoned in the Tower, whilst other officials escaped to the Continent to avoid a similar fate. The Houses then pro- ceeded to pass a Triennial Bill, directing that Parliament should meet every three years, even if the king did not summon it, and to this, with some hesitation, Charles assented. He could not, in fact, refuse anything which Parliament asked, because, if he had done so. Parliament would give him no money to satisfy the Scots, and if the Scots were not satisfied, they would recom- mence the war. 16. The Impeachment of Strafford. 1641.— On March 22, 1641, Strafford’s trial was opened in Westminster Hall. All his overbearing actions were set forth at length, but, after all had been said, a doubt remained whether they constituted high treason, that crime having been strictly defined by a statute of Edward III. (see p. 250). Young Sir Henry Vane, son of one of the Secretaries of State, found amongst his father’s papers a note of a speech delivered by Strafford in a Committee of the Privy Council just after the breaking up of the Short Parliament, in which he had spoken of the king as loose and absolved from all rules of govern- ment. “You have an army in Ireland,” Strafford was reported to have said, “ you may employ here to reduce this kingdom, for I am confident as anything under heaven, Scotland shall not hold out five months.” The Commons were convinced that * this kingdom ’ meant England and not Scotland ; but there were signs that the lords would be likely to differ from them, and the Commons accordingly abandoned the impeachment in which the lords sat as judges, and introduced a Bill of Attainder (see p. 401, note), to which, after the Commons had accepted it, the lords would have to give their consent if it was to become law, as in the case of any ordinary Bill. 17. Strafford’s Attainder and Execution. — Pym would have preferred to go on with the impeachment, because he believed that Strafford was really guilty of high treason. He held that treason was not an offence against the king’s private person, but against the king as a constitutional ruler, and that Strafford had actually diminished the king’s authority by attempting to make him an absolute ruler, and thereby to weaken Charles’s hold upon the good- will of the people. This argument, however, did not break down the scruples of the Peers, and if Charles had kept quiet, he would have had them at least on his side. Neither he nor the queen could keep quiet. Before the end of 1640 she had urged the THE LONG PARLIAMENT 531 1641 Pope to send her money and soldiers, and now she had a plan for bringing the defeated English army from Yorkshire to West- minster to overpower Parliament. Then came an attempt of Charles to get possession of the Tower, that he might liberate Strafford by force. Pym, who had learnt the secret of the queen’s army-plot, disclosed it, and the peers, frightened at their danger, passed the Bill of Attainder. A mob gathered round Whitehall and howled for the execution of the sentence. Charles, fearing lest the mob should take vengeance on his wife, weakly signed a commission appointing commissioners to give the royal assent to the Bill, though he had promised Strafford that not a hair of his head should be touched. With the words, “ Put not your trust in princes ” on his lips, the great royalist statesman prepared for the scaffold. On May 12 he was beheaded, rather because men feared his ability than because his offences were legally punishable with death. 18. Constitutional Reforms. 1641. — Englishmen would not have feared Strafford if they could have been sure that the king could be trusted to govern according to law, without employing force to settle matters in his own way. Yet, though the army-plot had made it difficult to feel confidence in Charles, Parliament was at first content to rely on constitutional reforms. On the day on which Charles assented to the bill for Strafford’s execution he assented to another bill declaring that the existing Parliament should not be dissolved without its own consent, a stipulation which made the House of Commons legally irresponsible either to the king or to its constituents, and which could only be justified by the danger of an attack by an armed force at the bidding of the king. Acts were passed abolishing the Courts of Star Chamber and the High Commission, declaring ship-money to be illegal, limiting the king’s claims on forests, prohibiting fines for not taking up knighthood, and preventing the king from levying Tonnage and Poundage or impositions without a Parliamentary grant. Taking these acts as a whole, they stripped the Crown of the extraordinary powers which it had acquired in Tudor times, and made it impossi- ble for Charles, legally, to obtain money to carry on the govern- ment without the goodwill of Parliament, or to punish offenders without the goodwill of juries. All that was needed in the way of constitutional reform was thus accomplished. As far as law could do it, the system of personal government which Charles had in part inherited from his predecessors and in part had built up for himself, was brought to an end. 53 ^ CHAPTER XXXIV THE FORMATION OF PARLIAMENTARY PARTIES AND THE FIRST YEARS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1641— 1644 LEADING DATES Reign of Charles I., 1625—1649 The Debate on the Grand Remonstrance . The Attempt on the Five Members The Battle of Edgehill The Fairfaxes defeated at Adwalton Moor Waller’s Defeat at Roundway Down The Raising of the Siege of Gloucester The First Battle of Newbury .... The Solemn League and Covenant taken by the Houses • . . The Scottish Army crosses the Tweed The' Battle of Marston Moor Capitulation of Essex’s Infantry at Lostwithiel The Second Battle of Newbury .... Nov. 23, 1641 Jan. 4, 1642 Oct. 23, 1642 June 30, 1643 July 13, 1643 Sept. 5, 1643 Sept. 20, 1643 Sept. 25, 1643 Jan. 19, 1644 July 2, 1644 Sept. 2, 1644 Oct. 27, 1644 1. The King’s Visit to Scotland. 1641. — If Charles could have inspired his subjects with the belief that he had no intention of overthrowing the new arrangements by force, there would have been little more trouble. Unfortunately, this was not the case. In August, indeed, the Houses succeeded in disbanding the English army in Yorkshire, and in dismissing the Scottish army across the Tweed ; but, in the same month, Charles set out for Scotland, ostensibly to give his assent in person to the Acts abolishing epis- copacy in that country, but in reality to persuade the Scots to lend him an army to coerce the English Parliament. Pym and Hamp- den suspecting this, though they could not prove it, felt it necessary to be on their guard. 2. Parties formed on Church Questions. 1641. — There would, however, have been little danger from Charles if political questions alone had been at stake. Parliament had been unanimous in abolishing his personal government, and no one was likely to help him to restore it by force. In ecclesiastical questions, however, differences arose early. All, indeed, wished to do away with the practices introduced by Laud, but there was a party, which though' willing to introduce reforms into the Church, and to subject it to Parliament, objected to the introduction of the Presbyterian system, CHURCH QUESTIONS 533 1641 kst presbyters should prove as tyrannical as bishops. Of this party, the leading members were Hyde, a politician who surveyed State affairs with the eyes of a lawyer, and the amiable Lord Falkland, a scholar and an enthusiast for religious toleration. On the other hand, there was a party which believed that the abolition of episcopacy was the only possible remedy for ecclesiastical tyranny. If Charles had openly supported the first party, it might, perhaps, have been in a majority ; but as he did nothing of the sort, an impression gained ground that if bishops were not entirely abolished, they would sooner or later be restored by the king to their full authority, in spite of any limitations which Parliament might put upon them. Moreover, the lords, by throwing out a bill for removing the bishops from their House, exasperated even those members who were still hesitating. A majority in the Commons supported a bill, known as the Root and Branch Bill, for the abolition of episcopacy and for the transference of their jurisdiction to committees of laymen in each diocese. Though this bill was not passed, its existence was sure to intensify the dislike of the king to those who had brought it in. 3. Irish Parties. 1641.— Before the king returned from Scot- land, news arrived from Ireland which increased the difficulty of maintaining a good understanding with Charles. Besides the Eng- lish officials, there were two parties in Ireland discontented with Strafford’s rule. Of these one was that of the Catholic lords, mostly of English extraction, who wanted toleration for their religion and a large part in the management of the country. The other was that of the native Celts, who were anxious to regain the lands of which they had been robbed and to live again under their old customs. Both parties were terrified at the danger of increased persecution by the Puritan Parliament at Westminster, especially as the government at Dublin was in the hands of two lords justices, of whom the more active. Sir William Parsons, advocated repressive measures against the Catholics, and the in- troduction of fresh colonists from England to oust the Irish more completely from the land. In the spring of 1641 the Catholic lords had emissaries at Charles’s court offering to send an army to his help in England, if he would allow them to seize Dublin and to overthrow the Government carried on there in his name. 4. The Irish Insurrection. 1641. — Nothing was settled when Charles left England, and in October the native Irish, impatient of delay, attempted to seize Dublin for themselves. The plot was. however, detected, and they turned savagely on the English and 534 THE FORMATION OF PARTIES 1641 Scottish colony in Ulster. Murders, and atrocities worse than ordinary murder, were committed in the North of Ireland. At Porta- down the victims were driven into a river and drowned. Women were stripped naked and turned into the wintry air to die of cold and starvation, and children were slaughtered as ruthlessly as full- grown men. The lowest estimate of the destruction which reached England raised the number of victims to 30,000, and, though this was doubtless an immensely exaggerated reckoning, the actual number of victims must have reached to some thousands. In England a bitter cry for vengeance went up, and with that cry was mingled distrust of the king. It was felt to be necessary to send an army into Ireland, and, if the army was to go under the king’s orders, there was nothing to prevent him using it — after Ireland had been subdued — against the English Parliament. 5. The Grand Remonstrance. 1641. — The perception of this danger led the Commons to draw up a statement of their case, known as the Grand Remonstrance. They began with a long indictment of all Charles’s errors from the beginning of his reign, and, though the statements were undoubtedly exaggerated, they were adopted by the whole House. When, however, it came to the proposal of remedies, there was a great division amongst the members. The party led by Pym and Hampden, by which the Remonstrance had been drawn up, asked for the appointment of ministers responsible to Parliament, and for the reference of Church matters to an Assembly of divines nominated by Parliament. The party led by Hyde and Falkland saw that the granting of these demands would be tantamount to the erection of the sovereignty of Parliament in Church and State ; and, as they feared that this in turn would lead to the establishment of Presby- terian despotism, they preferred to imagine that it was still possible to make Charles a constitutional sovereign. On November 23 there was a stormy debate, and the division was not taken till after midnight. A small majority of eleven declared against the king. The majority then proposed to print the Remonstrance for the purpose of circulating it among the people. The minority pro- tested, and, as a protest was unprecedented in the House of Commons, a wild uproar ensued. Members snatched at their swords, and it needed all Hampden’s persuasive pleadings to quiet the tumult. 6. The King’s Return. 1641. — Charles had at last got a party on his side. When, on November 25, he returned to London, he announced that he intended to govern according to the laws, and 1641 1642 THE FIVE MEMBERS 535 would maintain the ‘ Protestant religion as it had been established in the times of Elizabeth and h'is father.’ He was at once greeted with enthusiasm in the streets, and felt himself strong enough to refuse to comply with the request of the Remonstrance. If only he could have kept quiet, he would probably, before long, have had a majority, even in the House of Commons, on his side. It was, however, difficult for Charles to be patient. He was kept short of money by the Commons, and he had not the art of conciliating opponents. On December 23 he appointed Lunsford, a debauched ruffian. Lieutenant of the Tower, and the opponents of the Court naturally saw in this unwarrantable proceeding a determination to use force against themselves. On December 26 they obtained Lunsford’s dismissal, but on the following day they heard that the rebellion in Ireland was spreading, and the increased necessity of providing an army for Ireland impressed on them once more the danger of placing under the orders of the king forces which he might use against themselves. 7. The Impeachment of the Bishops. 1641. — In order to make sure that the House of Lords would be on their side in the time of danger which was approaching, the Commons and their supporters called out for the exclusion of the bishops and the Roman Catholic peers from their seats in Parliament. A mob gathered at West- minster, shouting. No bishops ! No Popish lords ! The king gathered a number of disbanded officers at Whitehall for his protection, and these officers sallied forth beating and chasing the mob Another day Williams, Archbishop of York, having been hustled by the crowd, he and eleven other bishops sent to the Lords a protest that anything done by the House of Lords in their absence would be null and void. The Peers, who had hitherto supported the king, were offended, and, for a time, made common cause with the other House against him ; whilst the Commons impeached as traitors the twelve bishops who had signed the protest, wanting, not to punish them, but merely to get rid of their votes. 8. The Impeachment of the Five Members. 1642. — Charles, on his part, was exasperated, and fancied that he could strike a blow which his opponents would be unable to parry. He knew that the most active of the leaders of the opposition. Lord Kim- bolton in the House of Lords, and Pym, Hampden, Hazlerigg, Holies, and Strode in the Commons, had negotiated with the Scots before they invaded England in 1640, and he believed that they had actually invited them to enter the kingdom in arms. If this was true, they had legally been guilty of treason, and on January 3, 536 THE FORMATION OF PARTIES 1642 1642, Charles ordered the Attorney-General to impeach them as traitors. Doubts were afterwards raised whether the king had a right to impeach, but Charles does not seem to have doubted at the time that he was acting according to law. 9. The Attempt on the Five Members. 1642.— As the Com- mons showed signs of an intention to shelter these five members from arrest, Charles resolved to seize them himself. On the 4th of January, followed by about 500 armed men, he betook himself to the House of Comrhons. Leaving his followers outside, he told the House that he had come to arrest five traitors. As they had already left the House and were on their way to the city, he looked round for them in vain, and asked Lenthall, the Speaker, where they were. “ May it please your Majesty,” answered Lenthall, kneeling before him, “ I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place, but as this House is pleased to direct me.” Charles eagerly looked round for his enemies. “ The birds are flown,” he exclaimed, when he failed to descry them. He had missed his prey, and, as he moved away, shouts of “ Privilege ! privilege ! ” were raised from the benches on either side. 10. The Commons in the City. 1642. — The Commons, be- lieving that the king wanted, not to try a legal question, but to intimidate the House by the removal of its leaders, took refuge in the City. The City, which had welcomed Charles in November, when it was thought that he was come to maintain order according to law, now declared for the Commons. On January 10 Lord Kimbolton and the five members were brought back in triumph to Westminster by the citizens. Charles had already left White- hall, never to return till the day on which he was brought back to be tried for his life. 11. The Struggle for the Militia. 1642. — There was little doubt that if Charles could find enough support, the questions at issue would have to be decided by arms. To gain time, he con- sented to a Bill excluding the bishops from their seats in the House of Lords, and he then sent the queen abroad to pawn or sell the Crown jewels and to buy arms and gunpowder with the money. He turned his own course to the north. A struggle arose be- tween him and the Houses as to the command of the militia. There was no standing army in England, but the men of military age were mustered every year in each county, the fittest of them being selected to be drilled for a short time, at the expiration of which they were sent home to pursue their ordinary avocations. These drilled men were liable to be called out to defend their 1642- 1643 EDGEHILL 537 county against riots or invasion, and when they were together were formed into regiments called trained bands. All the trained bands in the country were spoken of as the militia. The Houses asked Charles to place the militia under officers of their choosing. “ Not for an hour,” replied Charles ; “ it is a thing with which I would not trust my wife and children.” The feeling on both sides grew more bitter ; Charles, after taking up his quarters at York, rode to Hull, where there was a magazine of arms of wJiich he wished to possess himself. Sir J ohn Hotham, the Parliamentary commander, shut the gates in his face. Both Charles and the Parliament began to gather troops. The Parliament appointed the Earl of Essex, the son of Elizabeth’s favourite, a steady, honourable man, without a spark of genius, as their general. On August 22, 1642, Charles set up his standard at Nottingham as a sign of war. 12. Edgehill and Turnham Green. 1642. — The richest part of England— the south-east — took, on the whole, the side of the Parliament ; the poorer and more rugged north-west took, on the whole, the side of the king. The greater part of the gentry were cavaliers or partisans of the king ; the greater part of the middle class in the towns were partisans of the Parliament, often called Roundheads in derision, because some of the Puritans cropped their hair short. After a successful skirmish at Powick Bridge Charles pushed on towards London, hoping to end the war at a blow. On October 23 the first battle was fought at Edgehill. The king’s nephew. Prince Rupert, son of Elizabeth and the Elec- tor Palatine, commanded his cavalry. With a vigorous charge he drove before him the Parliamentary horse in headlong flight ; but he did not pull up in time, and when he returned from the pursuit he found that the royalist infantry had been severely handled, and that it was too late to complete the victory which he had hoped to win. The fruits of victory, however, fell to the king. The cautious Essex drew back and Charles pushed on for London, reaching Brentford on November 12. That he did not enter London as a conqueror was owing to the resistance of the London trained bands, the citizen-soldiery of the capital. On the 13th they barred Charles’s way at Turnham Green. The king hesitated to attack, and drew back to Oxford. He was never to have such another chance again. 13. The King’s Plan of Campaign. 1643. — Charles’s hopes of succeeding better in 1643 were based on a plan for overwhelming London with superior force. He made Oxford the headquarters of his own army, and he had a second army under Sir Ralph n. N N 538 THE FIRST YEARS OF THE CIVIL WAR 1643 Hopton in Cornwall, and a third army under the Earl of Newcastle in Yorkshire. His scheme was, that whilst he himself attacked London in front, Hopton should advance through the southern counties into Kent, and Newcastle through the eastern counties into Essex. Hopton and Newcastle would then be able to seize the banks on either side of the Thames below London, and thus to interrupt the commerce of the city, without which it would be im- possible for it to hold out long. 14. Royalist Successes. 1643. — The weak point in Charles’s plan was that his three armies were far apart, and that the Earl of Essex, now stationed in London, might fall upon his main army before Newcastle and Hopton could come to its aid. Towards the end of April, Essex besieged and took Reading, but his troops melted away from disease, and he did not advance against Oxford till June, when his cautious leadership was not likely to effect any- thing decisive. In the meanwhile the king’s party was gaining the upper hand elsewhere. On May 16 Hopton completely defeated the Parliamentarians at Stratton in Cornwall, and was then ready to march eastwards. On June 18 Hampden received a mortal wound in a skirmish at Chalgrove Field. On July 5 Hopton got the better of one of the most energetic of the Parliamentary generals, Sir William Waller, on Lansdown, near Bath, and on July 13 his army thoroughly overthrew the same commander at Round- way Down, near Devizes. On J uly 26 Bristol was stormed by Rupert. Hopton now hoped to be able to push on towards Kent without difficulty. In the north, too, the king’s cause was prospering. On June 30, Newcastle defeated the Parliamentarians, Lord Fairfax and his son, Sir Thomas Fairfax, at Adwalton Moor, close to Brad- ford. He, too, hoped to be able to push on southwards. It seemed as if the king’s plan would be carried out before the end of the summer, and that London would be starved into surrender. 15. The Siege of Gloucester. 1643.— Charles, however, failed to accomplish his design, mainly because the armies of Hopton and Newcastle were formed for the most part of recruits, levied respectively in the west and in the north of England, who cared more for the safety of their own property and families than for the king’s cause. In the west, Plymouth, and in the north, Hull, were still garrisoned by the Parliament. Hopton’s men were, there- fore, unwilling to go far from their homes in Cornwall as long as their fields were liable to be ravaged by the garrison of Plymouth, and in the same way, Newcastle’s men would not go far from Yorkshire as long as their fields were liable to be ravaged by the CHARLES'^S ATTACK BAFFLED 539 1643 garrison of Hull. The Welshmen, also, who served in the king’s own army found their homes endangered by a Parliamentary garrison at Gloucester, and were equally unwilling to push forward. Charles had, therefore, to take Plymouth, Hull, and Gloucester, if he could, before he could attack London. In August he laid siege in person to Gloucester. The London citizens at once perceived that, if Gloucester fell, their own safety would be in peril, and amidst the greatest enthusiasm the London trained bands marched out to its relief. On September 5 the king raised the siege on their approach. 16. The First Battle of Newbury. 1643. — Charles did not, however, give up the game. Hurrying to Newbury, and reaching it before Essex could arrive there on his way back to London, he blocked the way of the Parliamentary army. Essex, whose provisions were running short, must force a passage or surrender. On September 20 a furious battle was fought outside Newbury, but when the evening came, though Essex had gained ground, the royal army still lay across the London road. It had, however, suffered heavy losses, and its ammunition being almost exhausted, Charles marched away in the night, leaving the way open for Essex to continue his retreat to London. In this battle Falkland was slain. He had sided with the king, not because he shared the passions of the more violent Royalists, but because he feared the intolerance of the Puritans. Charles’s determination to conquer or perish rather than to admit of a compromise had saddened his mind, and he went about murmuring, ‘Peace! peace!’ He was weary of the times, he said, on the morning of the battle, but he would ‘ be out of it ere night.’ He threw himself into the thick of the fight and soon found the death which he sought. 17. The Eastern Association. 1643. — Whilst in the south the resistance of Gloucester had weakened the king’s power of attack, a formidable barrier was being raised against Newcastle’s advance in the east. Early in the war, certain counties in different parts of the country had associated themselves together for mutual defence, and of these combinations the strongest was the Eastern Associa- tion, comprising the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge and Hertford. These five counties raised forces in common and paid them out of a common purse. 18. Oliver Cromwell. 1642—1643. — The strength which the Eastern Association soon developed was owing to its placing it- self under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, a member of Parlia- ment, who had taken arms when the civil war began, and who soon distinguished himself by his practical sagacity. “Your 540 THE FIRST YEARS OF THE CIVIL WAR 1643 troops,” he said to Hampden after the flight of the Parliamentary cavalry at Edgehill, “ are, most of them, old decayed serving men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows, and their troops are gentle- men’s sons, younger sons, and persons of quality ; do you think that the spirits of such base and mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen that have honour and courage and resolution in them ? You must get men of a spirit, and take it not ill what I say — I know you will not — of a spirit that is likely to go on as far as gentlemen will go ; or else you will be beaten still.” It was this idea which Cromwell, having been appointed a colonel, put in execution in the Eastern Association. He took for his sol- diers sternly Puritan men, who had their hearts in the cause ; but he was not content with religious zeal alone. Every one who served under him must undergo the severest discipline. After a few months he had a cavalry regiment under his orders so fiery and at the same time so well under restraint that no body of horse on either side could compare with it. 19. The Assembly of Divines. 1643. — Whilst the armies were fighting with varying success, Pym, with undaunted courage, was holding the House of Commons to its task of resistance. After the Royalist successes in June and July, the great peril of the Parliamentary cause made him resolve to ask the Scots for help. The Scots, thinking that if Charles overthrew the English Parlia- ment he would next fall upon them, were ready to send an army to fight against the king, but only on the condition that the Church of England should become Presbyterian like their own. Already some steps had been taken in this direction, and on July i a Puritan As- sembly of divines met at Westminster to propose ecclesiastical alter- ations, which were to be submitted to Parliament for its approval. 20. The Solemn League and Covenant. 1643. — In August, com- missioners from the English Parliament, of whom the principal was Sir Henry Vane, arrived in Edinburgh to negotiate for an alliance. The result was a treaty between the two nations, styled the Solemn League and Covenant — usually known in England simply as the Covenant, but altogether different from the National Covenant, signed by the Scots only in 1638 (see p. 525). The Scots wished the English to bind themselves to ‘ the reformation of religion in the Church of England according to the example of the best reformed churches ’ ; in other words, according to the Presbyterian system. Vane, however, who was eager for religious liberty, insisted on slipping in the words, ‘ and according to the Word of God.’ The Scots could not possibly refuse to accept 54 * 1641-1643 the confederate catholics the addition, though, by so doing, they left it free to every Englishman to assert that any part of the Presbyterian system which he disliked was not ‘ according to the Word of God.’ The Covenant, thus amended, was carried to England, and on Sep- tember 25, five days after the battle of Newbury, was sworn to by the members of the House of Commons, and was soon after- wards ordered to be sworn to by every Englishman. Money was then sent to Scotland, and a Scottish army prepared to enter England before the opening of the next campaign. 21. The Irish War. 1641—1643. — Whilst Parliament looked for help to Scotland, Charles looked to Ireland. The insurrection in the north of Ireland in October, 1641 (see p. 533) had been the affair of the Celtic natives ; but in December they were joined by the Catholic lords and gentry of Norman or English descent. For the first time in Ireland there was a contest between Catholic and Protestant, instead of a contest between Celts on one side, and those who were not Celts on the other. The allies were not likely to be very harmonious, as the Celts wished to return to their old tribal institutions, and the Catholic lords wished to be pre- dominant in Parliament in agreement with the king. For the present, however, they were united by the fear that the Puritan Parliament in England and the Puritan Government in Dublin (see p. 533) would attempt to destroy them and their religion together. The outbreak of the Civil War in England, in 1642, made it impossible for either king or Parliament to send sufficient troops to overpower them. In May they had chosen a Supreme Council to govern revolted Ireland, and in October a General Assembly of the Confederate Catholics, as they styled themselves, was held at Kilkenny. The Assembly petitioned Charles for the redress of grievances, and in January, 1643, Charles opened nego- tiations with them, hoping to obtain an Irish army with which he might carry on war in England. In March they offered him 10,000 men if he would consent to allow a Parliament mainly composed of Catholics to meet at Dublin and to propose bills for his approval. Charles, who liked neither to make this concession nor to relinquish the hope of Irish aid, directed a cessation of arms in Ireland, in the hope that an agreement of some kind might ultimately be come to. In accordance with this cessation, which was signed on September 1 5, the coast-line from Belfast to Dublin, and a patch of land round Cork, was in the possession of the English forces, whilst a body of Scots, under Monro, held Carrickfergus, but all the rest of Ireland was in the hands of the Confederates. 542 THE FIRST YEARS OR THE CIVIL WAR 1643-1644 22. Winceby and Arundel. 1643—1644. — As yet Charles had to depend on his English forces alone. In the beginning of September, Newcastle, lately created a Marquis, laid siege to Hull. If Hull fell, he would be able to sweep down on the Eastern Association. The Earl of Manchester- -known as Lord Kimbolton at the time of the attempt on the five members — had been appointed general of the army of that Association, with Cromwell as his lieu- tenant-general. On October 1 1 Cromwell defeated a body of Royalist horse at Winceby. On the 12th, Newcastle raised the siege of Hull. All danger of Newcastle’s marching southwards was thus brought to an end. In the South, Hopton succeeded in reaching Sussex, and, in December, took Arundel Castle ; but the place was retaken by Sir William Waller on January 6, 1644, Here, too, the Royalist attack received a check, and there was no longer any likelihood that the king’s forces would be able to starve out London by establishing themselves on the banks of the Thames. 23. The Committee of Both Kingdoms. 1644. — Pym, whose statesmanship had brought about the alliance with the Scots, died on December 8, 1643. On January 19 the Scots crossed the Tweed again under the command of Alexander Leslie (see p. 526), who had been created Earl of Leven when Charles visited Edinburgh in 1641. On the 25th, Sir Thomas Fairfax defeated, at Nantwich, a force of English soldiers who had been freed from service in Ireland by the cessation of arms, and had been sent by Ormond, who had recently been named by Charles Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to support the royalist cause in England. Pym’s death, and the necessity of carrying on joint operations with the Scots, called for the appointment of some definite authority at Westminster, and, on February 16, a Committee of Both Kingdoms, composed of members of one or other of the two Houses, and also of Scottish Commissioners sent to England by the Parliament of Scotland, was named to control the operations of the armies of the two nations. 24. The Campaign of Marston Moor. 1644. — The spring campaign opened successfully for Parliament. In March, indeed, Rupert relieved Newark, which was hardly pressed by a Parlia- mentary force ; but in March Waller defeated Hopton at Cheriton near Alresford, whilst in the North, Sir Thomas Fairfax, together with his father. Lord Fairfax, seized upon Selby, and joined the Scots in besieging York, into which Newcastle had been driven. In May, Manchester stormed Lincoln, and he too joined the forces before York. At the king’s headquarters there was deep alarm. MARSTON MOOR S43 1644 Essex and Waller were approaching to attack Oxford, but Charles slipping out of the city before it was surrounded despatched Rupert to the relief of York. At Rupert’s approach the besiegers retreated On July 2 Rupert and Newcastle fought a desperate battle on Marston Moor, though they were decidedly outnumbered by their opponents. The whole of the right wing of the Parliamentarians, and part of the centre, fled before the Royalist attack ; but on their left, Cromwell restored the fight, and drove Rupert in flight before him. Cromwell did not, however, as Rupert had done at Edgehill, waste his energies in the pursuit of the fugitives. Promptly drawing up, he faced round, and hurled his squadrons upon the hitherto victorious Royalists in the other parts of the field. The result was decisive. “ It had all the evidence,” wrote Cromwell, “of an absolute victory, obtained by the Lord’s blessing upon the godly party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. God made them as stubble to our swords.” All the north of England, except a few fortresses, fell into the hands of Parliament and the Scots. 25. Presbyterians and Independents. 1644. — Cromwell spoke of Marston Moor as a victory of the ‘godly party.’ The West- minster Assembly of Divines had declared strongly in favour of Presbyterianism, but there were a few of its members — only five at first, known as the five Dissenting Brethren — who stood up for the principles of the Separatists (see p. 470) wishing to see each congregation independent of any general ecclesiastical organisa- tion. F rom holding these opinions they were beginning to be known as Independents. These men now attracted to themselves a con- siderable number of the stronger-minded Puritans, such as Crom- well and Vane, of whom many, though they had no special attach- ment to the teaching of the Independent divines, upheld the idea of toleration, whilst others gave their adherence to one or other of the numerous sects which had recently sprung into existence. Cromwell, especially, was drawn in the direction of toleration by his practical experience as a soldier. It was intolerable to him to be forbidden to promote a good officer on the ground that he was not a Presbyterian. On one occasion he was asked to discard a certain officer because he was an Anabaptist. “ Admit he be,” he had replied ; “ shall that render him incapable to serve the public ? Take heed of being too sharp, or too easily sharpened by others, against those to whom you can object little but that they square not with you in every opinion concerning matters of religion.” He had ac- cordingly filled his own regiments with men of every variety of Puritan opinion, choosing for promotion the best soldier, and not 544 the first YEARS OF THE CIVIL WAR 1644 the adherent of any special Church system. These he styled ‘ the godly party,’ and it was by the soldiers of ‘the godly party,’ so understood, that Marston Moor had been won. 26. Essex’s Surrender at Lostwithiel. 1644. — Essex was the hope of the Presbyterians who despised the sects and hated toleration. Being jealous of Waller, he left him to take Oxford alone, if he could, and marched off to the West, to accomplish what he imagined to be the easier task of wresting the western counties from the king. Charles turned upon Waller, and fought an indecisive action with him at Cropredy Bridge, after which Waller’s army, being composed of local levies with no heart for permanent soldiering, melted away. Charles then marched in pursuit of Essex, and surrounded him at Lostwithiel, in Cornwall. Essex’s provisions fell short ; and on September 2, though his horse cut their way out, and he himself escaped in a boat, the whole of his infantry capitulated. 27. The Second Battle of Newbury. 1644. — London was thus laid bare, and Parliament hastily summoned Manchester and the army of the Eastern Association to its aid. Manchester, being good-natured and constitutionally indolent, longed for some com- promise with Charles which might bring about peace. Cromwell, on the other hand, perceived that no compromise was possible with Charles as long as he was at the head of an army in the field A second battle of Newbury was fought, on October 27, with doubtful results : Manchester showed little energy, and the king was allowed to escape in the night. Cromwell, to whom his sluggishness seemed nothing less than treason to the cause, attacked Manchester in Parliament, not from personal ill-will, but from a desire to remove an inefficient general from his command in the army. Two parties were thus arrayed against one another : on the one side the Presbyterians, who wanted to suppress the sects and, if possible, to make peace ; and on the other side the Independents, who wanted toleration, and to carry on the war efficiently till a decisive victory had been gained. 545 CHAPTER XXXV THE NEW MODEL ARMY. 1644—1649 LEADING DATES Reign of Charles I., 1625—1649 Battle of Naseby Glamorgan’s Treaty Charles in the hands of the Scots .... Charles surrendered by the Scots .... Charles carried off from Holmby .... The Army in Military Possession of London June 14, 1645 Aug. 25, 1645 May 5, 1646 Jan. 30, 1647 June 5, 1647 Aug. 7, 1647 Nov. 7 X, Charles’s Flight from Hampton Court . The Second Civil War .... Pride’s Purge Execution of Charles April to Au;J,, 1648 Dec. 6, 1648 Jan. 30, 1649 I. The Self-denying Ordinance and the Ncv/ Model. 1645. — Cromwell dropped his attack on Manchester as soon as he found that he could attain his end in another way. A proposal was made for the passing of a Self-denying Ordinance,' which was to exclude all members of either House from commands in the army. The Lords, knowing that members of their House would be chiefly affected by It, threw it out, and the Commons then proceeded to form a New Model Army — that is to say*, an army newly organised, its officers and soldiers being chosen solely with a view to military efficiency. Its general was to be Sir Thomas Fairfax, whilst the lieutenant-general was not named ; but there can be little doubt that the post was intended for Cromwell. After the Lords had agreed to the New Model, they accepted the Self-denying Ordinance in an altered form, as, though all the existing officers were directed to resign their posts, nothing was said against their re-appointment. Essex, Manchester, and Waller resigned, but when the time came for Cromwell to follow their example, he and two or three others were appointed to commands in the new army. Cromwell became Lieutenant-General, with the command of the cavalry. The New Model was composed partly of pressed men, and was by no means, ^ An ordinance was at this time in all respects similar to an Act of Parlia- ment, except that it did not receive the Royal assent. In the middle ages an ordinance was exactly the reverse, being issued by the King without Parlia- mentary approval. Tm NEW MODEL AkMV S4B 1644-164S as has been often said, of a sternly religious character throughout ; but a large number of decided Puritans had been drafted into it, especially from the army of the Eastern Association; and the majority of the officers were Independents, some of them of a strongly Sectarian type. The New Model Army had the ad- vantage of receiving regular pay, which had not been the case before ; so that the soldiers, whether Puritans or not, were now likely to stick to their colours. 2. Milton’s ‘ Areopagitica.’ 1644. — By Cromwell, who in con- sequence of his tolerance was the idol of the Sectarians in the army, religious liberty had first been valued because it gave him the service of men of all kinds of opinions. On November 24, 1644, Milton, some of whose books had been condemned by the licensers of the press appointed by Parliament, issued Areopagitica^ in which he advocated the liberty of the press on the ground that excel- lence can only be reached by those who have free choice between good and evil. “He that can apprehend,” he wrote, “ and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain — he is the true warfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary, but slinks out of the race, when that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.” Liberty was good for religion as much as it was for literature. “ These are the men,” he continued, “ cried out against for schismatics and sectaries, as if,. while the temple of the Lord was building, there should be a sort of irrational men who could not consider there must be many schisms and many dissections made in the quarry and in the timber ere the house of God can be built.” The perfection of the building consisted “ in this — that out of many moderate varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportional, arises the goodly and the graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure.” 3. The Execution of Laud. 1645. — In Parliament, at least, there was one direction in which neither Presbyterian nor Inde- pendent was inclined to be tolerant. They had all suffered under Laud, and Laud’s impeachment was allowed to go on. The House of Lords pronounced sentence against him, and on January 10, 1645, he was beheaded. The Presbyterians had the majority in the House of Commons, and they were busy in enforcing their system, as far as Parliamentary resolutions would go. The Independents had to wait for better times. 4. Montrose and Argyle. 1644. — For the present, however. MONTROSE'S CAMPAIGN 547 1644-1645 the two parties could not afford to quarrel, as a powerful diversion in the king’s favour was now threatening them from Scotland. The Marquis of Montrose, who, in the Bishops’ Wars, had taken part with the Covenanters, had grown weary of the interference of the Scottish Presbyterian clergy with politics, and still more weary of the supremacy in Scotland of the Marquis of Argyle, who had all the organisation of the Presbyterian Church at his disposal. Montrose saw that, though Argyle was too strong for him in the Lowlands, it was possible to assail him with effect in the Highlands, where he had made many enemies. In the Low- lands Argyle was regarded as a Scottish nobleman. In the High- lands he was the chief of the clan of the Campbells, which had often unscrupulously extended its borders at the expense of its neighbours, especially at the expense of the various clans of the Macdonalds. Montrose therefore hoped that if he threw himself into the Highlands, he might make use of the enmity of these clans against the Campbells to crush Argyle and to exalt the king. 5. Montrose in the Highlands. 1644 — 1645. — In 1644, shortly after the battle of Marston Moor, Montrose made his way to the Highlands with only two followers. He was the first to discover the capacity of the Highlanders for war. With their help, and with the help of a trained Irish contingent, mostly composed of the descendants of Highlanders who had emigrated to Ireland, he beat the Scottish forces at Tippermuir and Aberdeen, and then, crossing the mountains, amidst the snows of winter, harried the lands of the Campbells. On February 2, 1645, he defeated Argyle’s clans- men at Inverlochy, whilst Argyle himself — who was no warrior — watched their destruction from a boat. Wherever Montrose went the heavy Lowland troops toiled after him in vain. On May 9 he overthrew another army under Baillie at Auldearn. Leven's Scottish army in Yorkshire had enough to do to bar the way against Mont- rose in case of his issuing from the mountains and attempting to join forces with Charles in England With any other troops Montrose would probably have made the attempt already ; but his Highlanders were accustomed to return home to deposit their booty in their own glens as soon as a battle had been won, and, there- fore, victorious as he had been, he was unable to leave the High- lands. 6. The New Model Army in the Field. 1645. — The New Model army started on its career in April. Cromwell, with his highly-trained horse, swept round Oxford, cutting off Charles’s supplies ; whilst Fairfax was sent by the Committee of Both Kingdoms (see p. 542) 548 THE NEW MODEL ARMY 164s to the relief of Taunton, which had been gallantly holding out under Robert Blake. A detachment of Fairfax’s force sufficed to set Taunton free. His main force was stupidly sent by the Committee to besiege Oxford, though the king was marching northwards, and might fall upon Leven’s Scots as soon as he reached them. On May 31, however, Charles turned sharply round, and stormed Leicester. The popular outcry in London compelled the Com- mittee to allow their commander-in-chief to act on his own dis- cretion ; and Fairfax, abandoning the siege of Oxford, marched straight in pursuit of the Royal army. 7. The Battle of Naseby. 1645. — On June 14 Fairfax overtook the king at Naseby. In the battle which followed, the Parlia- mentary army was much superior in numbers, but it was largely composed of raw recruits (see p. 545), and its left wing of cavalry — under I reton, who, in the following year, became Cromwell’s son- in-law — was routed by the king’s right, under Rupert, As at Edge- hill, Rupert galloped hard in pursuit, without looking back. The Parliamentary infantry in the centre was by this time pressed hard, but Cromwell, on the right, at the head of a large body of cavalry, scattered the enemy’s horse before him. Then, as at Marston Moor, he halted to see how the battle went elsewhere. Sending a detach- ment to pursue the defeated Royalists, he hurled the rest of his horse on the king’s foot, who were slowly gaining ground in the centre. In those days, when half of every body of infantry fought with pikes, and the other half with inefficient muskets, it was seldom that foot-soldiers could withstand a cavalry charge in the open, and the whole of Charles’s infantry, after a short resistance, surrendered on the spot. Rupert returned only in time to see that defeat was certain. The king, with vhat horse he cruld gather round him, made off as fast as he could. The stake play eu . at Naseby was the crown of England, and Charles had lost it. 8. The Results of Naseby. 1645. — Disastrous as Charles’s defeat had been, he contrived to struggle on for some months. The worst thing that befel him after the battle was the seizure of his cabinet containing his correspondence, which revealed his con- stant intrigues to bring alien armies — French, Lorrainers, and Irish — into England. It was, therefore, in a more determined spirit than ever that Parliament carried on the war. After retaking Leicester, on June 18, Fairfax marched on to the West, where the king’s eldest son, Charles, Prince of Wales, had been since the summer of 1644, and where debauched and reckless Goring was at the head of a Royalist army. On July 10 Fairfax routed him at Langport, and on i645 THE GLAMORGAN TREATY 549 July 23 took Bridgwater. Then, leaving forces to coop up Goring’s remaining troops, Fairfax turned eastward, took Sherborne on August 2, whilst the Scots, who after Naseby had marched south- wards, were besieging Hereford. On September i, however, the king relieved Hereford, and fancied he might still retrieve his fortunes. On September 10, he received a severe blow. Fairfax stormed the outer defences of Bristol, and Rupert, who commanded the garrison, at once capitulated. There can be little doubt that he had no other choice ; but Charles would hear no excuse, and dismissed him from his service. 9. Charles’s Wanderings. 1645. — Charles’s hopes were always springing up anew, and now that Rupert had failed him, he looked to Montrose for deliverance. Montrose, on July 2, had won another victory at Alford, and, on August 15, a still more crushing victory at Kilsyth, after which he had entered Glasgow, and received the submission of the Lowlands. Charles marched northward to meet him, but on the way was met and defeated by the Parlia- mentary general, Poyntz, on Rowton Heath. Almost immediately afterwards he heard the disastrous news that David Leslie, an able officer who had won renown in the German wars, and had fought well at Marston Moor, had been despatched from the Scottish army in England, had fallen upon Montrose at Philiphaugh, at a time when he had but a scanty following with him, and had utterly defeated him. After this Cromwell reduced the South, capturing Winchester and Basing House, whilst Fairfax betook himself to the siege of Exeter. In October, Charles, misled by a rumour that Montrose had recovered himself, made one more attempt to join him ; but he was headed by the enemy, and compelled to retreat to Oxford, where, with all his followers ardently pleading for peace, he still maintained that his conscience would not allow him to accept any terms from rebels, or to surrender the Church of England into their hands. 10. Glamorgan in Ireland. 1645—1646. — Not one of Charles’s intrigues with foreign powers did him so much harm as his con- tinued efforts to bring over an Irish army to fight his battles in England. In 1645 he despatched the Roman Catholic Earl of Glamorgan to Ireland, giving him almost unlimited powers to raise money and men, and to make treaties with this object, but in- structing him to follow the advice of Ormond. When Glamorgan arrived in Ireland, in August, he found that the Confederate Catholics were resolved to demand that all the churches in Ire- land, except the few still in the hands of the English, should be 550 THE NEW MODEL ARMY 1645-1646 given permanently to the Catholics, and that permission should be granted to their clergy to exercise jurisdiction in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical. Though Glamorgan knew that Charles had never approved of these concessions, he signed a treaty, on August 25, 1645, in which he granted all that was asked, in consideration of an engagement by the Confederates to place him at the head of 10,000 Irishmen destined for England. Before anything had been done, a Papal Nuncio, Rinuccini, landed in Ireland and required fresh concessions, to which Glamorgan readily assented. On January 16, 1646, however, before Glamorgan’s army was ready to start, the treaty which he had made in August became known A gentleman. A gentlewoman. Ordinary civil costume temp. Charles I. : from Speed’s map of ‘The Kingdom of England,’ 1646. at Westminster ; and, though Charles promptly disavowed having authorised its signature, there remained a grave suspicion that he was not as innocent as he pretended to be. II. The King’s Flight to the Scots. 1646. — In the beginning of 1646 the Civil War virtually came to an end. On March 14, Charles’s army in the West surrendered to Fairfax in Cornwall, and in the same month the last force which held the field for him was overthrown at Stow-on the-Wold. Many fortresses still held out, but, as there was no chance of relief, their capture was only a question of time ; and though the last of them — Harlech Castle — did not surrender till 1647, there was absolutely no doubt what the result would be. Charles, now again at Oxford, had but to choose 1646 CHARLES AND THE SCOTS to whom he would surrender. He chose to give himself up to the Scots, whose army was at the time besieging Newark. He seems to have calculated that they would replace him on the throne without insisting on very rigorous conditions, thinking that they would rather restore him to power than allow the English army^ formidable as it was, to have undisputed authority in England, and possibly to crush the independence of Scotland. The Scots, on the other hand, seem to have thought that, when Charles was once in their power, he must, for his safety’s sake, agree to establish Presbyterianism in England, by which means the party which would of necessity lean for support on themselves would have Ordinary civil costume Charles I. : from Speed’s map of ‘ The Kingdom of England, 1646. the mastery in England. On May 5, 1646, Charles rode in to the quarters of the Scottish army at Southwell, a few miles from Newark. 12. Charles at Newcastle. 1646. — Newark at once surrendered, and Charles was conveyed to Newcastle, where, as he refused to consent to the establishment of Presbyterianism in England, he was practically treated as a prisoner. At the end of 1645 and the beginning of 1646 there had been fresh elections to fill up seats in the House of Commons left vacant by Royalists expelled for taking the king’s part ; but, though many Independent officers were chosen, there was still a decidedly Presbyterian majority. On July 14 propositions for peace were delivered to Charles on A citizen. A citizen’.s wife. 552 THE NEW MODEL ARMY 1646-1647 behalf of Parliament and the Scots. He was to surrender his power over the militia for twenty years, to take the Covenant, and to support Presbyterianism in the Church. Charles, in his corre- spondence with his wife, showed himself more ready to abandon the militia than to abandon episcopacy \ whilst she, being a Roman Catholic, and not caring for bishops whom she counted as heretics, advised him at all hazards to cling to the command of the militia. Charles hoped everything from mere procrastination. “All my endeavours,” he wrote to the queen, “ must be the delaying of my answer till there be considerable parties visibly formed” — in other words, till Presbyterians and Independents were ready to A countryman. A countrywoman. Ordinary civil costume temj>. Charles I. : from Speed’s map of ‘ The Kingdom of England,’ 1646. come to blows, and, therefore, to take him at his own price. In order to hasten that day, he made in October a proposal of his own, in which he promised, in case of his being restored to power,, to establish Presbyterianism for three years, during which time the future settlement of the Church might be publicly discussed. He, however, took care to make no provision for the very probable event of the discussion leaving parties as opposed to one another as they had been before the discussion was opened, and it was obvious that, as he had never given the royal assent to any Act for the abolition of episcopacy, the whole episcopal system would legally occupy the field when the three years came to an end. The Presbyterians would thus find themselves checkmated by an unworthy trick. 1047 THE KING AT HOLM BY HOUSE 553 13. The Removal of the King to Holmby. 1647.— The Scots, discontented with the king’s refusal to accept their terms, began to open their ears to an offer by the English Parliament to pay them the money owing to them for their assistance, on the open understanding that they would leave England, and the tacit under- standing that they would leave the king behind them. Once more they implored Charles to support Presbyterianism, assuring him that, if he would, they would fight for him to a man. On his refusal, they accepted the English offer, took their money, and on January 30, 1647, niarched away to their own country, leaving Charles in the hands of Commissioners of the English Parliament, who conveyed him to Holmby House, in Northamptonshire. 14. Dispute between the Presbyterians and the Army. 1647. — The leading Presbyterians, of whom the most prominent was Holies (see p. 535), were so anxious to come to terms with the king, that before the end of January they accepted Charles’s illusory proposal of a three years’ Presbyterianism (see p. 552), offering to allow him to come to London or its neighbourhood in order to carry on negotiations. The fact was, that they were now more afraid of the army than of the king, believing it to be ready to declare not merely for toleration of the sects, but also for a more demo- cratic form of government than suited many of the noblemen and gentlemen who sat on the benches of the Lords and Commons. In March the Commons voted that only a small body of cavalry should be kept up in England, and no infantry at all, except a small force needed to garrison the fortresses, and also that when the infantry regiments were broken up the disbanded soldiers should be asked to volunteer for service in Ireland. Of the cavalry in England Fairfax was to be general, but no officer under him was to hold a higher rank than that of colonel, a rule which would enable Crom- well’s opponents in Parliament to oust him from his position in the army. So strong was the feeling in the nation for peace, and for the diminution of the heavy burden of taxation which the main- tenance of the army required, that the Presbyterians would pro- bably have gained their object had they acted with reasonable prudence, as a large number of soldiers had no sympathy with the religious enthusiasts in the ranks. There were, however, con- siderable arrears of pay owing to the men, and had they been paid in ready money, and an ordinance passed indemnifying them for acts done in war-time, most, if not all, would, in all probability^ either have gone home or have enlisted for Ireland. Instead of doing this, Parliament only voted a small part of the arrears, and II. 0 0 554 THE NEW MODEL ARMY 1647 fiercely denounced the army for daring to prepare a petition to Fairfax asking for his support in demanding full pay and indemnity. In a few weeks Parliament and army were angrily distrustful of one another, and the soldiers, organising themselves, chose representatives, who were called Agitators ^ or agents, to consult on things relating to their present position. 15. Cromwell and the Army. 1647. — Cromwell’s position during these weeks was a delicate one. He sympathised not only with the demands of the soldiers for full pay, but also with the demand of the religious enthusiasts for toleration. Yet he had a strong sense of the evil certain to ensue from allowing an army to overthrow the civil institutions of the country,^ and both as a member of the House of Commons and as an officer he did his best to avert so dire a catastrophe. In March he had even pro- posed to leave England and take service in Germany under the Elector Palatine, the son of Frederick and Elizabeth (see p. 488). As this plan fell through, he was sent down, in May, with other commissioners, to attempt to effect a reconciliation between the army and the Parliament. In this he nearly succeeded ; but a few days after his return to Westminster Parliament decided to disband the army at once, without those concessions which, in consequence of Cromwell’s report, it at first seemed prepared to make. The soldiers, finding that only a small portion of their arrears was to be paid, refused to disband, and before the end of May everything was in confusion. 16. The Abduction of the King. 1647. — The fact was that the Presbyterian leaders fancied themselves masters of the situ- ation. Receiving a favourable answer from the king to the pro- posals made by them in January (see p. 553), they entered into a negotiation with the French ambassador and the Scottish com- missioners to bring about a Scottish invasion of England on the king’s behalf, and this invasion was to be supported by a Presby- terian and Royalist rising in England. In the meanwhile Charles was to be conveyed away from Holmby to preserve him from the • The name ' Adjutator,’ often given to these men, is undoubtedly a mere blunder. The use of the verb ‘ to agitate’ in the sense of ‘ to act,’ and of the noun ‘ agitator,’ in the sense of an agent, is now obsolete. 2 Cromwell did not hold that, in fighting against the king, he had himself been assailing the civil institutions of the country. In his eyes, as in the eyes of all others on his side, the king was the aggressor, attacking those institutions, and war against him was therefore defensive, being waged to save the most important part of them from destruction. THE KING WITH THE ARMY 555 1647 army. This design was betrayed to Cromwell, and, in consequence, he secretly gave instructions to a certain Cornet Joyce to take a body of cavalry to hinder the Scots and Presbyterians from carry- ing off the king, but only, as it seems, to remove him from Holmby if force was likely to be used on the other side. On June 3, Joyce, with a picked body of horse, appeared at Holmby, where he received news which led him to think that a Presbyterian body of troops was approaching with the intention of taking possession of the king’s person. Late in the evening, therefore, imagining that the danger foreseen as possible in Cromwell’s instructions had really arrived, he invited the king to leave Holmby the next morning. When the morning came Charles, stepping out on the lawn, asked Joyce for a sight of the commission which authorised him to give such unexpected orders. “ There is my commission,” answered Joyce, pointing to his soldiers. There was no resisting such an argument, and Charles was safely conducted to Newmarket. 17. The Exclusion of the Eleven Members. 1647. —Parlia- ment, dissatisfied with this daring act, began to levy troops in London, and reorganised the London trained bands, excluding all Independents from their ranks. The army declared that eleven members of the House of Commons — the leaders of the Presbyterian party — were making arrangements for a new war, and sent in charges against them. The eleven members, finding themselves helpless, asked leave of absence. The City of London was as Pres- byterian as Parliament. A mob burst into the House, and, under stress of violence, the Independent members, together with the Speakers of the two Houses, left Westminster and sought protec- tion with the army. The Presbyterians kept their seats, and voted to resist the army by force. The army took advantage of the tumult to appear on the scene as the vindicators of the. liberties of Parlia- ment and, marching upon London, passed through the City on August 7, leaving sufficient forces behind to occupy Westminster and the Tower. The eleven Presbyterian members sought refuge on the Continent. 18. The Heads of the Proposals. 1647. — In the meanwhile Cromwell was doing his best to come to an understanding with Charles. A constitutional scheme, to which was given the name of The Heads of the Proposals^ was drawn up by Ireton and pre- sented in the name of the army to the king. It provided for a constant succession of biennial Parliaments with special powers over the appointment of officials, and it proposed to settle the religious difficulty by giving complete religious liberty to all except 556 THE NEW MODEL ARMY 1647 -1648 Roman Catholics. Those who chose to do so might submit to the jurisdiction of bishops, and those who chose to do so might submit to the jurisdiction of a presbytery ; but no civil penalties were to be inflicted on those who objected either to Episcopacy or to Presbyterianism or to both. 19. The King’s Flight to the Isle of Wight. 1647. — No proposals so wise and comprehensive had yet been made, but neither Charles nor the Parliament was inclined to accept them. Many of the Agitators, finding that there was still a Presbyterian majority in Parliament, talked of using force once more and of purging the Houses of all the members who had sat in them whilst the legitimate Speakers were absent. In the meanwhile the king grew more hostile to Cromwell every day, and entered secretly into a fresh negotiation with the Scottish commissioners who formed part of the Committee of both Kingdoms, asking them for the help of a Scottish army. The more advanced Agitators proposed a still more democratic constitution than The Heads of the Proposals^ under the name of The Agreement of the People^ and attempted to force it upon their officers by threats of a mutiny. At the same time, they and some of the officers talked of bringing the king to justice for the bloodshed which he had caused. Charles, becoming aware of his danger, fled on November ii to the Isle of Wight, thinking that it would be easy to escape whenever he wished. He was, however, detained in Carisbrooke Castle, where he was treated very much as a prisoner. 20. The Scottish Engagement, and the Vote of No Addresses. 1647— 1648. — Cromwell PUt down the mutiny in the army, but he learnt that the king was intriguing with the Scots, and at last abandoned all hope of settling the kingdom with Charles’s help. On December 26, 1647, Charles entered into an Engagejnent with the Scottish commissioners. On the condition of having toleration for his own worship, according to the Prayer Book, he agreed to establish Presbyterianism in England for three years, and to sup- press all heresy. The Scottish army was then to advance into England to secure the king’s restoration to power in accordance with the wishes of a free Parliament, to be chosen after the existing one had been dissolved. The English Parliament, indeed, had no knowledge of this engagement, but finding that Charles refused to accept their terms, they replied, on January 17, 1648, by a Vote of No Addresses, declaring that they would make no more pro- posals to the king. 21. The Second Civil War. 1648,— The majority of English- 557 1648-1649 the ascendency of the army men were, on the contrary, ready to take Charles at his word. Men were weary of being controlled by the army, and still more of paying the taxes needed for the support of the army. There were risings in Wales and Kent, and a .Scottish army prepared to cross the borders under the Duke of Hamilton. The English army had, however, made up its mind that Charles should not be restored. Fairfax put down the rising in Kent after a sharp hght at Maidstone, and drove some of the fugitives across the Thames into Essex, where being outnumbered they took refuge in Colchester. Fairfax, following them up, laid siege to Colchester, though the Londoners threatened to rise in his rear, and a great part of the fleet deserted to the Prince of Wales, who came from France to take the command. In the meanwhile Cromwell suppressed the insurrection in Wales, and then marched northwards. On August 17, with less than 9,000 men, he fell upon the 24,000 who followed Hamilton, and, after three days’ fighting, routed them utterly. On August 28 Colchester surrendered to Fairfax. 22. Pride’s Purge. 1648. — The army had lost all patience with the king, and it had also lost all patience with Parliament. Whilst Fairfax and Cromwell were fighting, the Houses passed an ordinance for the suppression of heresy, and opened the negotia- tions vvilh the king which bear the name of the Treaty ’ of Newport. The king only played with the negotiations, trying to spin out the time till he could make his escape, in order that he might, with safety to his own person, obtain help from Ireland or the Continent. The army was tired of such delusions, seeing clearly that there could be no settled government in England as long as Charles could play fast-and-loose with all parties, and it demanded that he should be brought to justice. By military authority he was removed on December i from Carisbrooke to the desolate Hurst Castle, where no help could reach him. On December 5 the House of Commons declared for a reconciliation with the king. On the 6th a body of soldiers, under the command of Colonel Pride, forced it to serve the purposes of the army by forcibly expelling all members who took the side of the king. This act of violence is commonly known as Pride’s Purge. 23. The High Court of Justice. 1649. — On January i, 1649, the purged House proposed to appoint a High Court of Justice to try Charles, but the Lords refused to take part in the act. On the 4th the Commons declared that the people were, under God, the source 1 A treaty then meant a negotiation, not, as now, the document which results from a successful negotiation, 558 THE HEW MODEL ARMY 1649 559 1649 high court OF JUSTICE of all just power, and that the House of Commons, being chosen by the people, formed the supreme power in England, having no need of either king or House of Lords. Never was constitutional pedantry carried further than when this declaration was issued by a mere fragment of a House which, even if all its members had been present, could only claim to have represented the people some years before. On January 6 a special High Court of Justice was constituted by the mutilated House of Commons alone, for the trial of the king. On January 19 Charles was brought up to Westminster. Only the sternest opponents of Charles would consent to sit on the Court which tried him. Of 135 members named, only 67 Execution of King Charles I., January 30, 1649 : from a contempdrary broadside. were present when the trial began. Fairfax was amongst those appointed, but he absented himself, and when his name was called, his wife cried out, “ He is not here, and will never be ; you do wrong to name him.” 24. The King’s Trial and Execution. 1649. — Charles’s ac- cusers had on their side the discredit which always comes to those who, using force, try to give it the appearance of legality. Charles had all the credit of standing up for the law, which, in his earlier life, he had employed to establish absolutism. He refused to plead before the Court, on the ground that it had no jurisdiction over a king. His assailants fell back on the merest technicalities. 56 o the new model ARMY 1645 Instead of charging him with the intrigues to bring foreign armies into England, of which he had been really guilty, they accused him of high treason against the nation, because, forsooth, he had appeared in arms against his subjects in the first Civil War. The Court, as might have been expected, passed sentence against him, and, on January 30, he was beheaded on a scaffold in front of his own palace at Whitehall. 25. Results of Charles’s Execution. 1649. — With the king’s execution all that could be permanently effected by his oppo- nents had been accomplished. When the Long Parliament met, in November 1640, all Englishmen had combined to bring Charles to submit to Parliamentary control. After the summer of 1641 a considerable part of the nation, coming to the conclusion that Charles was ready to use force rather than to submit, took arms against him to compel him to give way. Towards the end of 1647 a minority of Englishmen, including the army, came to the con- clusion that it was necessary to deprive Charles of all real power, if the country was not to be exposed to constantly recurring danger whenever he saw fit to re-assert his claims to the authority which he had lost. In 1648 a yet smaller minority came to the conclusion that security could only be obtained if he were deprived of life. In depriving the king of life all had been done which force could do. The army could guard a scaffold, but it could not reconstruct society. The vast majority of that part of the nation which cared about politics at all disliked being ruled by an army even more than it had formerly disliked being ruled by Charles, and refused its support to the new institutions which, under the patronage of the army, were being erected in the name of the people. 56: CHAPTER XXXVI THE COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 1649-1660 LEADING DATES The Establishment of the Commonwealth Cromwell in Ireland Battle of Dunbar Battle of Worcester The Long Parliament dissolved by Cromwel The so-called Barebones Parliament Establishment of the Protectorate The First Protectorate Parliament . Treaty of Alliance with France . The Second Protectorate Parliament Death of Oliver Cromwell . Richard Cromwell’s Protectorate The Long Parliament Restored . Military Government .... The Long Parliament a Second Time ] Restored ) The Declaration of Breda Meeting of the Convention Parliament Resolution that the Government is by King and Commons . Sept . Sept, Sept. Dec. 26, . 1649 . 1649 . Sept. 3, 1650 . Sept. 3, 1651 . April 20, 1653 July 4 to Dec. 11, 1653 . . Dec. 16, 1653 3, 1654, to Jan. 22, 1655 Oct. 24, 1655 :. 17, 1656, to Feb. 4, 1658 Sept. 3, 1658 3. 1658, to April 22, 1659 May 7 to Oct. 13, 1659 Oct. 13 to Dec. 26, 1659 1. 1659, to March 16, 1660 April 4, 1660 April 14, 1660 Lords, I May I, 1660 I. Establishment of the Commonwealth. 1649. — It was not to be expected that the men in Parliament or in the army by whom great hopes of improvement were entertained should discover that they had done all that it was possible for them to do. They believed it to be still in their power to regenerate Eng- land.’ The House of Commons declared England to be a Common- wealth, ‘without a king or House of Lords,’ and, taking the name of Parliament for itself, appointed forty-one persons to be a Council of State, charged with the executive government, and renewed annually. Most members of the Council of State were also mem- bers of Parliament ; and, as the attendance in Parliament seldom exceeded fifty, the Councillors of State (if they agreed together) were able to command a majority in Parliament, and thus to con- trol its decisions. Such an arrangement was a mere burlesque on Parliamentary institutions, and could hardly have existed for a week if it had not been supported by the ever-victorious army. In the army, indeed, it had its opponents, who, under the name of Levellers, called out for a more truly democratic government ; 562 THE COMMONWEALTH PROTECTORATE 1649-1650 but they had no man of influence to lead them. Cromwell had too much common sense not to perceive the difficulty of establishing a democracy in a country in which that form of government had but few admirers, and he suppressed the Levellers with a strong hand. In quiet times, Cromwell would doubtless have made some attempt to place the constitution of the Commonwealth on a more satisfactory basis, but for the present it needed to be defended rather than improved. 2. Parties in Ireland. 1647 — 1649. — In Ireland the conjunction formed at the end of 1641 between the Catholic lords and the native Irish broke down in 1647. Rinuccini, the Papal Nuncio (see p. 550), discovered that Ireland could only be organised to resist English Puritanism under the authority of the Papal clergy, as there was not sufficient union amongst the Irish themselves to admit the existence of lay national institutions. He was imable to carry his idea into effect. Ormond, the king^s Lord-lieutenant, who was himself a Protestant, left Ireland, and handed over Dublin to the Parliamentary troops under Michael J ones, rather than see it in the hands of Rinuccini and the Celts. Even the Catholic lords objected to become the servants of a clerical State, and Rinuccini, baffled on every side, was obliged to return to Italy. In September, 1648, Ormond returned to Ireland, where he soon aftei^vards entered into a close alliance with the Catholic lords, who were to receive religious toleration, and in return to defend the king. After the king’s execution, Charles II. was proclaimed in Ireland. Ormond, having now an army in which Irish Catholics and English Royalist Protestants were combined, hoped to be able to overthrow the Commonwealth both in Ireland and m England. 3. Cromwell in Ireland. 1649 — 1650. — To Cromwell such a situation was intolerable. His Puritan zeal led him to regard with loathing Ormond’s league with the Catholics, and he was too thorough an Englishman not to resolve that, if there was to be a struggle, England must conquer Ireland, and not Ireland England. On August 1 5 he landed at Dublin. On September 1 1 he stormed Drogheda, where he put 2,000 men to the sword, a slaughter which was in strict accordance with the laws of war of that day, which left garrisons refusing, as that of Drogheda had done, to surrender an indefensible post, when summoned to do so, to the mercy or cruelty of the enemy. Cromwell had a half-suspicion that some farther excuse was needed. “ I am persuaded,” he wrote, “ that this is a righteous judgment of God upon those barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood ; and that it 1650 DROGHEDA AND DUNBAR 563 will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future — which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret.” At Wexford, where the garrison continued to defend itself after the walls had been scaled, there was another slaughter. Town after town surrendered. In the spring of 1650 Cromwell left Ireland. The conquest was prosecuted by his successors, Ireton and Ludlow, with savage effectiveness ; and when at last, in 1652, the war came to an end, a great part of three out of the four provinces of Ireland was confiscated for the benefit of the conquering race. The Catholic landowners and other persons who had borne arms against the Parliament were driven into the wilds of Connaught, to find there what sustenance they could. 4. Montrose and Charles II. in Scotland. 1650. — In 1650 Cromwell’s services were needed in Scotland. In the spring, Montrose reappeared in the Highlands, but was betrayed, carried to Edinburgh, and executed as a traitor. On June 24 Charles II. landed in Scotland, and, on his engaging to be a Presbyterian king, found the whole nation ready to support him. Fairfax de- clined to lead the English army against Charles, on the plea that the Scots had a right to choose their own form of government. Cromwell had no such scruples, knowing that, if Charles were once established in Scotland, the next thing would be that the Scots would try to impose their form of government on England. Cromwell, being appointed General in the room of Fairfax, marched into Scotland, and attempted to take Edinburgh ; but he was out-manoeuvred by David Leslie (see p. 549), who was now the Scottish commander, and, to save his men from starvation, had to retreat to Dunbar. 5. Dunbar and Worcester. 1650 — 1651. — Cromwell’s position at Dunbar was forlorn enough. The Scots seized the passage by which alone he could retreat to England by land, whilst the mass of their host was posted inaccessibly on the top of a long hill in front of him. If he sailed home, his flight would probably be the signal for a rising of all the Cavaliers and Presbyterians in England. The Scots, however, relieved him of his difficulties. They were weary of waiting, and, on the evening of September 2, they de- scended the hill. Early on the morning of the 3rd, Cromwell, crying “ Let God arise ; let His enemies be scattered,” charged into their right wing before the whole army had time to draw up in line of battle, and dashed them into utter ruin. Edinburgh surrendered to him, but there was still a large Scottish army on foot, and, in August 1651, its leaders, taking Charles with them, 564 THE COMMONWEALTtt PROTECTORATE 1651 pushed on into England, where they hoped to raise an insurrection before Cromwell could overtake them. On they marched, with Cromwell following hard upon their heels. Fear kept those who sympathised with Charles from rising, and, at Worcester, on September 3— the anniversary of the battle of Dunbar — Cromwell absolutely destroyed the Scottish army. Those who were not slain were taken prisoners, and many of the prisoners sent as slaves to Barbadoes. “The dimensions of this mercy,” wrote Cromwell, “are above my thoughts. It is, for aught I know, a crowning mercy.” He spoke truly. Never again was he called on to draw A coach of the middle of the seventeenth century ; from an engraving by John Dunstall. sword in England. Charles succeeded m making his escape to France, on one occasion concealing himself amidst the thick leafage of an oak, whilst his pursuers rode unwittingly below. 6. The Navigation Act. 1651. — Ever since the days of James I. there had existed a commercial rivalry between England and the Dutch Republic, and disputes relating to trade constantly arose. Latterly these disputes had been growing more acute. Early in 1648 Spain came to terms with the Dutch by acknowledging their independence, and, later in the same year, the Thirty Years’ War in Germany was brought to an end by the Peace of We' tphalia. 164S-1653 the navigation act 565 though war between France and Spain still continued. Hence- forth religion was no longer made the pretext for war on the Continent ; and States contended with one another because they wished either to annex territory, or to settle some trade dispute in their own favour. In 1650 the Stadholder, William II. — the son-in-law of Charles I. — died, and the office which he held was abolished, the government of the Dutch Republic falling completely under the control of the merchants of the Province of Holland, in which were situated the great commercial ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Dutch had got into their hands the carrying trade of Europe. In 1651 the English Parliament passed the Navigation Act, to put an end to this state of things. English vessels alone were to be allowed to import goods into England, except in the case of vessels belonging to the country in which the goods which they carried were produced. 7. The Dutch War. 1652 — 1653. — War with the Dutch soon followed. Vane, the leading man in the Committee of the Council of State which managed the navy, had put the fleet into excellent condition. Its command was given to Blake, who had been noted as a soldier by the defence of Taunton (see p. 547) in the Civil War, but who never went to sea till 1649, when he was over fifty. Yet Blake soon found himself at home on board ship, and won the confidence of officers and men. Battle after battle was fought between the English and Dutch fleets. The sturdy antagonists were well matched, though the English ships were larger and more powerfully armed. In November 1652, Tromp (the Dutch Admiral) got the better of Blake, but in February 1653 there was another battle, in which Blake got the upper hand ; but it was no crushing victory, like Dunbar and Worcester. In the summer of 1653 the English gained two more victories, but though they attempted to blockade the Dutch ports, they were obliged to give up the attempt. 8. Unpopularity of the Parliament. 1652—1653. — At home, the truncated Parliament was becoming increasingly unpopular. Ever since the end of the first Civil War, Parliament had sup- plied itself with money by forcing Royalists to compound — that is to say, to pay down a sum of money, without which they were not allowed to enjoy their estates ; and these compositions, as they were called, were still exacted from men who had joined in the second Civil War, or had favoured the invasion by Charles II. The system, harsh in itself, was not fairly carried out. Members of Parliament took bribes, and let the briber off more easily than they 566 THE COMMONWEALTH ^ PROTECTORATE 1653 did others who neglected to give them money. Those who were not Royalists had grievances of their own. Many of the members used their power in their own interest, disregarding justice, and pro- moting their sons and nephews in the public service. 9. Vane’s Reform Bill. 1653. — For a long time Cromwell and the officers had been urging Parliament to dissolve itself and to provide for the election of a new Parliament, which would be more truly representative. Vane had, indeed, brought in a Reform Bill, providing for a redistribution of seats, depriving small hamlets of the franchise, and conferring it upon populous towns and counties ; but the discussion dragged on, and the army was growing im- patient. Yet, impatient as the army was, officers and politicians alike recognised that a freely-elected Parliament would probably overthrow the Commonwealth and recall the king. Cromwell suggested that a committee of officers and politicians should be formed to consult on securities to be taken against such a catastrophe. The securities which pleased the members of Parlia- ment were, that all members then sitting should continue to sit in the next Parliament, without fresh election, and should be formed into a committee having power to reject any new member whom they considered it desirable to exclude. 10. Dissolution of the Long Parliament by Cromwell. 1653. — Cromwell, who disliked this plan, was assured, on April 19, by one of the leading members of Parliament that nothing would be done in a hurry. On the next day, April 20, he heard that the House was passing its bill in the form which he disliked. Going to the House, when the last vote on the bill was about to be taken he rose to speak. Parliament, he said, had done well in its care for the public good, but it had been stained with ‘ injustice, delays of justice, self-interest.’ Being interrupted by a member, he blazed up into anger. “ Come, come ! ” he cried ; “ we have had enough of this. I will put an end to this. It is not fit you should sit here any longer.” He called in his soldiers, and bade them clear the House, following the members with words of obloquy as they passed out. “ What shall we do with this bauble ? ” he asked, taking up the mace. “ Take it away.” “ It is you,” he said to such of the members as still lingered, “ that have forced me to do this. I have sought the Lord night and day, that He would rather slay me than put me upon the doing of this work.” 11. The so-called Barebone’s Parliament. 1653. — Cromwell and the officers shrank from summoning an elected Parliament. They gathered an assembly of their own nominees, to which men 1653 THE BAREBONE'S PARLIAMENT 567 gave, in derision, the title of the Barebone’s Parliament, because a certain Praise-God Barebone sat in it. In a speech at its opening, on July 4, Cromwell told them that England ought to be governed by godly men, and that they had been selected to govern it because they were godly. Unfortunately, many of these godly men were crotchety and unpractical. A large number of them wanted to abolish the Court of Chancery without providing a substitute, Oliver Cromwell : from the painting by Samuel Cooper at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. and a majority resolved to abolish tithes without providing any other means for the support of the clergy. At the same time, enthusiasts outside Parliament — the Fifth Monarchy men, as they were called — declared that the time had arrived for the reign of the saints, and that they were themselves the saints. All who had anything to lose were terrified, and turned to Cromwell for 568 THE COMMONWEALTH ^ PE 0 TEC TOE ATE 1653 support, as it was known that no man in England had stronger common sense, or was less likely to be carried away by such dreamers. In the Parliament itself there was a strong minority which thought it desirable that, if tithes were abolished, support should be provided for the clergy in some other way. These men, on December 1 1, got up early in the morning, and, before their opponents knew what they were about, declared Parliament to be dissolved, and placed supreme authority in the hands of Cromwell. 12. The Protectorate, and the Instrument of Government. 1653. — On December 16 a constitutional document, known as T/ie Instrufnent of Govermnent^ was drawn up by Cromwell’s military supporters, and accepted by himself. Cromwell was to be styled Lord Protector, a title equivalent to that of Regent, of which the last instance had been that of the Protector Somerset (see p. 412). The Protector was to enter, to some extent, upon the duties which had formerly devolved on the king. There was to be a Parliament consisting of a single House, which was to meet once in three years, from which all who had taken the king’s part were excluded, as they also were from voting at elections. The constituencies were to be almost identical with the reformed ones established by Vane’s Reform Bill (see p. 566). The Protector was to appoint the executive officials, and to have a fixed revenue sufficient to pay the army and navy and the ordinary expenses of Government ; but if he wanted more for extraordinary purposes he could only obtain it by means of a Parliamentary grant. New laws were to be made by Parliament alone, the Protector having no veto upon them, though he was to have an opportunity of criticising them, if he wished to urge Parliament to change its purpose. The main lines of the constitution were, however, laid down in the Instrument itself, and Parliament had no power given it to make laws contrary to the Instrument. In the executive government the Protector was re- strained, not by Parliament, but by a Council of State, the members of which he could not dismiss as the king had dismissed his Privy Councillors. The first members were nominated in the Instrument, and were appointed for life ; but when vacancies occurred. Parlia- ment was to give in six names, of which the Council was to select two, leaving to the Protector only the final choice of one out of two. Without the consent of this entirely independent Council, the Protector could take no step of importance. 13. Character of the Instrument of Government. —The Instru- ment of Government allowed less Parliamentary control than had been given to the Long Parliament after the passing of the Tri- 1653-1654 ^ CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTORATE 569 ennial Act and the Tonnage and Poundage Act (see pp. 530, 531); as, though Parliament could now pass laws without any check cor- responding to the necessity of submitting them to the royal assent, it could not pass laws on the constitutional points which the Instrument of Government professed to have settled for ever. Neither — except when there was an extraordinary demand for money — could it stop the supplies, so as to bring the executive under its power. It was, rather, the intention of the framers of the Instrument to prevent that Parliamentary absolutism which had proved so hurtful in the later years of the Long Parliament. On the other hand, they gave to the Council of State a real control over the Protector ; and it is this which shows that they were intent on averting absolutism in the Protector, as well as absolutism in Parliament, though the means taken by them to effect their end was different from anything adopted by the nation in later years. 14. Oliver’s Government. 1653—1654. — Before meeting Parlia- ment, Oliver had some months in which he could show the quality of the new Government. On April 5, 1654, he brought the war with the Dutch to a close, and subsequently concluded treaties with other European powers. On July 10 he had Dom Pantaleon Sa, the brother of the Portuguese ambassador, beheaded for a murder. He had more than enough domestic difficulties to contend with. The Fifth-Monarchy men, and other religious enthusiasts, attacked him for treachery to republicanism, whilst Charles II. incited his followers to rise in insurrection against the usurper. Some repub- licans were imprisoned, and the royalists Gerard and Vowel, who tried to assassinate Oliver, were executed. In the meanwhile, the Protector and Council moved forward in the path of conservative reform. The Instrument allowed them to issue ordinances, which would be valid till Parliament could examine them ; and, amongst others which he sent forth, was one to reform the Court of Chancery, and another to establish a Commission of Triers, to reject all ministers presented to livings, if it considered them to be unfit, and another Commission of Ejectors, to turn out those who, being in possession, were deemed unworthy. Oliver would have nothing to say to the Voluntary system. Tithes were to be retained, and religious worship was to be established ; but there was to be no inquiry whether the ministers were Presbyterians, Independents, or anything else, provided they were Puritans. There was to be complete toleration of other Puritan congregations not belonging to the established churches ; whilst the Episcopalians, though not II. p p 570 THE COMMONWEALTH ^ PROTECTORATE 1654-1655 legally tolerated, were as yet frequently allowed to meet privately without notice being taken of them. Other ordinances decreed a complete Union with Scotland and Ireland, both countries being ordered to return members to the Parliament at Westminster. As far as the real Irish were concerned, the Union was entirely illusory, as all Roman Catholics were excluded from the fran- chise. 15. The First Protectorate Parliament. 1654 — 1655. — On Sep- tember 3, 1654, the First Protectorate Parliament met. Its first act was to question the authority of private persons to frame a constitution for the State, on which Oliver required the members of Parliament to sign a paper acknowledging the government as established in a single person and in Parliament, and turned out of the House those who refused to sign it. The House, thus diminished, drew up a new constitution, altering the balance in favour of Parliament, and expressly declaring that the constitution was liable to revision whenever the Protector and Parliament agreed to change it. It is probable that Oliver would have con- sented to this change, but a dispute arose upon the control of the army. Oliver wished that it should permanently remain under the Protector, and that Parliament should be unable to withdraw the sums of money fixed for its maintenance. Parliament, on the other hand, insisted on voting the money only for five years, thus claiming to determine, at the end of that time, whether the army should be disbanded or not. The only real solution of the difficulty lay in a frank acknowledgment that the nation must be allowed to have its way for evil or for good. Oliver, however, suspected — doubt- less with truth — that, if the nation were freely consulted, it would sweep away not only the Protectorate, but Puritanism itself. Practically, therefore, the question at issue was whether the Govern- ment should be controlled by Parliament or by the army. On January 22, finding that the House was not likely to give way, he dissolved Parliament. 16. The Major-Generals. 1655. — The Instrument of Govern- ment authorised the Protector to levy sufficient taxes without consent of Parliament to enable him to meet the expenditure in quiet times, and after the dissolution Oliver availed himself of this authorisation. Many people, however, refused to pay, on the ground that the Instrument, unless recognised by Parliament, was not binding ; and, as some of the judges agreed with them, Oliver could only enforce payment by turning out those judges who opposed him, and putting others in their places. Moreover, the 1654-1655 A MILITARY PROTECTORATE 571 Government was embarrassed by attempts to overthrow it. There were preparations for resistance by the republicans in the army — suppressed, indeed, by the arrest and imprisonment of the leaders — and there was an actual Royalist outburst, with wide ramifications, which showed itself openly in the South of England, where a Royalist gentleman named Penruddock rode into Salisbury at the head of 200 men, and seized the judges who had come down for the assizes. In the face of such danger, Oliver abandoned all pretence of constitutional government. He divided England into eleven military districts, over each of which he set a Major-General, with arbitrary powers for maintaining order, and, by a mere stroke of the pen, ordered a payment of 10 per cent, on the incomes of Royalists. Military rule developed itself more strongly than before. On November 27 Oliver, in his fear of the Royalists, ordered the suppression of the private worship of those who clung to the Book of Common Prayer ; perceiving rightly that the most dangerous opponents of his system were to be found amongst sincere Episcopalians. He also made use of the Major-Generals to suppress vice and immorality by shutting up alehouses and imprisoning persons whose lives were disorderly. 17. Oliver’s Foreign Policy. 1654 — 1655. — Partly, perhaps, be- cause he hoped to divert attention from his difficulties at home, partly because he wished his country to be great in war as well as in peace, Oliver had for some time been engaging in naval enterprise. In the early part of his career he had been friendly to Spain, because France intrigued with the Presbyterians and the king. France and Spain were still at war, and when Cromwell became Protector he offered his alliance to Spain, on condition that Spain would help him to reconquer Calais, and would place Dunkirk in his hands as a pledge for the surrender of Calais after it had been taken. He also asked that commerce between England and her own West Indian colonies should be free from Spanish attacks, and for more open liberty of religion for the English in the Spanish dominions than had been offered by Spain in its treaty with Charles I. The Spanish ambassador replied that to ask these two things was to ask his master’s two eyes, and plainly refused to admit an English garrison into Dunkirk. Upon this, Cromwell sent out, in the end of 1654, two fleets, one — under Blake — to go to the Mediterranean, to get reparation from the pirates of Tunis and Algiers for wrongs done to English commerce ; and the other — under Penn and Venables — to seize a Spanish island in the West Indies. Blake 572 7 HE COMMONWEALTH PROTECTORATE 1655-1656 was successful, but Penn and Venables failed in an attempt on San Domingo, though they took possession of Jamaica, which at that time was not thought to be of much value. 18. The French Alliance. 1655. — As Oliver could not get what he wanted from Spain, he agreed to a treaty with France to end what had been virtually a maritime war, in which trading- ships had been seized on both sides. Freedom of religion was to be accorded to Englishmen in France. Before any treaty had been signed, news arrived that the Duke of Savoy had sent his soldiers to compel his Vaudois subjects to renounce their religion, which was now similar to that of the Protestants, though they had revolted from the Papacy long before Luther’s Reformation. These soldiers committed terrible outrages amongst the peaceful mountaineers. Those who escaped the sword were carried off as prisoners, or fled to the snowy mountains, where they perished of cold and hunger. Milton’s voice was raised to plead for them. “ Avenge,” he wrote — “ O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold — Even men who kept thy truth, so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones. ” Cromwell at once told Mazarin that, if he cared for peace with England, this persecution must stop. Mazarin put pressure on the Duke of Savoy, and liberty of worship was secured to the Vaudois. Then, on October 24, 1655, Oliver concluded the treaty with F ranee. 19. ' Oliver’s Second Parliament, and the Humble Petition and Advice. 1656. — War with Spain was a necessary consequence of the seizure of Jamaica, and, in 1656, Oliver called a second Parlia- ment, to give him money. Yet it was certain that any freely- elected Parliament would try to grasp authority for itself. When Parlia- ment met, on September 1 7, Cromwell began by excluding about a hundred members who were likely to oppose him. After this, his relations with the House were smoother than they had been in 1654 — especially as news arrived that Stainer, with some of Blake’s ships, had captured part of the Spanish treasure-fleet on its way from America ; and, soon, thirty-eight waggons laden with Spanish silver, rolled through the London streets. Parliament voted the money needed, and Oliver, in return, withdrew the Major-Generals. Then there was discovered a plot to murder the Protector, and Parliament, anxious for security, drew up amendments to the BREACH WITH PARLIAMENT 573 1656-165S Constitution, known as The Humble Petition and Advice. Mem- bers of the Council of State were to be approved by Parliament, and the power of excluding members from the House of Commons was to be renounced by the Protector. There was also to be a second House named in the first instance by the Protector, who was given power to exclude members subsequently named by himself or his successors from taking their seats. The object of this curious provision was to secure a house which might be trusted for all time to throw out measures opposed to Puritanism, even when they were supported by the House of Commons. Oliver was asked to take the title of king, with the right of naming his own successor. He refused the kingship, as the army disliked it, and also, perhaps, because he felt that there would bean incongruity in its assumption by himself. The rest of the terms he accepted, and, on June 26, 1657, before the end of the session, he was installed as Lord Protector with greater solemnity than before. It was already known that, on April 20, Blake had destroyed a great Spanish fleet at Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe. On his way back, on August 7, he died at sea, and was brought home to be buried in Westminster Abbey. 20. The Dissolution of the Second Protectorate Parliament. 1658. — On Janua’-y 20, 1658, Parliament met for its second session. The House of Commons had to take back the hundred excluded members who were enemies of Oliver, and to lose a large number of Oliver’s warmest supporters, who were removed to the other House. The Commons had no longer an Oliverian majority, and, without attacking the Protector himself, they now attacked the second House, which gave itself the airs of the ancient House of Lords. On February 4, in a speech of mingled sadness and irritation, Oliver dissolved his second Parliament. “ The Lord,” he said, “judge between me and you.” 21. Victory Abroad and Failure at Home. 1657—1658. — Abroad, Oliver’s policy was crowned with success. In 1657, ^ treaty of alliance was made with France, and 6,000 English troops, co-operating with the French army, captured Mardyke. On June 4, 1658, they defeated the Spanish army in a great battle on the Dunes, and on the 14th Dunkirk surrendered, and was placed in the hands of the English. It has often been doubted whether these successes were worth gaining. France was growing in strength, whilst Spain was declining, and it would not be long before France would become as formidable to England as Spain had been in the days of Elizabeth. Cromwell, however, was not the man to base his 574 the commonwealth PROTECTORATE 1658-1659 policy on the probabilities of the future. At home and abroad he faced the present, and, since the day on which the king had mounted the scaffold, the difficulties at home had been over- whelming. Though his efforts to restore constitutional order had been stupendous, and his political aims had been noble, yet he was attempting that which he, at least, could never do. Men will submit to the clearly expressed will of the nation to which they belong, or to a government ruling in virtue of institutions which they and their ancestors have been in the habit of obeying, but they will not long submit to a successful soldier, even though, like Oliver, he be a statesman as well. 22. Oliver’s Death. 1658. — Oliver was growing weary of his unending, hopeless struggle. On August 6, 1658, he lost his favourite daughter, and soon afterwards he sickened. There were times when old doubts stole over his mind : “ It is a fearful thing,” he repeated, “ to fall into the hands of the living God.” Such fears did not retain their hold on his brave spirit for long : I am a conqueror,” he cried, “and more than a conqueror, through Christ that strengtheneth me.” On August 30 a mighty storm passed over England. The devil, said the Cavaliers, was fetching home the soul of the usurper. Oliver’s own soul found utterance in one last prayer of faith : “ Lord,” he murmured, “ though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in covenant with Thee through grace ; and I may, I will come to Thee, for Thy people. Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and Thee service ; and many of them have set too high a value upon me, though others wish, and would be glad of, my death. . . . Pardon such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people too ; and pardon the folly of this short prayer, even for Jesus Christ’s sake, and give us a good night, if it be Thy pleasure. Amen.” F or three days more Oliver lingered on. On September 3, the anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester, he passed away to the rest which he had never known on earth. 23. Richard Cromwell. 1658 — 1659. — On his deathbed Oliver named, or was said to have named, his eldest son Richard as his successor. The nation preferred Richard to his father, because he was not a soldier, and was very little of a Puritan. On January 27, 1659, a new Parliament met, chosen by the old, unreformed constituencies, as they had existed in the time of Charles I. ; and not by those reformed ones appointed by the Instrument of Government, though Royalists were still excluded both from voting THE ANARCH\ 575 1659 at the elections and from sitting in Parliament. In this Parliament a majority supported Richard, hoping that he would consult the wishes of the army less than his father had done. For that very reason the officers of the army turned against him, and asked not only that Fleetwood, Oliver’s son-in-law, should be their com- mander, but that he should be entirely independent of the authority of the Protector. Richard nominated Fleetwood, but insisted upon his acting under the Protector as his Lieutenant-General. Parlia- ment upheld the control of the civil power over the army. On April 22 the soldiers forced Richard to dissolve Parliament. On May 25 Richard abdicated and the Protectorate came to an end. 24. The Long Parliament Restored. 1659. — Already on May 7, at the invitation of the soldiers, forty-two members of the so-called Rump —the portion of the Long Parliament which had continued sitting till it was ejected by Cromwell in 1653 (see p. 566) — had installed themselves at Westminster. No hereditary king was ever more tenacious of his rights than they. They told the officers that the Parliament expected faithfulness and obedience to the Parliament and Commonwealth,’ and, declaring all Oliver’s acts to have been illegal, resolved that all who had collected taxes for him must repay the money. The officers, many of whom had, as Major-Generals, gathered taxes by authority from Oliver, were naturally indignant. “ I know not,” said Lambert — one of the most distinguished of Oliver’s officers— “why they should not be at our mercy as well as we at theirs.” Before anything could be done, news arrived that Sir George Booth had risen in Cheshire for Charles II. Lambert marched against him, and defeated him at Winnington Bridge. When he returned, the officers made high demands of Parliament, and, when these were rejected, they sent troops, on October 13, to keep the members out of the House. “ Do you not know me ? ” said the Speaker, Lenthall. “ If you had been with us at Winnington Bridge,” said a soldier, “we should have known you.” 25. Military Government. 1659. — The soldiers had come to despise civilians merely because they were civilians. They tried to govern directly, without any civilian authority whatever. The attempt proved an utter failure. It was discovered that taxes were paid less readily than when there had been a civilian Government to exact them. The soldiers quarrelled amongst themselves, and the officers, finding themselves helpless, restored the Rump a second time. On December 26 it resumed its sittings at Westminster. 26. Monk and the Rump. 1660. — George Monk, who com- 576 THE COMMONWEALTH ^ PROTECTORATE 1660 manded the forces in Scotland, had little inclination to meddle with politics ; but he was a thorough soldier, and being a cool, resolute man, was determined to bear this anarchy no longer. On January i, 1660, he crossed the Border with his army, and on January ii was joined by Fairfax at York, who brought with him all the weight of his unstained name and his high military reputation. On February 3 Monk entered London, evidently wishing to feel his way. On February 6 the City of London, which had no members sitting in the Rump, declared that it would pay no taxes without representation. Monk was ordered by the Rump to suppress the resistance of the City. On the loth he reached Guildhall. Keeping his ears open, he soon convinced himself that the Rump was detested by all parties, and, on the morning of the i6th, declared for a free Parliament. 27. End of the Long Parliament. 1660. — It was easy to coerce the Rump, without the appearance of using violence. On February 26, under pressure from Monk, it called in the Pres- byterian members shut out by Pride’s Purge (see p. 557). After they had taken their seats, a dissolution, to be followed by new elections, was voted. At last, on March 16, the Long Parliament came, by its own act, to its unhonoured end. The destinies of England were to be placed in the hands of the new Parliament, which was to be freely elected. The Restoration was a foregone conclusion. The predominant wish of Englishmen was to escape from the rule of soldiers, and, as every recent form of civil govern- ment had been discredited, it was natural to turn back to that which had flourished for centuries, and which had fallen rather through the personal demerits of the last king than through any inherent vices of the system. 28. The Declaration of Breda. 1660. — On April 4 Charles signed a declaration, known as the Declaration of Breda. He offered a general pardon to all except those specially exempted by Parliament, and promised to secure confiscated estates to their new owners in whatever way Parliament should approve. He also offered to consent to a bill for satisfying the arrears of the soldiers, and to another bill for the establishment of ‘ a liberty for tender consciences.’ By the Declaration of Breda, Charles had carefully thrown upon Parliament the burden of proposing the actual terms on which the settlement was to be effected, and at the same time had shaken himself free from his father’s policy of claiming to act independently of Parliament. The new Parlia- ment, composed of the two Houses of Lords and Commons, was i66o TtiR RESTORATION^ ^11 known as the Convention Parliament, because, though conforming in every other respect to the old rules of the Constitution, the House of Commons was chosen without the king’s writs. It met on April 25. The Declaration of Breda reached it on May i. After unanimously welcoming the Declaration, Parliament resolved that, ‘according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, the Government is, and ought to be, by King, Lords, and Commons.’ The Puritan Revolution had come to an end. Books recommended for further study of Part VI. Ranke, L. History of England (English I'ranslation). Vol. i. p. 386 — vol. iii. p. 308. Hallam, H. Constitutional History of England. Chaps. VI. -X. Gardiner, S. R, History of England from 1603-1642. History of the Great Civil War. Masson. Life of Milton, and History of his Time. Vols. i.-v. Forster, J. Life of Sir John Eliot. The Grand Remonstrance. Arrest of the Five Members. Guizot, F. Charles I. Cromwell. Richard Cromwell. Hannay, D. Admiral Blake. Montague, F. C. The Political History of England. Vol. vii. From the Accession of James I. to ihe Restoration (1603-1660). 578 PART VII THE POLITICAL PE VOLUTION. 1660—1689 CHAPTER XXXVII CHARLES II. AND CLARENDON. l 660 — 1667 LEADING DATES Reign of Charles II., 1660—1685. Charles II. lands at Dover May 25, 1660 Dissolution of the Convention Parliament . Dec. 29, 1660 Meeting of the Cavalier Parliament May 8, 1661 Corporation Act 1661 Act of U niformity 1662 Expulsion of the Dissenting Ministers . . Aug. 24, 1662 The King declares for Toleration .... Dec. 26, 1662 Repeal of the Triennial Act . . . . . 1664 Conventicle Act 1664 First Dutch War of the Restoration 1665 The Plague 1665 Five Mile Act 1665 Fire of London 1666 Peace of Breda J -ly 31, 1667 Clarendon’s Fall 1667 I. Return of Charles II. 1660. — On May 25,1660, Charles II. landed at Dover, amidst shouting crowds. On his thirtieth birthday. May 29, he entered London, amidst greater and equally enthu- siastic crowds. At Blackheath was drawn up the army which had once been commanded by Cromwell. More than anything else, the popular abhorrence of military rule had brought Charles home, whilst the army itself, divided in opinion, and falling under the control of Monk, was powerless to keep him away. When the king reached Whitehall he confirmed Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, and other statutes by which the royal power had at various times been limited. i66o ComTITUtlONAL KINGSHIP m 2. King and Parliament. 1660. — Something more than Acts of Parliament was needed to limit the power of the king. It had been found useless to bind Charles I. by Acts of Parliament, Charles II. : from the portrait by Sir Peter Lely in Christ’s Hospital, London. because he tried again and again to introduce foreign armies into England to set Parliament at naught. Charles II. was, indeed, a man of far greater ability than his father, and was quite as ready as his father to use foreign help to get his way at home. CtiARLMS II. AUD ClARENDORl 1660 580 In the first year after his return he tried to get money both from the Dutch and from the Spaniards in order to make himself independent of Parliament, but his character was very different from his father’s, in so far as he always knew — what Charles I. never knew— how much he could do with impunity. Having none of his father’s sense of duty, he was always inclined to give way whenever he found it unpleasant to resist. He is reported to have said that he was determined that, whatever else happened, he would not go on his travels again, and he was perfectly aware that if a single foreign regiment were brought by him into England, he would soon find himself again a wanderer on the Continent. The people wished to be governed by the king, but also that the king should govern by the advice of Parliament. The restoration was a restoration of Parliament even more than a restoration of the king. 3. Formation of the Government. 1660. — The Privy Council of Charles II. was, at the advice of Monk, who was created Duke of Albemarle in July, composed of Cavaliers and I’resbyterians. It was, however, too numerous to direct the course of govern- ment, and Charles adopted his father’s habit of consulting, on important matters, a few special ministers, who were usually known as the Junto. Albemarle, as he knew little and cared less about politics, soon lost the lead, and the supreme direction of affairs fell to Hyde, the Lord Chancellor. Charles was too indolent and too fond of pleasure to control the government himself, and was easily guided by Hyde, who was thoroughly loyal to him, and an excellent man of business. Hyde stood to the king’s other advisers very much in the position of a modern Prime Minister, but he carefully avoided introducing the name, though it was already in vogue in France, and contented himself with the real influence given him by his superior knowledge. In religion and politics he was still what he had been in 1641 (see pp. 533, 534). He was a warm supporter of episcopacy and the Prayer Book. As a lawyer, he applauded the political checks upon the Crown which had been the work of the first months of the Long Parliament, whilst he detested all the revolutionary measures by which, in the autumn of 1641, attempts had been made to establish the supremacy of Parliament over the king. 4. The Political Ideas of the Convention Parliament. 1660. — Hyde’s position was the stronger because, in politics at least, the Convention Parliament agreed with him. The Cavaliers in it naturally accepted the legislation of the Long Parliament, up to August 1641, when Charles I. left for Scotland (see p. 532), as their i66o CAVALIERS AND PRESBYTERIANS 581 own party had concurred in it. The Presbyterians, on the other hand, who now represented the party which had formerly been led by Pym and Hampden, saw no reason to distrust Charles II. as they had distrusted his father, and were, therefore, ready to abandon the demand for further restrictions on the royal power, on which they had vehemently insisted in the latter part of 1641 and in the earlier part of 1642 (see p. 534)* constitutional matters, therefore, Cavaliers and Presbyterians were fused into one, on the basis of Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon, 1608-1674 : frona an engraving by Loggan. taking up the relations between the Crown and Parliament as they stood in August 1641. This view of the situation was favoured by the lawyers, one of whom. Sir Orlando Bridgman, pointed out that, though the king was not responsible, his ministers were ; and, for the time, every one seemed to be satisfied with this way of keeping up the indispensable understanding between king and Parliament. What would happen if a king arose who, like Charles I., deliberately set himself against Parliament, no one cared to inquire. 5. Execution of the Political Articles of the Declaration of 582 CHARLES II. AND CLARENDON 1660 Breda. 1660. — Of the four articles of the Declaration of Breda, three were concerned with politics, and these were adopted by Par- liament, with such modifications as it pleased to make. The estates of the king and of the bishops and chapters were taken out of the hands of those who had acquired them, but all private sales were declared valid, though Royalists had often sold their land in order to pay the fines imposed on them by the Long Parliament. An Act of Indemnity was passed, in which, however, there were many exceptions, and, in the end, thirteen regicides, together with Vane, were executed, and the bodies of Cromwell, I reton, and Bradshaw A mounted nobleman and his squire : from Ogilby’s Coronation Procession of Charles II. dug up and hanged. The bodies of other noted persons, including those of Pym and Blake, which had been buried in Westminster Abbey, were also dug up, and thrown into a pit outside. Many regicides and other partisans of the Commonwealth and Protectorate were punished with imprisonment and loss of goods, whilst others, again, who escaped, remained exiles till their death. Money was raised in order that the army might be paid as had been promised, after which it was disbanded. Feudal dues and purveyance were abolished, and an excise voted to Charles in their place. The whole revenue of the Crown was fixed at 1,200,000/. i66o 583 A PROJECT OF TOLERATION 6. Ecclesiastical De- bates. 1660. — On ecclesi- astical matters the two parties were less harmoni- ous. The cavaliers wanted to restore episcopacy and the Prayer Book. The Presbyterians were ready to go back in religion, as in politics, to the ideas of August, 1641, and to esta- blish a modified episco- pacy, in which bishops would be surrounded with clerical councillors, whose advice they would be bound to take. To this scheme Charles gave his approval, and it is pro- bable that if nothing else had been in question Par- liament would have ac- cepted it. Charles, how- ever, had an object of his own. His life was disso- lute, and, being without any religious convictions, he cherished, like some other dissolute men of that time, a secret attachment to the Church of Rome. In order to do that Church a good turn, he now asked for a toleration in which all religions should be in- cluded. The proposal to include Roman Catholics in the proposed toleration wrecked the chances of modified episcopacy. Cavaliers and Presbyte- rians were so much afraid Dress of the Horse Guards ai the Restoration : from Ogilby’s Coronation Procession of Charles II. 584 CHARLES II. AND CLARENDON 1660-1661 of the Roman Catholics that when a bill for giving effect to the scheme for uniting episcopacy and Presbyterianism was brought into Parliament, it was rejected through fear lest it should be a prelude to some other tolerationist measure favouring the Roman Catholics. On December 29, 1660, the Convention Parliament was dissolved. 7. Venner’s Plot and its Results. 1661. — No one in the Conven- tion Parliament had had any sympathy with the Independents, and still less with the more fanatical sects which had received toleration when the Independents were in power. The one thing which the people of England as a body specially detested was the rule of the Shipping in the Thames, circa 1660 : from Pricke’s South Prospect of London. Cromwellian army, and the two parties therefore combined to persecute the Independents by whom that army had been sup- ported. In January, 1661, a party of fanatics, knowing that they at least had nothing to hope, rose in insurrection in London under one Venner, a cooper. The rising was easily put down, but it gave an excuse to Charles — who was just then paying off the army — to retain two regiments, one of horse and one of foot, besides a third, which was in garrison at Dunkirk. There was thus formed the nucleus of an army the numbers of which, before long, amounted to 5,000. To have an armed force at all was likely to bring sus- picion upon Charles, especially as his revenue did not suffice for i 66 i - i 662 reaction IN CHURCH AND STATE 585 the payment of 5,000 men without having recourse to means which would cause ill-feeling between himself and Parliament. 8. The Cavalier Parliament, and the Corporation Act. 1661. On May 8, 1661, a new Parliament, sometimes known as the Cava- lier Parliament, met. In times of excitement, nations are apt to show favour to the party which has a clear and decided opinion; and, on this occasion, nine-tenths of the new members were Cava- liers. The new Parliament voted that neither House could pretend to the command of the militia, nor could lawfully make war upon the king. Before the end of 1661 it passed the Corporation Act, which was aimed at the Presbyterians as well as at the Indepen- dents. All who held office in municipal corporations were to renounce the Covenant, and to take an oath of non-resistance, declaring it to be unlawful to bear arms against the king ; and no one in future was to hold municipal office who had not received the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. This Act did more than exclude from corporations those who ob- jected to submit to its injunctions. In many towns the corporations elected the members of the House of Commons, and hence, by excluding non-conformists from corporations in towns, Parliament indirectly excluded them from many seats in the House of Commons. 9. The Savoy Conference, and the Act of Uniformity. 1661 — 1662. — After the dissolution of the Convention Parliament, the old number of bishops was filled up, and, in April 1661, a conference between some bishops and some Presbyterian clergy was held at the Savoy Palace, and has therefore been known as the Savoy Conference. The two parties differed too much to come to terms, and the whole question of the settlement of the Church was left to the Cavalier Parliament. In 1662 Parliament decided it by passing the Act of Uniformity. Every clergyman and every schoolmaster refusing to express, by August 24, his unfeigned consent to every- thing contained in the Book of Common Prayer, was to be pre- cluded from holding a benefice. On August 24 (St. Bartholomew’s day), about 2,000 clergy resigned their cures for conscience’ sake, as their opponents had, in the time of Puritan domination, been driven from their cures, rather than take the Covenant. 10. The Dissenters. 1662. — The expulsion of the dissenting clergy, as they were now called, made a great change in the history of English Christianity. The early Puritans wished, not to separate from the national Church, but to mould the national Church after their own fashion. The Independents set the example 11. Q Q 586 CHARLES II. AND CLARENDON 1662 of separating from the national Church, in order to form communities outside it. The Presbyterian clergy who kept up the tradition of the early Puritans were now driven out of the national Church, and were placed in very much the same position as the Independents. Hence, these two bodies, together with the Baptists and the Society of Friends — popularly known as Quakers — and other sects which had recently arisen, began to be known by the common name of Dissenters. The aim of those who had directed the meeting of the Savoy Conference had been to bring about comprehension, that is to say, the continuance within the Church of those who, after its close, became Dissenters. Their failure had resulted from the impossi- bility of finding any formularies which could satisfy both parties ; and in consequence of this failure the Dissenters now abandoned all thought of comprehension, and contented themselves with asking for toleration, that is to say, for permission to worship apart from the Church, in their own assemblies. 11. The Parliamentary Presbyterians. 1662. — The Presby- terian clerg)’’ were followed by most of their supporters among the tradesmen and merchants of the towns. They were not followed by the Presbyterians among the gentry. The party in Parliament, which had hitherto styled itself Presbyterian, had originally become so mainly through dislike of the power of the bishops. They now consented to accept the Prayer Book, when they found that the regulation of the Church was to depend on Acts of Parliament and not either on the bishops or the king. The few members of the House of Commons who had hitherto been known as Presbyterians formed the nucleus of a party of toleration, asking for a modification of the law against Dissenters, though refusing to become Dissenters themselves. 12. Profligacy of the Court. 1662. — On the other hand, the members of the Cavalier party had, in 1641, become Royalists be- cause they desired the retention of the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, and, in 1662, the Cavaliers were supporters of the Church even more than they were Royalists. As soon as Charles expressed his approval of the Act of Uniformity, and not before, the House of Commons voted him a chimney tax of two shillings on every .chimney. If Charles had been an economical man, instead of an extravagant one, he might possibly have contrived to live within his income. He was, however, beyond measure ex- travagant. The reaction against Puritanism was not political only. There were plenty of sober men amongst the English gentry, but there were also many who had been so galled by the restrictions 1662-1663 CHARLES AND LOUIS XIV. 587 of Puritanism that they had thrown off all moral restraint. Riot and debauchery became the fashion, and in this bad fashion Charles’s court led the way. 13. Marriage of Charles II., and Sale of Dunkirk. 1662.— In 1662 Charles married Catharine of Braganza, a Portuguese Princess. He professed his intention of leading a new life, but he was weak as water, and he soon returned to his evil courses. Politically alone was the marriage of importance. Catharine brought with her the possessions of Tangier, and of Bombay, the first spot on the soil of India acquired by the English Crown. It was also a seal of friendship between Charles and Louis XIV. of France. Louis had made peace with Spain by the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, but he still sympathised with the efforts of Portugal to maintain the independence of which Spain had robbed her in 1580 (see p. 454), and which she had recovered in 1640. Charles’s marriage was, therefore, a declaration in favour of France. In November, 1662, after Parliament had dispersed for a vacation, he further showed his attachment to France, by selling Dunkirk to Louis for 200,000/. By abandoning Dunkirk, Charles saved an annual cost of 120,000/., which he would be able, if he pleased, to spend on an army. It may be doubted whether the possession of Dunkirk was of any real use, but there was a howl of indignation, in consequence of its loss, especially directed against Hyde, who had been created Earl of Clarendon in 1661, and was building a town house on a scale commensurate with his dignity. This house was popularly called Dunkirk House, it being falsely sup- posed that Clarendon received froni Louis bribes which were expended upon it. 14. The Question of Toleration Raised. 1662-— 1663. — Before Parliament met, Charles, on December 26, 1662, issued a declara- tion in favour of toleration. He asked Parliament to pass an Act enabling him to mitigate the rigour of the Act of Uniformity by exercising that dispensing power ‘ which he conceived to be in- herent in him.’ Again and again, in former reigns, the king had dispensed from the penalties imposed by various laws, though there had been times when Parliament had remonstrated in cases where those penalties were imposed to restrain the Roman Catholic religion. When Parliament met again in 1663, the Cavaliers rejected the king’s proposal. They would hear nothing of tole- ration for Dissenters, and still less of toleration for ‘ Papists.’’ The fear of a restoration of ‘ Popery ’ was the strongest motive of Englishmen of that day,, and Charles, who, unlike his father, 588 CHARLES II. AND CLARENDON 1664 always recoiled from strong opposition, even consented to banish all Roman Catholic priests. Yet it was in their interest and not in that of the IDissenters that he had issued his declaration. This affair sowed the first seeds of ill-will between Charles and Clarendon, as the latter had warmly supported the opposition to the Declaration. 15. The Conventicle Act. 1664. — Parliament was roused to proceed still farther in its course of intolerance. The Act of Uniformity had turned the Dissenting clergy out of the Church, but had not prevented them from holding meetings for worship. In May 1664 a Conventicle Act was passed, by which any adult attending a conventicle was made liable to an ascending scale of penalties, ending in seven years’ transportation, according to the number of times that the offence had been committed. A con- venticle was defined as being a religious meeting not in accordance with the practice of the Church of England, at which more than four persons were present in addition to the household. The sentence of transportation was, indeed, a terrible one, as it implied working like a slave, generally under the burning sun in Barbadoes or some West India colony. The simple-minded Pepys, whose Diary throws light on the social conditions of the time, met some of the worshippers on their way to the inevitable sentence. “ They go like lambs,” he writes, “ without any resistance. I would to God they would conform, or be more wise and not be catched.” It was fear which produced the eagerness of English gentlemen to persecute Dissenters. They remembered how they had themselves been kept under by Cromwell’s Puritan army, and, knowing that most of Cromwell’s soldiers were still in the prime of life, they feared lest, if the Dissenters were allowed to gather head, they might become strong enough to call again to arms that ever- victorious army. 16. The Repeal of the Triennial Act. 1664. — the spring of 1664, before the passing of the Conventicle Act, the Cavalier Parlia- ment had been alarmed lest it should be thought that it ought to be dissolved in the following May, because it would then have sal three years, in compliance with the Triennial Act. In reality there was nothing in the Triennial Act or in any other Act which rendered Parliament liable to dissolution, as long as the king lived, unless he chose to dissolve it ; but Charles, who did not like the fetters which that Act imposed upon him, took the opportunity to ask Parliament to repeal it. This was promptly done, though in the Act of Repeal was included a clause to the effect that there should, in future, be no intermission of Parliaments for more than i 66 o - i 664 commercial RIVALS 589 three years. As the whole of the machinery invented by the Long Parliament for giving effect to such a clause (see p. 530) had vanished, no king could now be compelled to summon Parliament unless he wished to do so. 17 Growing Hostility between England and the Dutch. 1660 — 1664. — It was not fear, but commercial rivalry, which made England hate the Dutch. In 1660 the Convention Parlia- ment had re-enacted the Navigation Act (see p. 565). Legis- lation alone, however, could not prevent the Dutch from driving the English out of the markets of the world, either by superior trading capacity, or by forcibly excluding them from ports in which Dutch influence was supreme. Besides this, the Dutch refused to surrender Pularoon, a valuable spice-bearing island in the East Indies, though they had engaged to do so by treaty. If there was anything about which Charles II. was in earnest it was in the spread of English colonies and commerce. He had also private reasons for bearing ill-will against the Dutch, who by abolishing the office of Stadholder (see p. 565) in 1650, had deprived the young William of Orange, the son of Charles’s sister Mary, of any post in the Republic. The seven provinces were held together by the necessity of following the counsels of the Province of Holland, by far the most extensive and the wealthiest of the seven, if they were to preserve any unity at all. The opinion of this Province was the more readily accepted because the provincial states by which it was governed submitted to be led by their pensionary, John de Witt, one of the most vigorous and most prudent states- men of the age. A pensionary was only an officer bound to carry out the orders of the States, but the fact that all business passed through his hands made a man of John de Witt’s ability, the director of the policy which he was supposed to receive from others. 18. Outbreak of the First Dutch War of the Restoration. 1664—1665. — In 1664 hostilities broke out between England and the Dutch Republic, without any declaration of war. English fleets captured Dutch vessels on the coast of Africa, seized islands in the West Indies, and took possession of the Dutch settlement in America called by its founders New Amsterdam, but re-named by the English New York, after the king’s only surviving brother, the Duke of York, who was Lord High Admiral. Later in the year, De Ruyter, one of the best of the Dutch admirals, retaliated by seizing most of the English forts on the coast of Guinea, and in 1665 war was openly declared. Parliament made what was then 590 CHARLES IT. AHD CLARENDON 1665 the enormous grant of 2,500,000/., and on June 3 a battle was fought off Lowestoft in which the English were completely victorious. 19. The Plague. 1665. — The rejoicing in England was marred by a terrible calamity. For more than half a century the Plague had appeared in England, at intervals of five years. It now broke out with unusual virulence, especially in London. The streets there were narrow and dirty, and the air was close, be- cause the upper storeys of the houses overhung the lower ones. No medical aid appeared to avail anything against the Plague. On the door of every house in which it appeared was painted a red cross with the words, “The Lord have mercy upon us.” Every one rich enough fled into the country and spread the in- fection. “How fearful,” wrote a contemporary, “people were, thirty or forty, if not a hundred miles from London, of anything that they brought from any mercer’s or draper’s shop ; or of any goods that were brought to them ; or of any persons that came to their houses ! How they would shut their doors against their friends ; and if a man passed over the fields, how one would avoid another ! ” The dead were too numerous to be buried in the usual way, and carts went their rounds at night, accompanied by a man ringing a bell and calling out, “ Bring out your dead.” The corpses were flung into a huge pit without coffins, there being no time to provide them for so many. It was not till winter came that the sickneSs died away. 20. The Five Mile Act. 1665. — In October, Parliament met at Oxford, through fear of the Plague. It offered the king 1,250,000/. for the war if he would consent to fresh persecution of the Dis- senters. He took the money, and gave his assent to the Five Mile Act. The Conventicle Act had been largely evaded, and, during the Plague, Dissenting ministers had preached in pulpits from which the clergy had fled through fear of infection. The Five Mile Act was to strike at the ministers ejected on St. Bar- tholomew’s day. Not one of them was allowed to come within five miles of a borough town, or of any place in which he had once held a cure, and was therefore likely to find a congregation, unless he would take the oath of non-resistance, and swear that he would never endeavour to alter the government in Church or State, a condition to which few, if any, of the Dissenters were willing to submit. 21. Continued Struggle with the Dutch. 1665 — ^666. In the autumn of 1665 the ravages of the Plague kept the English fleet in the Thames, and the Dutch held the sea. On land they were i666 fnk DUTCH WAR exposed to some peril. Ever since their peace with Spain, in 1648, they had allowed their military defences to fall into decay, on the supposition that they would have no more enemies who could dispose of any formidable land-force. Now even a petty prince like the Bishop of Munster, hired by Charles, was able, in October, to over-run two of their eastern provinces. The Dutch called upon the king of France, Louis XIV., for help, and he, being bound by treaty to assist them, declared war against England in January Old St. Paul’s, from the east, showing I'ts condition just before the Great Fire from an engraving by Hollar. 1666. If he had given earnest support to the Dutch the conse- quences would have been serious for England, but though he and other continental allies of the Dutch frightened off the Bishop of Munster from his attack on the Republic, Louis had no wish to help in the destruction of the English navy. What he wanted was to see the Dutch and English fleets destroy one another in order that his own might be mistress of the sea. Through the first four days of June a desperate naval battle was fought between the English and the Dutch, off the North Foreland, at the end of which the 592 CHARLES II. AND CLARENDON 1665-1666 English fleet, under Albemarle and Rupert, was driven to take shelter in the Thames, whilst the Dutch had been so crippled as to be forced to put back to refit. On July 25 and 26 there was another battle off the mouth of the Thames. This time the Dutch had the worst, and in August the English fleet sailed along the islands at the entrance of the Zuyder Zee, destroying 160 merchant ships and burning a town. The struggle had been a terrible one The sailors of both nations were equally brave, and equally at home in a sea-fight, but the English ships were better built and the English guns were better, whilst the Dutch commanders did not work well together in consequence of personal and political jealousies. 22. The Fire of London. 1666. — In September, 1666, London suffered a calamity only second to that of the Plague. A fire broke out, and burnt for three days. All the City from the Tower to the Temple, and from the Thames to Smithfield, was absolutely destroyed. Old St. Paul’s, the longest cathedral in England, perished in the flames. Great as the suffering caused by the fire was, it was not without its benefits, as the old houses with their overhanging storeys were destroyed by it, and were replaced by new ones built in the modem fashion, so that there was more air in the streets. After this reconstruction of London it was never again visited by the Plague. 23. Designs of Louis XIV. 1665 — 1667. — Soon after the fire died down Parliament voted 1,800,000/. for continuing the war, but the country was exhausted, and it was known that it would be impossible to collect so large a sum. Both king and Parliament were therefore anxious for peace, and there were now reasons which made the Dutch also ready to make peace. In 1665 Philip IV. of Spain died, and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Charles II., as yet a mere child, hopelessly weak in body and mind. Philip also left two daughters, the elder, Maria Theresa, a child of his first wife, being the wife of Louis, whilst the younger, Margaret Theresa, the wife of the Emperor Leopold I., was, with Charles II., the offspring of a second marriage.^ Both of the daughters had renounced all future claim to the Spanish Crown, but Louis, knowing that the young Charles II. of ' Genealogy of the surviving children of Philip IV : — I. Elizabeth of France = Philip IV. =2. Mary of Austria. Maria Theresa = Louis XIV. Margaret Theresa = Leopold I. Charles II. 1667 T'HR war of devolution 593 Spain was so sickly as to make his early death probable, was pre- pared to assert his wife’s claim whenever that event took place. In the meanwhile he put forward a demand that the greater part of the Spanish Netherlands should be immediately handed over to her, because in those countries there was a law, known as the law of devolution, enacting that the daughter of a first wife should receive a larger share of her father’s property than a son of the second. Louis chose to construe a right to succeed to property as though it implied a right to govern. In March, 1667, he made a secret treaty with Charles II. of England, in which, on condition of his engaging not to help the Dutch, he was allowed to do as he pleased in the Spanish Netherlands. In May he began what is known as the War of Devolution, with Spain. Spain had neither money nor means to defend her territory in the Netherlands, and the French armies captured one place after another. 24. The Dutch in the Medway, and the Peace of Breda. 1667. — The advance of Louis into the Spanish Netherlands and the establishment of the French armies so near their frontier in the place of the now exhausted forces of Spain greatly alarmed the Dutch. The mere risk of this danger had, even before the war oetween France and Spain began, inclined them to peace with England, and a conference was opened at Breda to consider the terms. All was quickly agreed on except the question about the right of England to Pularoon (see p. 589), and Charles, imagining that this would be settled in his favour, dismissed his sailors and dismantled his fleet, in order to save money to spend on his own extravagant pleasures. The Dutch fleet at once entered the Thames, sailed up the Medway, burnt three men-of-war, and carried off a fourth. For some days it blockaded the Thames, so that the Londoners could get no coals. Men openly said that such things would not have happened if Oliver had been living. Orders were sent to the English ambassadors at Breda to give up Pularoon, and on July 31 the Treaty of Breda was signed. It was not wholly disastrous. If England lost her last hold on the spice islands of the East, she gained New York and all the territory formerly Dutch in the West, which had broken up the continuity of her colonies in America. 25. Clarendon and the House of Commons. 1667. — The events of the last months of the war had produced important effects upon the temper of Parliament. Long before the Dutch appeared in the Medway, the House of Commons had demanded an inquiry into the expenditure of the money granted to the 594 CHARLES II. AHD CLARENDOH Crown, suspecting that much of the supply distinctly intended for purposes of war had been diverted to pay for the amusements of the Court. This demand, which opened a new chapter in the history of the financial struggle between the House of Commons and the Crown, brought the Commons into collision with Clarendon. It had been settled by the Long Parliament that the king was to levy no taxes without a grant from Parliament. The Cavalier Parliament, Royalist as it was, was beginning to ask that the king should not spend the proceeds of taxes without the approbation of Parliament. When once this had been secured. Parliament would indubitably become supreme. Against this attempt to obtain the mastery Clarendon struggled. He was a good lawyer and an excellent man of business, but he was not a statesman of genius. He wanted each part of the government to act in harmony with the others ; but he could never understand the meaning of the saying that if two men ride on horseback, one must ride in front. He wanted the king and Parliament both to ride in front, both — that is to say — to have their own way in certain directions. His notion of a king was that of one prudently doing his best for his people, always ruling according to law, and irresponsible in everything, even in the expenditure of money. A wasteful, riotous Charles II. was a phenomenon for the control of which his constitutional formulas were not prepared. 26. The Fall of Clarendon. 1667. — Though Clarendon was unable to concur in any diminution of the power of the Crown, his eyes were widely open to the profligacy of Charles’s life. Again and again he had remonstrated with him, and had refused to pass under the great seal grants in favour of Lady Castlemaine, to whom, amongst his many mistresses, Charles was at this time most com- pletely subjugated. As might have been expected, this abandoned woman irritated her paramour against his upright Chancellor, telling him that he was no king as long as he was ruled by Clarendon. As Parliament continued its attacks, Charles, on August 30, dismissed Clarendon from office. On October 10, the fallen minister was impeached by the House of Commons, on charges the greater part of which were ridiculously untrue. He tried to rouse Charles to support him, reminding him that, after Charles I. allowed Strafford to die, the king’s own head had fallen on the scaffold. Charles II., an easy-going but clever politician, probably thought that he could always escape his father’s fate by refraining from imitating his father’s stiffness. He gave Clarendon a strong hint to withdraw, and on November 29 the minister who l66o-x66i THE IRISH ACT OR SETTLEMENT 595 had done more than any other man to establish the restored monarchy, fled to F ranee, never to return alive. 27. Scotland and Ireland. 1660. — At the Restoration, the close connection established by Cromwell between England and Scotland was necessarily broken up. Scotland hated English control even when it came in the guise of a union of Parliaments, and the old relation of separate states united only by the Crown was at once resumed. Argyle and his principal followers were executed as traitors. The main profit of the restoration in Scotland, however, fell to the nobility. The clergy was discredited by its divisions, and the noblemen, whose fathers had supported Presbyterianism against Charles L, now supported Charles II. against Presby- terianism. Once more, as in the days of James I., the clergy were muzzled by the restoration of episcopacy and the assertion of the authority of the Crown. In Ireland the main question was how to satisfy alike the recent English immigrants who had received lands from Cromwell and the Irish proprietors who had been deprived of their lands in favour of the intruders. In 1661, at the king’s desire, an Act of Settlement was passed, making, in elaborate detail, an attempt to satisfy as many as possible of both parties ; but as men of English descent and Protestant religion filled the Irish House of Commons, the English settlers contrived to maintain, by consti- tutional authority, much of what they had taken with the strong hand. According to the best evidence now procurable, whereas before 1641 about two-thirds of Irish lands fit for cultivation had been in the hands of Catholics, before the end of the reign of Charles II. two-thirds were in the hands of Protestants. 596 CHAPTER XXXVIII CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL. 1667— 1674 LEADING DATES Reign of Charles II., 1660—1685 Treaty of Dover Second Dutch War of the Restoration Declaration of Indulgence Test Act Dismissal of Shaftesbury Peace with the Dutch .... June 1, 1670 March 13, 16^ March 15, 1672 March 29, 1673 Nov. 9, 1673 Feb. 19, 1674 1. Milton and Bunyan. — VTiilst Clarendon and his allies were fortifying the legal position of the Church of England, the old Puritanism which they attempted to crush found a voice in literature. Milton, who had become blind, in consequence of his intense devotion to the ser\uce of the State, as the secretary of Cromwell, at last, after long preparation, gave to the world ‘ Para- dise Lost,’ in 1667. The poem was Puritan, not only because its main theme was the maintenance or destruction of the purity of a single human soul, but because it based that purity on obedience to the commands of the great Taskmaster ; whilst, in the solemn cadence of its blank verse there is something to remind the reader of the stem world of duty, in the midst of which the nobler spirits of the Commonwealth and Protectorate had moved. As Milton was the poet of Puritanism, John Bunyan was the prose-poet of Dissent. He had himself fought as a soldier on the side of Parliament in the Civil War, and, ha\*ing become an earnest Baptist preacher, he continued to preach after the Restoration, and, boldly def>dng the law, was requited with a long imprisonment His masterpiece, ‘ The Pilgrim’s Progress,’ was probably not wTitten till 1675, but many of his religious writings were published before that date. His force of imagination made him the greatest allegorist the world has seen. His moral aim lay in the preservation of a few choice souls from the perils and temptations of a society wholly given up to evil. 2. Butler and the Dramatists. — There was, doubtless, much in *663 MILTON AND BUTLER the world round Milton and Bunyan to awake indignation. Samuel Butler was a man of genius, but his ‘ Hudibras,’ which appeared in 1663, shows but poorly by the side of ‘ Paradise Lost ’ and ‘ The John Milton in 1670. Pilgrim’s Progress.’ This mock-heroic account of a Puritan knight is the work of a strong writer, who can find nothing better to 598 CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL 1667 do with the warriors and disputants who had lately controlled England than to laugh at them. The mass of Restoration poetry was far weaker than ‘ Hudibras,’ whilst its dramatic writers vied with one another in the expression of licentious thought either m prose or in the regular heroic couplets which were, at this time, in vogue. It was, indeed, impossible to put much human passion into two neat lines which had to be made to rhyme ; but at Court love-making had been substituted for passion, and the theatres, now re-opened, after they had been suppressed by the Puritans, were meant for the vicious Court and not for the people at large. 3. Reason and Science. — The satire of Butler, and the licen- tiousness of the dramatists, both sprang from a reaction against the severe morality of the Puritans ; but it would have been a poor prospect for the generation following that of Puritan repression if the age had not produced any positive work of its own. Its work was to be found in the increase of respect for human reason. In the better minds amongst the clergy of the Restoration, the reasonable character of the Church of England was more than ever predominant. A few, such as Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, and Stillingfleet, Dean of St. Paul’s, were even anxious to find some way of comprehension by which Dissenters might be reconciled to the Church, whilst others, like Morley and Barrow, attached far more importance to arguments addressed to the understanding, than to that uniformity of ceremonial which had been so dear to the mind of Laud. Still more important was the spread of devotion to natural science. The Royal Society, founded for its promotion in 1660, brought together men who thought more about air-pumps than about the mysteries of theology ; and it was mainly the results of their inquiries which made any renewed triumph of Puritanism impossible. In ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ the outer world was treated as a mere embarrassment to the pursuit of spiritual per- fection. By the Fellows of the Royal Society it was treated as calling for reverent investigation, in order that, in the words of Bacon, nature might be brought into the service of man by his obedience to her laws. 4. Charles II. and Toleration. 1667. — In the long run the rise of the scientific spirit would conduce to religious toleration, because scientific men have no reason to desire the suppression of any form of religious belief. The first step taken after the restora- tion in the direction of religious toleration had come from Charles (see p. 581), who was actuated partly by a sneaking fondness for the 1667-1669 PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE 599 Roman Catholic Church and partly by dislike of being dictated to by Parliament. He therefore, after Clarendon’s fall, gave his confidence mainly to men who, for various reasons, were inclined to support his wishes in this respect. 5. Buckingham and Arlington. 1667 — 1669. — Amongst these men the principal were the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Arlington. Buckingham, the son of the favourite of Charles I. — ‘ everything by turns and nothing long ’ — was trying his hand at politics by way of amusement. Arlington, who, like Charles^ hardly knew whether he was Catholic or Protestant, was entrusted, as Secretary of State, with the direction of foreign affairs. He was a man of considerable ability, but perfectly unscrupulous in shifting his ground to suit his personal ambition. Both hated Clarendon as sour and austere, and both were ready to support the king in any scheme upon which he might set his heart. The Dissenters con- fined to prison were liberated, and a Bill prepared to modify the ceremonies of the Church, so as to enable the expelled Presby- terians to re-enter the Church. When, however. Parliament met in February, 1668, it showed its determination to have nothing to do with either toleration or comprehension (see p. 598). It offered the king 300,000/., but only under the implied condition that he would abandon his scheme. Charles took the money and dropped his scheme. He prorogued Parliament in May, and did not re- assemble it till October, 1669. Whilst Parliament was not in session Charles sheltered the Dissenters from persecution, and even thought of dissolving Parliament. Albemarle (see p. 580), however, cautiously reminded him that, even if he got a new Parliament in which the Dissenters and their friends were predominant, it would probably cause him trouble by wanting to persecute those who had hitherto persecuted the Dissenters. Accordingly Charles, who hated no- thing so much as trouble, not only allowed the old Parliament to meet again, but even issued a proclamation enforcing the penal laws against Dissenters. 6. The Triple Alliance. 1668. — In 1668 a triple alliance was formed between England, the Dutch Republic, and Sweden, to put an end to the War of Devolution (see p. 593). Its originators were De Witt, and Sir William Temple, the English ambassador at the Hague. The allies demanded that Louis should content himself with certain strong towns on his northern frontier which he had already conquered from Spain, and should desist from attempting to conquer more. Louis assented, and the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed on these conditions. In England 6oo CHARLES II . AND THE CABAL 1669-1670 there was already a rising feeling against the French, and Charles acquired no little popularity by his supposed firmness. In reality he had betrayed the secrets of the alliance to Louis, and had only shown his teeth to gain good terms for himself from the French king. 7. Charles’s Negotiations with France. 1669 — 1670. — Louis owed the Dutch a deep grudge, and set himself to win Charles to neutrality, if not to active help, in the war which he now purposed to make against them. Charles disliked the Dutch as the com- mercial rivals of England, and was ready to sell himself to Louis if only the price offered was high enough. Though Charles never suffered religion of any kind to be a check on his conduct, his facile nature yearned after the imposing authority of the Roman Church. In 1669 his brother, James, avowed himself a Catholic, and in the same year Charles, under the strictest secrecy, declared his own conversion to a small circle of men whom he could trust. Before the end of the war he offered Louis support against the Dutch, but asked such enormous concessions in return that Louis refused to agree to them. Charles, before lowering the terms of his bargain with Louis, drove another bargain with his Parliament. In the spring of 1670, by dropping his demand for toleration, he obtained a grant of 300,000/. a year for eight years. In return he gave the royal assent to a second Conventicle Act, even more stringent than the first. 8. The Treaty of Dover. 1670.— Having secured a grant, Charles prorogued Parliament, which he had deceived by giving it to understand that he had abandoned the idea of toleration, and turned to Louis. Louis sent over Charles’s youngest sister, Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, to conclude an alliance, and on June I, 1670, a treaty between England and France was secretly signed at Dover. Charles agreed to join Louis in his projected war against the Dutch, by sending an English force of 6,000 men to serve in the French army, and to assist Louis to seize upon the territories of the Spanish monarchy in the event of the death of Charles II. of Spain without male heirs. Charles was also to acknowledge himself a Catholic whenever he thought fit to do so. To support Charles against his subjects in case of their resisting him in the declaration of his conversion, Louis was to give him 154,000/. and the aid of 6,000 troops to be employed in England in his defence. Moreover, Charles was to receive 230,000/. a year during the pro- posed war, and thirty French ships were to serve under an English admiral. At the end of the war he was to receive Walcheren, i 67 o AN ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE 6oi Sluys and Cadsand from the Dutch Republic, and ultimately, if Louis made good his claims to the Spanish monarchy, he was to gain from Spain, Ostend, Minorca, and various territories in South America. Charles II. was no more scrupulous than his father had been about using the troops of foreign princes to suppress the opposi- tion of his own subjects, but he was shrewd enough to know— what Charles I. had never known— that foreign princes would not lend him Temple Bar, London, built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1670. Taken down in 1878 and since rebuilt at Waltham Cross. troops unless he gave them something in return. The breach of the Triple Alliance and the assistance offered by Charles to Louis in the proposed war against the Dutch were considered in France to be a fair equivalent for the payments which Louis had bound himself to make. It was another question whether Charles could be kept to his engagements. To secure this as much as possible Louis sent Ih R R 002 CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL 1670 him over a new French mistress, Louise de Keroualle. Charles soon created her Duchess of Portsmouth, and she fulfilled her duty to her own king by betraying to him all the secrets of her lover. 9. The Cabal. 1670. — After Clarendon’s fall Charles had been his own chief minister. The ministers whom he consulted from time to time were known as his Cabal, a word then applied to any body of secret advisers, without carrying with it the opprobrious meaning which it now has. At last the wits discovered that the initials of five ministers who were principally consulted about the time of the Treaty of Dover, Clitford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale, spelt the word cabal, and writers have since talked about them as forming what has been called the Cabal Ministry, though no such ministry, in the modem sense of the word, ever existed. Not only did they not form a council meeting for purposes of government, but, though they agreed together in favouring toleration, they disagreed on other points. Nor were they usually consulted by Charles in a body. Sometimes he took the advice of persons not of their number ; sometimes he took the advice of some of them only, whilst he kept the others entirely in the dark. Thus Clifford, who was a brave and honest Catholic, and Arlington, who would support any measure as long as it was his interest to do so, knew all about the Treaty of Dover, whilst Buckingham, Lauderdale, and Ashley were in complete ignorance of it. Of Buckingham and Arlington enough has been already said (see p. 599). Lauderdale, who had little to do with English affairs, kept himself almost entirely to the task of building up the king’s authority in Scotland, where he had already got together an army completely at Charles’s disposal. The character of Ashley deserves a longer consideration. 10. Ashley’s Policy. — Anthony Ashley Cooper,^ who had been created Lord Ashley since the Restoration, had changed sides again and again during the late troubles. He was a bom party- leader, and had signalised himself as a youth at Exeter College, Oxford, by leading a successful revolt of the freshmen against the older undergraduates, who, according to custom, tried to skin the chins of the freshmen and to force them to drink a nauseous com- pound prepared for the occasion. Though in party conflict he was quite unscmpulous and despised no means which would enable him to gain his ends, he had the statesmanlike qualities of common sense and moderation. He had deserted Charles I. when he leant upon the Catholics (see p. 541), had supported Cromwell in his stmggle 1 Two Christian names were exceedingly rare in the seventeenth century. 1671-1672 ASHLEY AND BUCKINGHAM 603 with the zealots of the Barebone’s Parliament (see p. 566), and had left him when he rejected the constitutional scheme of the first Parliament of the Protectorate (see p. 570). In disgust at the humours of the Rump and the army, he had done everything in his power to hasten the Restoration, and had soon shown hostility to Clarendon and to the persecuting laws of the Cavalier Parlia- ment. In fact, there were two principles to which he was never entirely false, a love of Parliamentary government and a love of toleration, which last was based, not as was that of Oliver, upon sympathy with religious zeal of every kind, but upon dislike of clerical interference. At present he attached himself to Charles, because he knew of Charles’s alleged wish to establish toleration, and knew nothing of the conspiracy against Parliament on which Charles had embarked, or of Charles’s secret design to favour the Roman Church under cover of a general scheme of toleration. 11. Buckingham’s Sham Treaty. 1671. — To deceive those who were in ignorance of the secret treaty of the previous year, Buckingham was sent to Paris to negotiate a sham treaty in which all mention of Charles’s conversion was omitted, and the whole of the money offered by Louis represented as given solely for the war. Charles particularly enjoyed making a fool of Buckingham, who imagined himself to be exceedingly clever, and he had also the temporary satisfaction of gaining the hearty support of Ashley as well as Buckingham, because Ashley was quite ready to accept Louis’ help in a joint enterprise for crushing the commerce of the Dutch, and had no scruples about abandoning the Triple Alliance. Charles was the more ready to begin the war because he had lately succeeded in obtaining from Parliament another 800,000/. on the false plea that he wanted the money to enable him to hold head at sea against the French as well as the Dutch. As soon as the money was obtained he prorogued Parliament. 12. The Stop of the Exchequer. 1672. — Charles prudently delayed the declaration of his conversion to a more convenient season, but the opening of the war was fixed for the spring of 1672. In spite of the large sums which he drew from Louis and from Parliament, his finances were in hopeless confusion, because of the enormous amount of money which he squandered on his numerous mistresses and his illegitimate children. It is said that the yearly income of the Duchess of Portsmouth was 40,000/., and that in one year she received no less than 136,000/. A caricature published in Holland aptly represented him as standing between two women, with empty pockets hanging out. At this time he had in his 604 CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL 1672 exchequer 1,400,000/., lent to him by the goldsmiths who, in those days, acted as bankers. On January 2, 1672, probably at Clifford’s suggestion, he refused to repay the principal, and arbitrarily diminished the interest from 12 to 6 per cent.^ In consequence of this stop of the exchequer, as it was called, many of the gold- smiths became bankrupt, but Clifford became a peer and Lord High Treasurer. Anthony Ashley- Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury, 1621-1683 : from the National Portrait Gallery. 13. The Declaration of Indulgence. 1672.— On March 15, Charles, though still hesitating to proclaim himself a Catholic, issued a Declaration of Indulgence. Claiming a dispensing power, ^ he 1 In the time of James I. the usual interest was 10 per cent. The Long Parliament paid 8 . 2 The right of pardon allows the king to remit the consequences to a par- ticular person of a sentence passed on him. The right of dispensation allows him to remit beforehand the consequences of a breach of a law either to such persons as are named, or to all persons generally who may commit such a breach. 1672 THE DECLARATION OE INDULGENCE 605 suspended all penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, affecting either recusants or non-conformists, thus giving complete religious liberty to Roman Catholics as well as to Dissenters. To this measure, wise and statesmanlike in itself, but marred by the motives of its author and by its defiance of the law and of public opinion, Ashley gave his hearty support. He was rewarded with the Earldom of Shaftesbury. He had shortly before been made Lord Chancellor : being the last who held that post without being a lawyer. At that time the decisions of the Court of Chancery were still given in accordance with the view taken by the Chancellor of what seemed fair and equitable, and did not therefore require any elaborate legal knowledge. Even Shaftesbury’s bitterest enemies acknowledged that he was scrupulously just. 14. The Second Dutch War of the Restoration. 1672. — Both Charles and Louis had resolved to take the Dutch by surprise. On March 13, Admiral Holmes, obeying orders, attacked a rich Dutch merchant fleet sailing up the Channel, before war was declared, but only succeeded in taking two vessels. In the war now begun the discipline of the English navy was worse, and that of the Dutch navy better, than it had been in the former war (see p. 591). On June 7 there was a fierce sea-fight in Southwold Bay, in which the Dutch had slightly the advantage. Louis, on his part, crossed the Rhine, and fell upon the Dutch territory. As a land attack had not been expected, the military preparations were incomplete, and the fortresses out of repair. One place after another capitulated to the French. The young William III., Prince of Orange, Charles’s nephew, had been named Captain-General, but his army was too small to encourage him to risk a battle. Then De Witt took a heroic resolution. On J une 1 8 he cut the dykes which protected the low-lying land from the sea which stood at a higher level. In rushed the waters, Louis found his progress stopped. De Witt had the blame of the failure to prevent the invasion ; William, coming after him, had the credit of the resistance. The Republic needed a strong hand to preserve it, and the office of Stadholder was revived and given to William. Shortly afterwards De Witt, together with his brother, was brutally murdered at the Hague. William, who detested De Witt for having so long deprived him of the power which he considered his due, not only took no steps to hinder the assassination, but actually protected the murderers. Disgraceful as his conduct was, he had a temper as heroic as De Witt’s. Buckingham came to urge him to submit to Louis’ terms. “ Do you not see,” said the Englishman, “ that the 6 o 6 CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL 1673 Republic is lost ? ” “I know one sure means of never seeing it,” was William’s firm reply — “ to die on the last dyke.” His con- fidence was justified. Louis could not pierce the girdle of waters which surrounded the Dutch towns, and, returning to Paris, brought the campaign to an end. 15. ‘Delenda est Carthago.’ 1673. — On February 4, 1673. Charles, having once more spent all his money, again met his Parliament. Shaftesbury urged the voting of supply for the war with the Dutch, whom he styled the eternal enemies of England, quoting the saying of Cato — Delenda est Carthago — as though they were to be destroyed as being to England what Carthage had been to Rome. So far as the war was concerned, the House of Commons answered his appeal by offering 1,260,000/., though they kept back the Bill till they had brought him to terms. 16. Withdrawal of the Declaration of Indulgence. 1673. — It was at the withdrawal of the Declaration of Indulgence that the House was aiming. In vain Charles simulated firmness, declaring himself to be resolved to stick to his declaration. The Commons bitterly resented his interference with the law. F orty statutes, it was said, had been violated by the Declaration, and the house passed a resolution that ‘ penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical cannot be suspended but by act of Parliament.’ Both sides were anxious to limit the question to ecclesiastical statutes : Charles, because the powers over the Church conferred on the Tudor sovereigns were vague, and therefore more defensible than those exercised by them in political matters ; the Commons, because they had precedents of Parliamentary resistance to dispensations granted to recusants, whereas former kings had usually been allowed without contradic- tion to suspend the law in commercial matters. Charles tried to evade the summons of the Commons, but the Lords having come on March 7 to the same conclusion as the other House, he gave way on the 8th and recalled his Declaration. As no new statute was passed on the subject, the legal question remained just where it was before. 17. The Test Act. 1673. — Charles had entered on a struggle with Parliament and had been defeated. The Royalist Parliament of 1661 was still Royalist so far as the maintenance of the throne was concerned, but it had entered on a course of opposition which had brought it into open collision with the king. From first to last the chief characteristic of this Parliament was its resolution to maintain the supremacy of the Church, and it was now obvious THE TEST ACT 1673 607 that the Church was in more danger from Roman Catholics than from Dissenters. Though Charles’s conversion (see p. 600) was un- known, it was no secret that the Duke of York, the heir to the throne, was a Catholic, and, in spite of the veil thrown over the terms of the Treaty of Dover, the danger of an invasion by French troops in support of the English Catholics was obvious to all. For the first time since the Restoration a Bill was brought in to relieve Protestant Dissenters, and, though this proposal came to nothing, the very fact of its being made showed that a new state of feeling was growing up. Arlington, seeing how things stood, and wishing to oust the Catholic Clilford from the Treasury that he might be his successor, put up a member of the Commons to propose a Bill which soon became law under the name of the Test Act. By it, no one was to hold office who refused to take the test — that is to say, to make a declaration of his disbelief in the doctrine of Transubstantiation and to receive the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. It was only after Charles had given his assent to this Act on March 29 that the proposed grant of 1,260,000/. was actually made. 18. Results of the Test Act. 1673. — Though most Dissenters were excluded from office by the latter clause of the Test Act, there were some who did not feel their opposition to the Church to be so strong as to preclude them from taking the Sacrament occasionally according to its rites. Every honest Roman Catholic, on the other hand, was at once driven from office. The Duke of York surrendered the Admiralty and Clifford the Treasury. The Test Act was not a persecuting Act in the sense in which the Conventicle Act and the Five Mile Act' were persecuting Acts. It inflicted no direct penalty on the mere holding of a special belief, or on the attendance on a special form of worship, but excluded persons holding a certain religious belief from offices the retention of which, according to the prevalent conviction, would be dangerous to the State. 19. Continuance of the Dutch War. 1673. — The Treasurer- ship, taken from Clifford, was given, not to Arlington, but to Sir Thomas Osborne, whose sentiments, being strongly in favour of maintaining the predominance of the Church of England, were likely to commend him to the good-will of the Houses. In foreign policy he represented what was fast becoming a general opinion, that, as the main danger to England came from France, it had been a mistake to go to war with the Dutch. This belief was driven home by disasters at sea in the summer of 1673. In May, a com- 6o8 CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL 1673-1674 bined French and English fleet, under Prince Rupert, fought with- out advantage against the Dutch. In August Rupert was defeated off the Texel, because the French fleet, which accompanied him, took no part in the action, Louis not wishing to see the English masters of the sea. On this, the English nation turned all its hatred against France. 20. The Duke of York’s Marriage and Shaftesbury’s Dis- missal. 1673. — The alarm inspired by the Catholics was increased in the course of 1673 by a marriage which took place in the Royal family. Soon after the Restoration the Duke of York had married Clarendon’s daughter, Anne Hyde, and had by her two daughters, Mary and Anne, both of whom were brought up as Protestants, so that, if the Duke outlived his brother, he would, when he himself died, transmit the crown to a Protestant queen. He was now, however, a widower, and took as his second wife a Catholic princess, Mary of Modena. If the new Duchess should bear a son, the boy, who would inevitably be educated as a Catholic, would be the future king of England. When Parliament met in October it was highly indignant, and, as it attacked the king’s ministers, it was prorogued after a session of a few days. Charles revenged himself by dismissing a minister whom the Commons had not attacked. Shaftesbury had, earlier in the year, learned the contents of the secret articles of the Treaty of Dover, and had thereby discovered that Charles had made a fool of him as com- pletely as he had made a fool of Buckingham when he sent him to negotiate a sham treaty (see p. 603). Shaftesbury remained true to his policy of toleration, but it was now to be toleration for Dissenters alone. Toleration for Catholics, he now knew, was connected with a scheme for overthrowing English independence with the aid of French soldiers. Accordingly, he supported the Test Act, and, as he continued uncompliant, Charles, on No- vember 9, dismissed him. Shaftesbury at once threw himself into the most violent opposition. Buckingham was dismissed not long afterwards, and the so-called Cabal was thus finally broken up. 21. Peace with the Dutch. 1674. — The war with the Dutch was brought to an end by a treaty signed on February 19, 1674. On the 24th Charles prorogued Parliament, and did not summon it again for more than a year. During the interval, he at- tempted to win friends all round, without committing himself to any definite policy. On the one hand, he remained on friendly terms with Louis, whilst, on the other hand, he offered the hand of Mary, the eldest child of his brother James, to her cousin, William 1674 WILLIAM OF ORANGE 609 of Orange. William’s position was far higher than it had been two years before. He was now at the head of an alliance in which the Emperor Leopold, the King of Spain, and the Duke of Lorraine combined with him to restrain the inordinate ambition of Louis. It is true that his generalship was less conspicuous than his diplomacy, and that in the whole course of his life he never succeeded in beating a French army in the field. Yet even in war his indomitable courage and conspicuous coolness stood him in good stead, and he knew better than most commanders how to gather his troops after a defeat and to place them in strong positions in which the enemy did not dare to attack them. The history of ^lurope during the remainder of his life was the history of a duel between the ambitious and autocratic Louis and the cool-headed William, the first magistrate of a republic in which his action was checked by constitutional restraints on every side, and the head of a coalition of which the members were always prone to take offence and to pursue their individual interests at the sacrifice of the common good. To win England to the alliance was, for William, a most desirable object, but he knew that James might very well have a son by his second marriage, and, knowing that in that case he would reap no political advantage from a marriage with Mary, he for the present refused the offer of her hand.^ Genealogy of some of the descendants of Charles I. Charles I. = Henrietta Maria 1625-1649 I Charles II. 1660-1685 (Prince of king of Great Britain Orange) and Ireland 1685-1688 1 William III. = Mary (Prince of Orange) Queen of King of Gt. Britain Gt. Britain and Ireland and Irelan 1689-1702 1689-1694 Anne Queen of Gt. Britain and Ireland 1702-1714 Maria = James Francis Edward (The Old Pretender) Louisa = Charles Edward Louis Princess of Philip Casimir Stolberg (The Young Pretender) I Henry Benedict Marie Clement (Duke of York and Cardinal) 6io CHAPTER XXXIX danby’s administration and the three short PARLIAMENTS. 1675— l68l LEADING DATES Reign of Charles II., 1660—1685 Rejection of the Non-Resistance Bill 1675 Marriage of William and Mary .... Nov. 15, 1677 The Peace of Nymwegen July 31, 1678 The Popish Plot 1678 Dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament . . . Jan 24, 1679 The First Short Parliament . . March 6 — May 27, 1679 The Second Short Parliament . . Oct. 21, 1680— Jan 18, 1681 The Third Short Parliament . . March 21— March 28, 1681 1. Growing Influence of Danby. 1675. — Charles’s effort to govern in his own way having ended in failure, and, in what he thought to be of more consequence, discomfort to himself, he dis- covered that he would lead an easier life if he were on good terms with his Parliament than if he quarrelled with it. Being now dis- posed to throw over whatever troublesome convictions he had imagined himself to have, he gave his confidence to Osborne (see p. 607), whom he had recently created Earl of Danby. Danby revived the domestic policy of Clarendon by maintaining, in accordance with the majority of the Cavalier Parliament, the supremacy of the Church of England over Catholics and Dis- senters, and, equally in accordance with the majority of that Parlia- ment, opposed Louis abroad. 2, Parliamentary Parties. 1675. — The decision of Charles to support Danby in carrying out a definite policy completed the for- mation of separate Parliamentary parties. These had, indeed, existed in the Long Parliament under various names, and had reappeared after the Restoration ; but in the Cavalier Parliament the minority in favour of toleration had, at first, been exceedingly small, and, though it had grown larger in the days of the Cabal, it had been distracted by distrust of Charles when he appeared as a patron of toleration. The situation was now clear and the leaders distinctly known. On the one side was Danby and ^ No toleration,’ on the other side was Shaftesbury and ‘Toleration for Dissenters only.’ Neither side shrank from base means of acquiring strength. A STRINGENT BILL 6il i67S The ministers who formed the Cabal are said to have been the first who bribed members of the House of Commons, but it was Danby who reduced bribery to a system which was afterwards extended by his successors. Shaftesbury’s followers, on the other hand, were quite ready to enter into the pay of Louis, if he would help them to overthrow Danby and would strengthen them against the king. 3. The Non-Resistance Bill. 1675. — When Parliament met in April 1675, Danby produced a Bill which was intended to secure his hold on the House of Commons, whatever might be the opinion prevailing in the country. No one was to be allowed to hold office or to sit in Parlia- ment unless he would swear that he believed resistance to the Crown to be in all cases illegal, and that he would never endeavour to alter the government in Church or State. If the Bill had passed, the future liberty of Parliament would have been fettered, and few, if any, who did not approve of the existing Church system could have entered Parliament. The Bill passed the Lords, but while it was still under dis- cussion in the Commons Shaftesbury stirred up so bitter a quarrel between the Houses, that Charles prorogued Parliament before the Bill could be converted into law. 4. Charles a Pensionary of France. 1675 — 1676.— Parliament, in its distrust of the king, refused him supplies, upon which Charles prorogued it for fifteen months. Louis, who feared lest Parliament should drive Charles into joining the alliance against him, was so pleased to see its sittings interrupted for so long a time that he granted to Charles a pension of 100,000/. a year, to make him independent of his subjects. The result was that whilst Charles Ordinary dress of gentlemen in 1675 : from Loggan’s Oxonia Illustrata. 6i2 DANBTS ADMINISTRATION 1676-1677 allowed Danby to have hi§ own way in domestic affairs, he refused to allow him to detach England from the French alliance. It was not, however, merely his personal interests which drew him to Louis, as he took a real interest in the prosperity of English trade, and was un- able to get over his jealousy of the Dutch. In November 1676, he obtained from Louis a treaty by which the French renounced a claim made by them to seize Dutch goods conveyed in English ships, hoping by this to gain the goodwill of Parliament at its next meeting. He could not understand how completely the alarm of his subjects lest their national religion and in- dependence should be assailed by the French had made them forgetful of their commercial jealousy of the Dutch. 5. Two Foreign Policies. 1677. — On February 15, 1677, Parliament again met. Shaftesbury and his allies attempted to steal a march on Danby by producing two old statutes of Edward III. which directed that Parlia- ments should be held every year, founding on it an argu- ment that the existing Parlia- ment, not having met for a year, had legally ceased to exist. The House of Lords sent Shaftesbury and three other peers to the Tower for , . their pains, and the Commons the Barber Surgeons’ Company. COntemptUOUSly rejected a 1677 A DUTCH ALLIANCE 613 similar argument put forward in their own House. Danby found himself triumphant. The Commons granted 600,000/. for increasing the navy. Danby then carried a Bill through the House of Lords for securing the Protestant religion in the event of a Catholic — James being, of course, intended — coming to the throne, though the Bill did not pass the Commons, apparently from a feeling that its provisions were insufficient. The eyes of Englishmen were, however, princi- pally fixed on the Continent. In the preceding year the French had gained two great naval victories, in one of which De Ruyter had been slain, and in the spring of 1677 Louis carried one place after another in the Spanish Netherlands. Both Houses now asked Charles to join the alliance against France, whereupon Charles indignantly prorogued Parliament. When he was urged by the Dutch ambassador to act upon the wishes of the Houses he threw his handkerchief into the air, with the accompanying words : “ I care just that for Parliament.” 6. The Marriage of the Prince of Orange. 1677. — Louis paid to Charles 1,600,000/. for the prorogation which rid France for a time from the danger of a war with England. Charles, however, shrank from a renewal of the struggle with his Parlia- ment on its next meeting, and, though he was resolved not to go to war with France if he could help it, he was ready to help in bringing about a general peace which would relieve him from all further invitation to join the allies. He accordingly welcomed Danby’s suggestion that the plan for a marriage between the Prince of Orange and James’s daughter Mary should be again taken up, especially as he hoped that it would break down the good under- standing which existed between the Prince and Shaftesbury, and would smooth away the hostility of his subjects to his brother’s right of succession. William, knowing that the feeling of English- men of both parties was in his favour, visited his uncles, and his marriage with Mary took place on November 15, 1677. The marriage, which was to prove of incalculable importance in the future, was of great significance even at the time, as it marked the end of the hostile feeling against the Dutch which, for so many years, had been the dominant note of English foreign politics. 7. Danby’s Position. 1677. — Though Danby had brought Charles round to support his foreign as well as his domestic policy, his success was more apparent than real. The fact was that his foreign and domestic policies were inconsistent with one another. In the long run it would be found impossible to contend against the French king and the English Catholics supported by him, 6i4 DANBY’S ADMINISTRATION 1677-1678 Steeple of the Church of St. Mar>'-le- Bow, London ; built by Sir Chris- topher Wren between 1671 and i68a without calling in the aid of those Protestant Dissenters who were most hostile to Louis. Englishmen attached to the Church were being led by their growing distrust of France to a tenderer feeling towards Dis- senters, and the spread of this feeling made in favour of Shaftes- bury, who favoured toleration, and not in favour of Danby, who opposed it. For the present, however, Danby could count on the Parliamentary majority which agreed with him, and neither he nor the king wished to risk a dissolution. 8. The Peace of Nymwegen. 1678. — When Parliament met in F ebruary 1678, Charles appeared full of determination. He de- clared that, unless Louis agreed to make peace with the Dutch on reasonable terms, he would go to war with France. The Commons at once resolved to grant him 1,000,000/., and to support an army of 30,000 men and a fleet of 90 ships. Before this resolution was embodied in an Act, without which Charles could not touch the money, the followers of Shaftesbury took alarm. They believed — and, as is now known, not with- out reason — that Charles intend- ed to use the troops to make himself absolute. They not only pressed him to disband what troops he had, but they entered into communication with Louis’ ambassador, in the hope TITUS OATES 1678 615 that he would support them in forcing Charles to dismiss his troops and to dissolve Parliament, some of them even accepting from him gifts of money. Charles, on his part, vacillated, doubting which was the best policy for him to adopt. At one time he was eager to assist the Dutch, and sent troops to their succour in the hope that a victorious army might afterwards be useful to him in England. At another time he made overtures to Louis with the object of securing his support. In the end, on July 31, Louis and the Dutch made peace at N ymwegen without consulting Charles at all. Louis gained Tranche Comte and a large number of fortresses on his northern frontier, which had formerly belonged to Spain. Though he had failed to destroy Ihe Dutch Republic, he had shown himself superior in war to a great continental coalition, and had made France the predominant power in Europe. 9. The Popish Plot. 1678. — The part played by the king left the English people gravely dissatisfied with him. They feared lest he should seek to overwhelm their liberties by military force and should bring in French regiments to support his own troops. Their suspicions were heightened by the knowledge that, if Charles died, his brother, an uncompromising Roman Catholic, would suc- ceed him. In August, 1678, a villain appeared to profit by this prevalent distrust. Titus Oates, a liar from his youth up, who had tried various religions and had recently professed himself a Catholic, announced the existence of a great ‘ Popish plot.’ Charles, he said, was to be murdered, and James set upon the throne as the agent of the Jesuits. A French army was to land to support him, and Protestantism was to be absolutely suppressed. It was true that many Catholics were anxious to see James on the throne and had expressed contempt at Charles’s conduct in refusing to declare himself one of themselves, but the rest of Oates’s story was absolutely false. 10. Growing Excitement. 1678. — Oates’s depositions were taken before a Middlesex magistrate. Sir Edmond Berry Godfrey. Not long afterwards Godfrey was found murdered in the fields near Primrose Hill. All London was wild with excitement. It was widely believed that ‘ the Papists ’ had murdered him to punish him for listening to Oates. It was also held to be an undoubted truth that ‘ the Papists ’ were about to set fire to London, and to murder all good Protestants. A joiner named College made his fortune by inventing a pocket flail, tipped with lead, which was called the Protestant flail, and was to be used by sober citizens to brain ‘ Popish ’ assassins. When Parliament met on 6i6 DANBY^S ADMINISTRATION 1678-1679 October 2 1 Shaftesbury, who had been liberated early in the year, unscrupulously encouraged belief in the supposed plot. Up to that time Catholic peers had kept their seats in the House of Lords, and a few Catholics had surreptitiously sat in the Commons. A new Test Act was now passed by which they were excluded ‘ from both Houses, though the Duke of York was exempted by name from its operation. Five Catholic peers were thrown into the Tower, and Coleman, the secretary of the Duchess of York, who had in his custody papers implying that James had a design for forwarding the interests of his religion, was tried and executed. 11. Danby’s Impeachment and the Dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament. 1678 — 1679. — The mark at which Shaftesbury aimed was the overthrow of Danby. Danby had always, as far as his own opinion went, been a warm antagonist of France, but a minister was still, in those days, in reality the servant of the king, and was bound to carry out his master’s orders, even when they were against his own conviction. Danby had, therefore, at the time when the Peace of Nymwegen was under discussion, written letters to Ralph Montague, the English ambassador in France, bidding him to ask Louis for a considerable payment to Charles, and, at the same time, explaining that the money was needed to make Charles independent of Parliament. Montague, having sub- sequently returned to England, brought this letter before the House of Commons. The House at once impeached Danby, under the false impression that he had been really subservient to France all the while. Charles had become attached to Danby, and knew that, if the proceedings against him were carried on, matters would come to light which he had every reason to conceal. To save himself and his minister, on January 24, 1679, he dissolved the Cavalier Parliament, which had now sat for more than seventeen years. 12. The Meeting of the First Short Parliament. 1679. — When the elections to a new Parliament — the first of three short Parliaments — were completed, Charles found that, with the ex- ception of at most thirty members, the opposition had gained every seat. Bowing to the storm, he sent his brother to Brussels, and expressed his readiness to place himself at the head of the Protes- tants of the Continent. When, however. Parliament met, on March 6, 1679, it was found that both Houses were more anxious 1 By the Test Act of 1673 offices only were closed to the Catholics (see p. 607) ; the oath of supremacy, which had to be taken by every member of the House of Commons, being held sufficient to exclude them from that Assembly. Peers might sit in the House of Lords without taking the oath. THE EXCLUSION BILL 617 1679 about the fate of Protestantism at home than about that of Protes- tants abroad. The Commons renewed the impeachment of Danby, upon which Danby produced a free pardon from the king. The Lords decided that a pardon could not be pleaded in bar of an impeachment, but, in the end, proceedings against Danby were dropped on his being deprived of office and committed to the Tower. By the advice of Sir William Temple, Charles tried a new experiment in government. A new Privy Council was appointed of thirty members, fifteen being ministers of the Crown and fifteen influential lords and commoners, by the advice of which the king was always to be guided. Shaftesbury was appointed President of this Council, but it was soon found to be too large a body to manage affairs which required secrecy, and a small committee was therefore formed out of it for the consideration of all important business. 13. The Exclusion Bill and the Habeas Corpus Act. 1679. — Charles, now that he experienced the strength of the opposition, was prepared to give way on every point except one — the main- tenance of his brother’s right of succession, which the new House of Commons was prepared to attack. He accordingly offered to place the strongest restrictions upon the power of a Catholic king. To the House of Commons, on the other hand, all restric- tions appeared insufficient. The members believed seriously that no law would be able to bind a ‘ Popish ’ king. They thought that if he was determined — and it was taken for granted that he would be determined — to overthrow the Protestant religion, he would be able to do so. Lord Russell, the eldest son of the Duke of Bedford — the chief leader of Shaftesbury’s party in the House of Commons — was not in the habit of using exaggerated language. Yet even he declared that, if James became king, his subjects must make up their mind to become ‘ Papists ’ or to be burnt. An Exclusion Bill was brought in, excluding the Duke of York from the throne. It was read twice, but not passed, as Charles first prorogued, and then, on May 27, dissolved Parliament. The only Act of importance produced in this Parliament was the Habeas Corpus Act, which finally put an end to sundry methods by which the Crown had evaded the rule requiring the issue of writs of Habeas Corpus, by which prisoners secured their right to be tried or liberated. 14. Shaftesbury and the King, 1679. — New elections were held, with the result that a House of Commons was chosen even more bitterly hostile to the Court than its predecessor. Shaftesbury II. S S 6i8 THE THREE SHORT PARLIAMENTS 1679 was now at the height of his glory. Oates and other informers were adding new lies to those which they had told before, and the continoal trials and executions of the Catholics for participation in the supposed Popish Plot kept the excitement in favour of the Exclusion Bill at a fever heat Shaftesbury’s position was very similar to Pym’s in 1641. He had on his side the fundamental principle that a nation cannot safely be governed by a ruler whose ideas on the most important question of the day are directly opposed to those of his subjects, and he was right, as the result showed, in holding that, in the seventeenth century, a Cathohc king could not satisfactorily govern a Protestant people. After Danbys fall, the king became the real head of the party opposed to Shaftesbury. His ability had always been great, but hitherto he had ahenated those who were disposed to be his friends by attempting to estab- lish an absolute government with the help of the king of France and of an army dependent on himselP He now set himself to overthrow Shaftesbury by appealing to a popular sentiment which was quite as strong, and might be stronger, than the dislike of a Catholic successor ; that is to say, to the horror with which any- thing which threatened a new civil war filled the hearts of his subjects. 15. Shaftesbury and Halifax. 1679. — Shaftesbury had already allowed it to be known that he intended, if he carried the Exclusion Bill, to propose that the future king should be the Duke of Mon- mouth- Monmouth was the eldest of Charles’s illegitimate sons, and it was currently, though falsely, believed that Charles had been privately married to his mother, so that he might nghtly be re- garded as the heir to the Crowm. Charles, who knew better than any one else that this story was untrue, stood faithfuUy by his brother, and, though his constancy made little impression as yet, he had on his side a man whose judgment might usually be taken as an indication of the ultimate decision of pubhc opinion. That man was George Savdle, Earl, and afterwards Marquis of Halifax. He had been one of the bitterest enemies of Danby, but he devoted himself to no party. He called himself a Trimmer, as if his business was to trim the boat, and to throw himself against each party in turn as it grew violent in consequence of success. He now supported the king against Shaftesbury, on the ground that it was uncertain whether James would survive his brother, and that, if he did, he was not likely to survive him long ; whereas, the succession of the Duke of Monmouth would not only exclude from the throne the Catholic James, but also his daughters, who were both Protestants. 1677-1679 the SCOTTISH COVENANTEES 619 As Monmouth had no real hereditary right, there was every likeli- hood that, even if he ascended the throne, his claim would be opposed by partisans of James’s eldest daughter, the Princess of Orange, and that a civil war would ensue. 16. The Divine Right of Kings. 1679. — The fear of civil war already frightened some, and would in time frighten more, into the acceptance of a doctrine which seems very absurd now — the doctrine of Divine indefeasible hereditary right — that is to say, that the succession as it was established by English law was established by Divine appointment, so that, though indeed subjects might refuse to obey the king, if he ordered them to commit sin, it was their duty to bear uncomplainingly any punishment that he might impose on them, however tyrannical he might be. Such a doctrine was credited, not because those who held it were absolutely silly, but because they were more afraid of rebellion and civil war than they were of the tyranny of kings. F or the present, however, such ideas had little hold on the new Parliament, and Charles prorogued it to give time for them to grow. 17. The Highland Host. 1677 — 1678. — Events were in the meanwhile passing in Scotland which helped to impress upon those who were easily frightened the idea that the only security against rebellion lay in a general submission to established institutions in Church and State. For many years Lauderdale had been, with Charles’s full support, the absolute ruler of Scotland. He put down with a high hand the opposition of noblemen in Parliament, but he could not put down the religious zeal of the peasants, who, especially in the western Lowlands, combined zeal for Presbyterian- ism and the Covenant with exasperation against a Government which persecuted them. They held meetings for prayer and preach- ing on the open hill-sides, and the Government, failing to suppress these Conventicles, as they were called, by process of law, sent into the disaffected districts, in 1677, ^ body of half-savage Highlanders known as the Highland Host, to reduce them to obedience by plunder and outrage. 18. Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge. 1679. — When the High- land Host had done its work it left behind a people whose temper was thoroughly soured. Political hatred of the oppressors mingled with religious zeal. The Covenanters, as those were called who denounced episcopacy as a breach of the Covenant (see p. 525), regarded themselves as God’s chosen people and all who sup- ported their persecutors as the children of the devil, against whom it was lawful to draw the sword. To many of the Scottish gentry 620 THE THREE SHORT PARLIAMENTS 1679-1680 such talk as this appeared to be contemptible and dangerous fanaticism. Amongst those who strove most heartily against it was an active officer, John Graham of Claverhouse, who, being employed to quiet the country, shot or haled to prison men whom he thought likely to be forward in rebellion. On May 3, 1679, a band of fanatics murdered, on Magus Moor, near St. Andrews, James Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews, who was known to be eager to call for the persecution of the Covenanters, and who was peculiarly hated as having been once a Presbyterian himself. On June 3 Claverhouse was driven back at Drumclog by an armed conventicle which he attempted to suppress. The peasants of the West rose in arms and declared against the king’s supremacy over the Church, and against Popery, Prelacy, and the succession of the Duke of York, but on June 22, Monmouth, who had been sent at the head of an army against them, defeated them at Bothwell Bridge, near Hamilton, and entirely suppressed the rebellion. Many of the prisoners were executed after being tortured to extract from them information against their accomplices, and this cruelty was exercised under the orders of the Duke of York, who had been sent to Scotland as Lord High Commissioner.^ 19. Petitioners and Abhorrers. 1680. — Encouraged by his success in Scotland, Charles dismissed Shaftesbury from the presidency of the Council and got rid of his principal supporters. Temple’s reformed Council came thereby to an end. When Mon- mouth returned from Scotland his father refused to see him and sent him away from London. In the beginning of 1680 Shaftes- bury’s party sent up numerous petitions to ask Charles to allow Parliament to meet, and his opponents sent up petitions expressing abhorrence at such an attempt to force the king’s will. For a time the two parties were known as Petitioners and Abhorrers, names which were soon replaced by those of \Miigs and Tories. These celebrated names were at first merely nicknames. The courtiers called the Petitioners Whigs — an abbreviation of WTiigamore, the name by which the peasants of the. west of Scotland were familiarly known, from the cry of ‘ Whiggam’ with which they were accus- tomed to encourage their horses. The name Whig therefore implied that the petitioners were no better than Covenanting rebels. The Petitioners, on the other hand, called their opponents Tories — the name given to brigands in Ireland, implying that they were no better than Popish thieves. 20. The Second Short Parliament. 1680 — 1681. — Each party * Scott s Old Mortality is founded on these events. i68o-i68i CHARLES'S VICTORY 621 did all that could be done to court popularity. Monmouth made a triumphant progress in the west of England. On the other hand, James, on his return from Scotland, had a good reception even in London, the head-quarters of his opponents. On June 26, 1680, Shaftesbury appeared at Westminster and indicted James as a re- cusant. At last, on October 21, the second Short Parliament met. The Exclusion Bill was rapidly passed through the Commons. In the Lords, Halifax carried the House with him by an eloquent and closely-reasoned speech, in which the claims of the Princess of Orange were dwelt on as superior to those of Monmouth, and the Bill was, in consequence, rejected. On December 29 Lord Stafford, a Catholic peer, was executed on a false charge of a design to murder the king. When he protested his innocence on the scaffold, shouts were raised of “ God bless you, my lord ! We believe you, my lord ! ” Charles saw in these shouts an indication that the tide of opinion was turning in his favour, and, on January 18, 1681, dis- solved Parliament. 21. The Third Short Parliament. 1681. — Charles summoned a new Parliament to meet at Oxford, where it would not be exposed to any violent interruption by Shaftesbury^s ‘ brisk boys ’ — as his noisy London supporters were called — who might, it was feared, repeat the exploits of the City mob in 1641 (see p. 535). The new House of Commons was again predominantly Whig, and it was thought by the Whigs that Oxford had been selected as the place of meeting because the University was eminently Tory, with the deliberate intention of overpowering them by force. Their alarm increased when they learned that the king was bringing his guards with him. Accordingly the Whigs armed themselves and their servants in self-defence, and, in this guise, rode into Oxford. Parliament was opened on March 21, 1681, and Charles then offered to assent to any scheme for stripping his brother of royal authority, if only he were recognised as king. Shaftesbury replied that the only way of ending the dispute was to declare Monmouth heir to the Crown. As the Commons supported Shaftesbury, Charles, on March 28, dissolved his third Short Parliament. So much was he afraid that the Whig members and their servants might lay violent hands on him, that he drove in one coach to Christchurch Hall, where the House of Lords was sitting, and sent his robes by another, in order that it might not be guessed that a dissolution was intended. He soon found that he could now count on popular support in almost every part of England. The mass of people judge more by what they see than by what they hear. The pistols in the hands of the THE THREE SHORT PARLIAMENTS i6tt Whig members when they rode into Oxford had driven into men’s heads the belief that they intended to gain their ends by civil war, and, much as the nation disliked the idea of having a ‘ Popish ’ king, it disliked the idea of civil war still more, and rallied round the. king. CHAPTER XL THE LAST YEARS OE CHARLES II. l68l— 1685 LEADING DATES Reign of Charles II., 1660—1685 Tory Reaction 1681 Flight of Shaftesbury 1682 Forfeiture of the Charter of the City of London . . 1683 The Rye House Plot 1683 Executions of Russell and Sidney 1683 ' Death of Charles II. Feb. 6, 1685 I. Tory Reaction. 1681. — The Tory reaction which followed made itself especially felt in the law-courts. Judges and juries who had combined to send to death innocent Catholics, upon the testi- mony of forsworn informers, now combined to send to death ardent Whigs, upon the testimony of informers equally base. College, the inventor of the Protestant flail (see p. 615), was Condemned to death, as having borne arms in Oxford during the last Parlia- ment, and others shared his fate on equally slight grounds. In the City of London, however, it was still impossible to secure a verdict against a Whig. Juries were everywhere nominated by the sheriff of the county, and sheriffs were, in political cases, ready to compose a jury of political partisans. In every part of England except Middlesex, the sheriffs were named by the king, and were, there- fore, Tories. The City of London, which was strongly Whig, had the privilege of electing sheriffs for London and Middlesex, and these sheriffs took care that Middlesex juries should be composed of Whigs. Shaftesbury was accused of high treason, but before he could be tried the Grand Jury of Middlesex had to find a true bill against him — that is to say, to declare that there was sufficient evidence against him to call for a trial. On November 24, 1681, the Grand Jury, composed of his own political partisans, threw out the bill, and he was at once set at liberty. 1681-1682 Tory ascendency 623 2. ‘ Absolom and Achitophel.’ 1681. — A few days before Shaftes- bury’s release, Dryden, the greatest living master of the heroic couplet, strove to stir up men’s minds against the prisoner by his satire of ‘Absolom and Achitophel,’ in which the part of the tempter Achitophel was assigned to Shaftesbury and the part of the tempted Absolom to Monmouth. Shaftesbury was described as For close designs and crooked councils fit ; Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit ; Restless, unfixed in principles and place ; In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace ; A fiery soul, which worketh out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay. And o’er-informed the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity ; Pleased with the danger when the waves ran high. He sought the storms ; but, for a calm unfit. Would steer too nigh the sands to show his wit. 3. The Scottish Test Act and the Duke of York’s Return. 1681—1682. — The ‘daring pilot’s’ course was nearly run. Before long, on May 27, 1682, Shaftesbury’s most conspicuous enemy, the Duke of York, returned from Scotland. Whilst he was in Scotland he had obtained an Act from the Scottish Parliament, binding on all officials a new test, requiring them to swear to the doctrine of hereditary right and to the maintenance of the episcopal Church. The Earl of Argyle, the son of the Marquis of Argyle, the political leader of the Covenanters against Charles I., having inherited his father’s Presbyterianism, not only refused the oath, but gave reasons for refusing. The Crown lawyers declared that his reasons poisoned the minds of the subjects against the king, and he was tried and condemned to death under an old statute against leasing-making — literally, the making of lies — which had been passed about a century before to punish court favourites who sowed dissension between the king and his people by poisoning the mind of the king against his subjects. Argyle, however, escaped to Holland, and on April 20, 1682, James reached London. 4. The City Elections. 1682. — The first thing on which, after James’s return, the king’s ministers set their heart, was to strike a blow at Shaftesbury. As he lived in his house in Aldersgate Street and took care never to leave the City, it was impossible to bring him to trial as long as the sheriffs of London and Middlesex were Whigs. The Lord Mayor, Moore, was gained by the Court, and, by various unscrupulous contrivances, he secured the appointment 624 the last years OF CHARLES IL 1682-1683 of two Tory sheriffs, and, even before the end of 1682, of a Tory Lord Mayor named Prichard as his own successor. There would no longer be any difficulty in filling the Middlesex jury box with Tories. 5. Flight and Death of Shaftesbury. 1682—1^3. — Shaftesbury had for some time been keenly alive to the danger impending over him. He had wild followers in the City ready to follow him in acts of violence, and he had proposed to Russell and Monmouth that the king’s guards at Whitehall should be attacked, and the king compelled to do his bidding. Russell and Monmouth recoiled from an act of violence which would certainly end in bloodshed. Shaftes- bury still hoped to effect his end by the aid of his less scrupulous supporters ; but time slipped away, and on October 19, three days before Prichard’s election, he fled to Holland, where he died on January 22, 1683. With all his faults, he had led the way on that path in which the English nation was, before long, to walk, as he had lattetly striven for a combination of Parliamentary supremacy with toleration for dissenters and without toleration for Catholics. His personal failure was due to the disquietude caused by his tur- bulence in the minds of that large part of the community which regards orderly government as a matter of primary necessity. 6. The Attack on the City. 1682 — 1683. — The difficulty which Charles had experienced in bending the city to his will made him anxious to provide against similar resistance in the future. Taking care to effect his objects under, at least, the form of law, he en- forced on the electors in the City, who were called in December to choose the Common Council, the oath of supremacy and the proof required by the Corporation Act of having received the Sacrament in the Church. The result was that a Tory majority was returned on the Common Council. Following up this blow in 1683, he called on the City to show cause, by a writ known as ‘ Quo Warranto^ before the King’s Bench, why its charter should not be forfeited, in consequence of its having imposed irregular tolls and having attacked the king’s authority in a petition ex- hibited in 1680. The King’s Bench decided against the City, and the king then offered to restore the charter on certain conditions, of which the principal was, that he was to have a veto on the election of its principal officers. At first the City accepted his terms, but, before the end of the year, it drew back, and the king then named the Lord Mayor and other officers directly, paying no further regard to the municipal self-government under which the City had, for many centuries, conducted its own affairs. 7. The Remodelling of the Corporations. 1683 — 1684. — A 1683-1684 THE FALL OF THE WHIGS 625 large number of other corporate towns were treated as London had been treated. By a plentiful use of writs of Quo Warranto, the judges on circuit obtained the surrender of their charters, after which the king issued new ones in which Tories alone were named as members of the corporations. It was said of Jeffreys, one amongst the judges who was most subservient, that he ^ made all charters, like the walls of Jericho, fall down before him.’ The object of these proceedings was to make sure of a Tory Parliament when the time came for fresh elections. In a large number of boroughs the corporations chose the members, and in such cases wherever the corporation had been remodelled, there would be a safe Tory seat. At the same time the laws against the Dissenters were strictly executed, and the prisons filled with their ministers. 8. The Rye House Plot. 1683. — When injustice is done under legal forms, there are usually some persons who think it allowable to appeal to force. Some of Shaftesbury’s more violent followers formed a plot to attack the king and his brother at the Rye House on their return from Newmarket, and either to seize or murder them. The plot failed, as Charles passed the Rye House some days earlier than was expected, and several of the con- spirators were taken and executed. 9. The Whig Combination. 1683. — The discovery of the Rye House Plot brought to light a dangerous combination amongst the Parliamentary Whigs, in which Monmouth, Russell, Essex, Lord Howard of Escrick, and other notable persons were implicated. They had, indeed, kept themselves free from any intention to offer personal violence to the king, but they had attempted to form an association strong enough to compel him to summon another Parliament, though apparently without coming to a definite con- clusion as to the way in which they were to use compulsion. In their own eyes their project was no more than constitutional agita- tion. In the eyes of the king and of the Crown lawyers it was a preparation for rebellion. Essex committed suicide in prison, whilst Howard of Escrick turned informer against his friends. 10. Trial and Execution of Lord Russell. 1683. — Russell was accordingly put on his trial as a traitor. In those days no one on his trial for treason was allowed to be defended by a lawyer, as far as the facts of the case were concerned, but no objection was taken to his having some one near him to take notes of the evidence and to assist his memory. “ Your friends,” wrote his wife to him shortly before the trial, “ believing I can do you some service at your trial, I am extremely willing to try. My 626 THE LAST YEARS OE CHARLES Ll. 1683-1684 resolution will hold out, pray let yours.” Her offer was accepted, and she gave her husband all the help that it was possible to give. The jury, however, brought in a verdict of guilty, and sentence of death followed. In prison Russell was visited by two ministers, Tillotson and Burnet. No clergymen in England were more liberal-minded than these two, yet they urged the prisoner to acknowledge that resistance to the king was in all cases unlawful. Russell maintained that, in extreme cases, subjects might resist. Here lay the root of the political animosity between Whig and Tory. Whether an extreme case had occurred was a matter of opinion. “ As for the share I had in the prosecution of the Popish Plot,” Russell declared on the scaffold, “ I take God to witness that I proceeded in it in the sincerity of my heart, being then really convinced, as I am still, that thera was a conspiracy against the king, the nation, and the Protestant religion.” It was because the nation at large no longer held this to be true that the Tories were in power. 11. Execution of Algernon Sidney. 1683. — Russell’s trial was followed by that of Algernon Sidney. Though the real charge against him was that of having conspired against the king, only one, and that a not very credible, witness could be produced as evidence of this; and the prosecuting lawyers then brought forward a treatise, written in his own hand, but neither printed nor circulated in manuscript, in which he had advocated the right of subjects to depose their king. This was held to be equivalent to having a second witness against him, and Sidney was condemned and executed. He was a theoretical Republican, and it was hard to bring up against him a writing which he had never published. Other less important Whigs were also put to death. Monmouth owed his pardon to his father’s tenderness, but, as he still continued to bear himself as the head of a party, he was sent into honourable exile in Holland. 12. Parties at Court. 1684. — spring of 1684 three years had passed without a Parliament, although the statute repealing the Triennial Act (see p. 588) had declared that Parliament ought to be summoned every three years. So sure was Charles of his ground that he liberated Danby without causing a murmur of complaint. At Court there were two parties, one led by Halifax, w^hich urged that, by summoning a Parliament now, Charles would not only comply with the law, but would have a Parliament as loyal as the Cavalier Parliament had been ; the other, led by Lawrence Hyde, the second son of Clarendon, DEATlt OF CBAkLES IT. 627 1660 1685 who had recently been created Earl of Rochester. Rochester, who was the highest of Tories, pointed out that the law pre- scribed no means by which the king could be compelled to call a Parliament if he did not wish to do so, and that, after all, the Cavalier Parliament, loyal as it was at first, had made itself very disagreeable to the king during the latter years of its existence. All through the year Charles hesitated and left the question undecided. The king of France, who was renewing his aggressions on the Continent under the guise of legal claims, was ready to do all he could to prevent the meeting of an English Parliament, which would, in all probability, declare against him, and by sending money to Charles from time to time, he saved him from the necessity of asking his subjects for support. 13. Death of Charles II. 1685.— On February 2, 1685, before anything had been decided, Charles was struck down by an apo- plectic stroke. It was soon known that he was dying. Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, spoke plainly to him : “It is time,” he said, “ to speak out ; for, sir, you are about to appear before a Judge who is no respecter of persons.” The king took no notice, and, after a while, the Duke of York came to his bed-side and asked his brother whether he wished to be reconciled to the Church of Rome. “ Yes,” murmured the dying man, “ with all my heart ! ’ James sent for a priest, directing the bishops and the courtiers to leave the room. Charles was duly reconciled, receiving absolution and the sacraments of the Roman Church. He lingered for some days, and begged pardon of those around him. He had been, he said, an unconscionable time in dying, but he hoped they would excuse it. On February 6 he died. 14. Constitutional Progress. 1660 — 1685. — The twenty-five years of the reign of Charles II. were years of substantial con- stitutional progress. Charles did not, indeed, acknowledge that Parliament had that right of directing the choice of his ministers which the Long Parliament had upheld against his father in the Grand Remonstrance ; but though he took care that his ministers should be responsible to himself and not to Parliament, he had also taken care, on the whole, to adapt the selection of his ministers to the changing temper of Parliament and the nation. Clarendon, the Cabal, and Danby had all been allowed to disappear from office when Parliament turned against them. The formation of Parliamentary parties, again, was itself a condition of Parliamentary strength. The Cavalier Parliament had been weakened in its later years by the uncertainty of its aims. At one time the king’s 628 THE LAST YEATS OF CHARLES LI. 1681-1685 reliance upon France and his tendency to rest his government on armed force provoked a majority to vote against him. At another time some concession made by him to their wishes brought Dress of ladies of quality : from Sand- ford’s Coronation Procession of James II. round a majority to his side. In the latter years of Charles’s reign this uncertainty was at an end. Charles had thrown his depend- ence on France and the army into the background, and in a struggle, the successful issue of which would bring no personal advantage to himself, had taken his stand on the intelligible principle of defending his brother's succession. He had consequently rallied round the throne all who thought the main- tenance of order to be of supreme importance, whilst all who sus- pected that the order which Charles maintained was hurtful and oppres- sive combined against him. This sharp division of parties ultimately strengthened the power of Parliament. The in- temperance of Charles’s adversaries had indeed given him the upper hand for the time, but, if ever the day came when a king made himself unpopular, a Parliament opposed to him would be all the stronger if its majority were of one mind in sup- porting definite principles under definite leaders. Charles II., in short, did not live to see the esta- Ordinary attire of women of the lower classes : from blishment of Parliamen- Coronation ll. tary government, but he unwittingly prepared the way for it. 15. Prosperity of the Country. — The horror of a renewal of civil war, which was partly the result of sad experience, was also 1681-1685 THE CITY OF LONDON 629 the result of the growth of the general well-being of the community. The population of England now exceeded 5,000,000. Rents were rising, and commerce was rapidly on the increase. Fresh colo- nies — amongst them Pennsylvania and Carolina — were founded in America. In England itself the growth of London was an index to the general prosperity. In those days the City was the home of the merchants, who did not then leave the place where their Coach of the latter half of the seventeenth century : from Loggan’s Oxonia Illustrata. business was done to spend the evening and night in the suburbs. Living side by side, they clung to one another, and their civic ardour created a strength which weighed heavily in the balance of parties. The opposition of the City to Charles I. had given the victory to Parliament in the civil war, and its dislike of military government had done much to bring about the Restoration. The favour of the City had been the chief support of Shaftesbury, and it wa-s only by Wagon of the second half of the seventeenth century : from Loggan’s Oxonia llbistrata. overthrowing its municipal institutions that Charles II. had suc- ceeded in crippling its power to injure him. In the meantime a new forest of houses was springing up on sites between Lincoln’s Inn and what is now known as Soho Square, and round St. James’s Church. The Court and the frequent meetings of Parliament attracted to London many families which, a generation earlier, would have lived entirely in the country. 630 THE LAST YEARS OF CHARLES II. 1681-168S 16. The Coffee Houses. — Nothing has made a greater change in the material habits of Europeans than the introduction of warm beverages. Chocolate first made its way into England in the time of the Commonwealth, but it was for some time regarded merely as a medicine, not to be taken by the prudent except under a physician’s orders, though those interested in its sale declared that it was suitable for all, and would cure every possible com- plaint. Chocolate was soon followed by coffee, and coffee soon became fashionable, not as a medicine, but as a pleasant substitute for beer and wine. The introduction of tea was somewhat later. Reaping and harvesting in the second half of the sevemeeiKU century ; Cambridge in the distance ; from Loggan’s Cantabrigia Illustrata. It was in the reign of Charles II. that coffee-houses arose in Lon- don, and became places of resort, answering the purposes of the modem clubs. They soon acquired political importance, matters of state being often discussed in them, and the opinion of their frequenters carrying weight with those who were directly concerned with Government. The gathering of men of intellectual prominence to London was a marked feature of the time, and, except at the universities, there was scarcely a preacher or a theological writer of note who was not to be found either in the episcopate or at the head of a London parish. 1681-1685 P/^OG/^ESS OP THE COUNTRY 631 17. Condition of London. — The arrangements for cleanliness did not keep pace in London with the increased magnificence of the dwellings. The centre of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, for instance, was a place where rubbish was shot, and where beggars congregated. St. James’s Square was just as bad, whilst filthy and discoloured streams poured along the gutters, and carts and carriages splashed mud and worse than mud over the passengers on foot. At the beginning of the reign of Charles II. the streets were left in darkness, and robbers made an easy prey of those who ventured out after dark. Young noblemen and gentlemen when drunk took pleasure in knocking down men and insulting women. These were they of whom Milton was thinking when he declared that * In luxurious cities, when the noise Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers, And injury, and outrage : and when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine. Something was, however, done before the end of the reign to mitigate the dangers arising from darkness. One man obtained a patent for lighting London, and it was thought a great thing that he placed a lantern in front of one door in every ten in winter only, between six and midnight. 18. Painting. — The art of the time, so far as painting was con- cerned, was entirely in the hands of foreigners. Van Dyck, a Fleming, from Antwerp, had left to the world numerous representa- tions of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, of Strafford and Laud, and of the ladies and gentlemen who thronged the Court. An English- man, Samuel Cooper, made posterity acquainted with the features of Cromwell (see p. 567). Charles II. again called in the services of a foreigner, whose real name was Van der Goes, but who called him- self Lely, because his father’s house on the borders of Germany and the Netherlands was known by the sign of the Lily. Lely painted Court beauties and Court gentlemen. He had far less power than Van Dyck of presenting on canvas the mind which lies behind the features, and in many cases those who sat to him had minds less worthy of being presented than those with which Van Dyck had to do. When Charles II. wished for a painting of the sea and of shipping he had to send for a Dutch painter, Vandevelde ; whilst an Italian, Verrio, decorated his ceilings with subjects taken from heathen mythology. 19. Architecture. — In architecture alone English hands were 632 THE LAST YEARS OF CHARLES II. 1681-1685 found to do the work required ; but the style in which they built was not English but Italian. The rows of pillars and round arches, with the meaningless decorations which bespoke an age preferring sumptuousness to beauty, superseded the quaint Elizabethan and early Jacobean houses, which seemed built for comfort rather than for display, such as Ingestre Hall (seep. 471) and Hatfield House (see p. 485). In the reign of James I., Inigo Jones planned the great banqueting hall at Whitehall (see p. 493), and so contemptuous was he of the great architecture of the middle ages, that he fitted on an Italian porticp to the west front of the old St. Paul’s. This style of building cul- minated in the work of Sir Chris- topher Wren. The fire of London gave him an opportunity which he did not throw away. The steeple of St. Mary-le-Bow is an example of his powers of design (see p. 614), but his greatest achievement, the new St. Paul’s, was, when Charles II. died, only slowly rising from the ground, and it remained uncompleted till long after Charles II. had been laid in the grave. 20. Science. — The foundation of the Royal Society (see p. 598) had borne ample fruit. Halley and Flamsteed were the astro- nomers of the time till their fame was eclipsed by that of Isaac New- ton, who before the end of the reign of Charles II. was already meditating on the views contained in his ‘ Principia,’ in which the law of gravitation was set forth, though that w’ork was not written till after the death of that king. 21. Difficulties of Communication. — Difficulties of communi- cation served both to encourage town life and to hinder the increase of manufactures at any considerable distance from the sea. The roads were left to each parish to repair, and the parishes usually did as little as possible. In many places a mere quagmire took the Costume of a gentleman : from Sand- ford’s Coronation Procession of y antes II. THE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN 633 1681-1685 place of the road. Young and active men, and sometimes ladies, travelled on horseback, and goods of no great weight were trans- mitted on packhorses. The family coach, in which those who were too dignified or too weak to ride made their way from one part of the country to another, was dragged by six horses, and often sank so deeply in the mud as only to be extricated by the loan of additional plough horses from a neighbouring farm, whilst heavy goods were conveyed in lumbering waggons, still more difficult to move even at a moderate speed. For passengers who could not afford to keep a coach the carrier’s waggon served as a slow conveyance ; but before the end of the reign of Charles II. there had been introduced a vehicle known as The Flying Coach, which managed to perform a journey at the rate of fifty miles a day in summer and thirty in winter, in districts in which roads were exceptionably good. 22. The Country Gentry and the Country Clergy. — These difficulties of communication greatly affected the less wealthy of the country gentry and the country clergy. A country gentle- man of large fortune, indeed, would occasionally visit London and appear as a visitor at the house of some relative or friend to whom he was specially attached. The movements, however, even of this class were much restricted, whilst men of moderate estate seldom moved at all. The refinements which at present adorn country life were not then to be found. Books were few, and the man of comparatively slender means found sufficient occupation in the management of his land and in the enjoyment of field sports. His ideas on politics were crude, and, because they were crude, were pertinaciously held. The country clergyman was relatively poorer than the country squire ; and had few means of cultivating his mind or of elevating the religion of his parishioners. The ladies of the houses of even the richest of the landed gentry were scarcely educated at all, and, though there were bright exceptions, any one familiar with the correspondence of the seven- teenth century knows that, if he comes across a letter particularly illegible and uninteresting, there is a strong probability that the writer was a woman. 23. Alliance between the Gentry and the Church. — A common life passed in the country under much the same conditions naturally drew together the squire and the rector or vicar of his parish. A still stronger bond united them for the most part in a common Toryism. They had both suffered from the same oppression : the squire, or his predecessor, had been heavily fined by a Puritan II. T T 634 THE LAST YEARS OF CHARLES II. 1681-1685 Parliament or a Puritan Lord Protector, whilst the incumbent or his predecessor had been expelled from his parsonage and deprived of his livelihood by the same authority. They therefore naturally combined in thinking that the first 'axiom in politics was to keep Dissenters down, lest they should do again what men like-minded with themselves had done before. Unless some other fear, stronger still, presented itself to them, they would endure almost anything from the king rather than risk the return to power of the Dissenters or of the Whigs, the friends of the Dissenters. CHAPTER XLI JAMES II. 1685—1689 LEADING DATES Accession of James II. ........ Feb. 6, 1685 Meeting of Parliament May ig, 1685 Battle of Sedgemoor July 6, 1685 Prorogation of Parliament Nov. 20, 1685 The Judges allow the King’s Dispensing Power . . June 21, 1686 First Declaration of Indulgence April 4, 1687 Second Declaration of Indulgence April 22, 1688 Birth of the Son of James II June 10, 1688 Acquittal of the Seven Bishops June 30, 1688 Landing of William of Orange Nov. 5, 1688 The Crown accepted by William and Mary . Feb. 13, i68g I. The Accession of James II. 1685. — The character of the new king, James II., resembled that of his father. He had the same unalterable belief that whatever he wished to do was ab- solutely right ; the same incapacity for entering into the feelings or motives of his opponents, and even more than his father’s inability to see faults in those who took his side. He was bent on procuring religious liberty for the Catholics, and at first imagined it possible to do this with the help of the clergy and laity of the Church of England. In his first speech to the Privy Council he announced his intention of preserving the established government in Church and State. He had mass, indeed, celebrated with open doors in his chapel at Whitehall, and he continued to levy taxes which had been granted to his brother for life only ; yet, as he issued writs for a Parliament, these things did not count much against him. 1685 JAMES II. 635 Unless, indeed, he was to set the law and constitution at defiance he could do no otherwise than summon Parliament, as out of 1,400,000/. which formed the revenue of the Crown, 900,000/. lapsed on Charles’s death. James, however, secured himself against all eventualities by procuring from Louis a promise of financial aid in case of Parliament’s proving restive. Before Parliament met, the king’s inclinations were manifested by sentences pronounced by James II.: from the National Portrait Gallery. judges eager to gain his favour. On the one hand, Titus Oates was subjected to a flogging so severe that it would have killed anyone less hardy than himself. On the other hand, Richard Baxter, the most learned and moderate of Dissenters, was sent to prison after being scolded and insulted by Jeffreys, who, at the end of the late reign, had, through James’s influence, been made Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. 636 JAMES II. 1685 2. A Tory Parliament. 1685. — Parliament met on May 19. The House of Commons was Tory by an enormous majority, partly because the remodelled corporations (seep. 625) returned Tory members, but still more because the feeling of the country ran strongly in James’s favour. The Commons granted to him the full revenue which had been enjoyed by his brother, and refused to listen to a few of its members who raised objections to some things which had been recently done. The House had not been long in session when it heard of two invasions, the one in Scotland and the other in England. 3. Argyle’s Landing. 1685. — In Scotland the upper classes were animated by a savage resolve to keep no terms with the Cove- nanters, whose fa- natical violence alarmed them. The Scottish Par- liament, soon after the accession of James, passed a law punishing with death any one at- tending a conven- ticle. Argyle, be- lieving, in his exile in Holland, that all honest Scots would be ready to join him against the tyranny of the Government, sailed early in May at the head of a small expedition, and arrived in the Firth of Clyde. He had himself no military skill, and his followers, no less ignorant than himself, overruled everything that he proposed. Soon after landing he was captured and carried to Edinburgh, where, as he was already legally condemned to death (see p. 623), he was executed on June 30 without further trial. On the night before his death a member of the Council came to see him in his cell, where he found him in a placid slumber. The visitor rushed off in agony to the house of a friend. “I have Yeomen of the Guard : from Sandford’s Coronation Procession of James //. 1685 AkGYLE AMD MONMOUTH ^37 been,” he said, “ in Argyle’s prison. I have seen him within an hour of eternity, sleeping as sweetly as ever man did. But as for me — ” His voice failed him, and he could say no more. 4. Monmouth’s Landing. 1685. — ^he meanwhile Monmouth, the champion of the Dissenters and extreme Protestants, had, on June ii, landed at Lyme. So popular was he in the west of England that the trained bands could not be trusted to oppose him, and he was left unassailed till regiments of the regular army could be brought against him. The peasants and townsmen of the western counties flocked to join Monmouth, and he entered Taunton at the head of 5,000 men ; but not a single country gentle- man gave him his support. Parliament passed against him an Act of Attainder, condemning him to death without further trial, and the king marched in person against him at the head of a disciplined force. Monmouth declared himself to be the legitimate king, and, his name being James, he was popularly known amongst his followers as King Monmouth, in order to pre- vent confusion. He advanced as far as Philip’s Norton : there, hopeless of gaining support amongst the governing classes, he fell back on Bridgwater. The king followed him with 2,500 regular troops, and 1,500 from the Wiltshire trained bands. Monmouth was soldier enough to know that, with his raw recruits, his only chance lay in surprising the enemy. The king’s army lay on Sedgemoor, and Monmouth, in the early morning of July 6, at- tempted to fall on the enemy unawares. Broc i ditches filled with water checked his course, and the sun was up before he reached his goal. It was inevitable that he should be beaten ; the only wonder was that his untrained men fought so long as they did. Monmouth himself fled to the New Forest, where he was captured and brought to London. James admitted him to his presence, but refused to pardon him. On July 15 he was executed as an attainted traitor without further trial. 5. The Bloody Assizes. 1685. — Large numbers of Monmouth’s followers were hanged by the pursuing soldiers without form of law. Many were thrust into prison to await their trial. Jeffreys, the most insolent of the judges, was sent to hold, in the western counties, what will always be known as the Bloody Assizes. It is true that the law which he had to administer was cruel, but Jeffreys gained peculiar obloquy by delighting in its cruelty, and by sneering at its unhappy victims. At Winchester he condemned to death an old lady, Alice Lisle, who was guilty of hiding in her house two fugitives from vengeance. At Dorchester 74 persons 638 /AM£S II. 16SS-1686 were hanged. In Somersetshire no less than 233 were put to death. Jeffreys overwhelmed his victims with scornful mockery. One of them pleaded that he was a good Protestant : ‘‘ Protestant ! ” cried Jeffreys, “you mean Presbyterian; Fll hold you a wager of it. I can smell a Presbyterian forty miles.” Some one tried to move his compassion in favour of one of the accused. “ My lord,” he said, “this poor creature is on the parish.” “Do not trouble your- selves,” was the only answer given, “ I will ease the parish of the burden,” and he ordered the man to be hanged at once. The whole number of those who perished in the Bloody Assizes was 320, whilst 841 were transported to the West Indies to work as slaves under a broiling sun. James welcomed Jeffreys on his return, and made him Lord Chancellor as a reward for his achieve- ments. 6. The Violation of the Test Act. 1685. — James’s success made him believe that he could overpower any opposition. He had already increased his army and had appointed officers who had refused to take the test. On his return to London he resolved to ask Parliament to repeal the Test Act, and dismissed Halifax for refusing to support his proposal. It would probably have been difficult for him to obtain the repeal even of the Recusancy Laws which punished Catholics for acting on their religious belief. It was not only hopeless, but rightly hopeless, for him to ask for a repeal of the Test Act, which, as long as a Catholic king was on the throne, stood in the way of his filling all posts in the army as well as in the state with men who would be ready to assist him in designs against the religion and liberties of Englishmen. If anything could increase the dislike of the nation to the repeal of the Test Act it was the fact that, in that very year, Louis Lad revoked the Edict of Nantes issued by his ancestor, Henry IV., to protect the French Protestants, and had handed them over to a cruel persecution. It might be fairly argued that what Louis had done, James, if he got the power, might be expected to do hereafter. 7. Breach between Parliament and King. 1685.— When the Houses, which had adjourned when the king went into the West, met again on November 9, James informed them not only that he had appointed officers disqualified by law, but that he was determined not to part with them. The House of Commons, the most loyal House that had ever been chosen, remonstrated with him, and there were signs that the Lords intended to support the remonstrance. On November 20 James prorogued Parliament. 8. The Dispensing Power. 1686. — Like his father, James 1686-1687 THE KING AND THE LAW 63 ^ liked to think that, when he broke the laws, he was acting legally, and he remembered that the Crown had, in former days, exercised a power of dispensing with the execution of the laws (see p. 604). This power had, indeed, been questioned by the Parliament in 1673 (see p. 606), but there was no statute or legal judgment declaring it to be forbidden by law. James now wanted to get a decision from the judges that he possessed the dispensing power, and when he found that four of the judges disagreed with him, he replaced them by four judges who would decide in his favour. Having thus packed the Bench, he procured the bringing of a collusive action against Sir Edward Hales, who, having been appointed an officer in the army, had, as a Catholic, refused to take the test. Hales produced a dispensation from the king, and, on June 21, 1686, the judges decided that such dispensations freed those who received them from the penalties imposed by any laws whatever. 9. The Ecclesiastical Commission. 1686. — James, in virtue of his dispensing power, had already authorised some clergymen of the Church of England, who had turned Roman Catholics, to retain their benefices. Obadiah Walker, the Master of University College, Oxford, became a Roman Catholic, set up a press for the printing of Roman Catholic tracts, and had mass celebrated openly in the college. Yet he was allowed to retain his post. Then the king ap- pointed Massey, an avowed Roman Catholic, to the Deanery of Christchurch, and Parker, a secret Roman Catholic, to the Bishopric of Oxford. Naturally the clergy who retained the principles of the Church of England preached sermons warning their hearers against the errors of the Church of Rome. James ordered them to be silent, and directed Compton, Bishop of London, to suspend Sharp, the Dean of Norwich, for preaching against the Papal doctrines. As Compton refused to obey, James, on July ii, constituted an Ecclesiastical Commission Court, at the head of which was Jeffreys. It is true that the Court of High Commission had been abolished by a statute of the Long Parliament, but James argued that his father’s court, having power to punish the laity as well as the clergy, could be abolished by Act of Parlia- ment, whereas, a king being supreme governor of the Church, might provide for the punishment of the clergy alone, in any way that he thought fit, without taking account of Acts of Parliament. The first act of the new court was to suspend Compton for his refusal to suspend Sharp. James therefore had it in his power to stop the mouths of all the religious teachers in the realm. 10. Scotland and Ireland. 1686 — 1687. — In Scotland James 640 JaMBS n. 1686-1687 insisted on a Parliamentary repeal of all laws imposing penalties on Roman Catholics. The Scottish Parliament, subservient as it had been to Charles II., having refused to comply with this demand, James dispensed with all these laws by his own authority, thereby making Scottish Episcopalians almost as sullen as Scottish Covenanters. In Ireland James had on his side the whole Catholic Celtic population, which complained of wrongs committed against their religion and property by the English colonists. James deter- mined to redress these wrongs. In February, 1687, he sent over to Ireland as Lord Deputy the Earl of Tyrconnel, whose character was low, and who had been known at Charles’s Court as Lying Dick Talbot. He was, however, a Roman Catholic, and would carry out the king’s will in Ireland without remorse. 11. The Fall of the Hydes. 1686 — 1687. — To make way for Tyrconnel, the former lord-lieutenant. Clarendon, the eldest son of the late Chancellor, was recalled from Ireland, his fall being pre- ceded by that of his younger brother Rochester (see p. 627). Rochester was devoted to the maintenance of the Royal power ; but James, told him that he must change his religion if he wished to keep his office, and on his refusal he was dismissed. 12. The Declaration of Indulgence. 1687. — The dismissal of Rochester was the strongest possible evidence that James’s own spirit was intolerant. Yet he was driven, by the course which he had taken, into the adoption of the principle of toleration, and no doubt persuaded himself that he accepted toleration on its own merits. At first he had hoped to obtain favours for the Roman Catholics with the goodwill of the Church of England, whilst continuing the persecution of Dissenters. He now knew that this was impossible, and he therefore resolved to make friends of the Dissenters by pronouncing for a general toleration. He first had private interviews with the leading men in both Houses, in the hope that they would, if Parliament were re-assembled, assist in the repeal of all penal laws bearing on religion. These closetings, as they were called,^ proving ineffectual, he issued, by his own authority, on April 4, 1687, a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending all laws against Roman Catholics and Dissenters alike, and giving per- mission to both to worship publicly. The result of the Declaration was not all that James desired. Many of the Dissenters, indeed, accepted their freedom joyfully. Most of them, however, dreaded a gift which seemed only intended to elevate the Roman Catholics, and opened their ears to the pleadings of the Churchmen, who now 1 Because the interviews took place in the king’s closet, or private room. 1687 ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT 641 assured their old enemies that if they would have a little patience they should, in the next Parliament, have a toleration secured by law. This, argued the Churchmen, would be of far more use to them than one granted by the king, which would avail them nothing whenever the king died and was succeeded by his Protestant daughter, the Princess of Orange. 13. The Expulsion of the Fellows of Magdalen. 1687. — Scarcely was the Declaration issued when James showed how little he cared for law or custom. There was a vacancy in the President- ship of Magdalen College, Oxford, and James commanded the Fellows to choose one Farmer, a man of bad character, and a Roman Catholic. On April 15 the Fellows, as they had the un- doubted right to do, chose Hough. In June they were summoned before the Ecclesiastical Commission, which declared Hough’s election to be void, and ordered them to choose Parker, who, though at heart a Roman Catholic, was nominally the Protestant Bishop of Oxford (see p. 638). They answered simply that, as Hough had been lawfully elected, they had no right to choose another President in his lifetime. Jeffreys bullied them in vain. James insisted on their accepting Parker, and on acknowledging the legality of the proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Commission. All but two, having refused to submit, were turned out of the College and left to beg their bread. When the Commissioners attempted to install Parker in his office not a blacksmith in Oxford would consent to break open the lock of the President’s lodgings. The servants of the Commissioners were at last employed to force the door, and it was in this way that Parker took possession of the residence to which Hough alone had a legal claim. The expelled Fellows were not left to starve, as there was scarcely a gentleman in England who would not have been proud to receive one of them into his house. 14. An Attempt to pack a Parliament. 1687. — James was anxious to obtain Parliamentary sanction for his Declaration of Indulgence. He dissolved the existing Parliament, hoping to find a new one more to his taste. As he had packed the Bench of Judges in 1686, he tried to pack a Parliament in 1687. A board of regulators was appointed, with Jeffreys at its head, to remodel the corporations once more, appointing Roman Catholics and Dissenters to sit in them. James expected that these new members would elect tolerationists to the next House of Commons. So strong, however, was public opinion against the king that even the new members chosen expressly to vote for the king’s nominees could not be relied 642 JAMES II. 1688 on. The design of calling a new Parliament was therefore aban- doned for the time 15. A Second Declaration of Indulgence. 1688. — On April 22, 1688, James issued a second Declaration of Indulgence, which he ordered to be read in all the churches. Most of the clergy objecting to read it, seven bishops signed a petition asking that the clergy might be excused. Six of these bishops — Sancroft, the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, who was the seventh, having been for- bidden to appear before the king — presented the petition to James at Whitehall. James was startled when it was placed in his hands. “ This,” he said, “ is a great surprise to me. I did not expect this from your Church, especially from some of you. This is a standard of rebellion.” In vain the bishops protested that they hated the very sound of rebellion. James would not listen to their excuses. “ This,” he persisted in saying, “is rebellion. This is a standard of rebellion. Did ever a good churchman question the dispensing power before ? Have not some of you preached for it and written for it ? It is a standard of rebellion. I will have my declaration published.” One of the bishops replied that they were bound to fear God as well as to honour the king. James only grew more angry and told them, as he sent them away, that he would keep their petition, with the evident intention of taking legal proceed- ings against them. “God,” he said, as he dismissed them, “ has given me the dispensing power, and I will maintain it. I tell you there are still seven thousand of your Church who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 16. Resistance of the Clergy. 1688. — When the day came for the reading of the Declaration scarcely a clergyman obeyed the king’s order. In one of the London churches Samuel Wesley, father of the John Wesley who was, by his preaching, to move the hearts of the next generation, preached a sermon on the text, “ Be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” In West- minster Abbey, when the officiating minister. Bishop Sprat, a Dress of a bishop In the second half of the seventeenth cen- tury : from Sandford’s Coro- nation Procession of James II. THE SEVEN BISHOPS 1688 643 courtly prelate, began to read the Declaration, the whole congre- gation rose in a body and streamed out of the church. 17. The Trial of the Seven Bishops. 1688. — James ordered that the seven bishops should be tried, on the plea that their petition was a seditious libel. The trial took place in Westminster Hall on June 29. The first difficulty of the prosecution was to show that the so-called libel had been published — that is to say, had been shown to any one — as no one was present besides the bishops when James received it, and the king could not be put into the witness-box. At last sufficient evidence was tendered by the Earl of Sunderland — a minister who, unlike Rochester, had changed his religion to keep his place — to convince the court that the petition had been delivered to James. The lawyers on both sides then addressed the jury on the question whether the petition was really a libel. The jury retired to deliberate, and at first nine of them were for the bishops and three for the king. Two of the latter gave way, but the other, a certain Arnold, who was the king’s brewer, held out. “ Whatever I do,” he said, “ I am sure to be half ruined. If I say Not Guilty I shall brew no more for the king, and if I say Guilty I shall brew no more for anybody else.” He decided that the king’s custom was the best worth keeping. To a gentleman named Austen who proposed to argue with him he replied that his mind was already made up. “ If you come to that,” replied Austen, “ look at me. I am the largest and strongest of this twelve ; and before I find such a petition a libel, here I will stay till I am no bigger than a tobacco pipe.” The jury were locked up through the night, and when the morning of the 30th came Arnold had given way. A verdict of Not Guilty was given in. The crowds in Westminster Hall and in the streets of London burst out into shouts of joy. At Hounslow, where James was reviewing the regiments on which he trusted to break down all popular resistance, the soldiers shouted like the rest. James asked what it all meant. “ Nothing,” he was told ; the soldiers are glad that the bishops are acquitted.” “ Do you call that nothing?” he answered. “ So much the worse for them.” 18. Invitation to William of Orange. 1688. — The acquittal of the Bishops would, but for one circumstance, have strengthened the nation in its resolution patiently to wait till James’s death placed his daughter on the throne. On June 10, however, a son had been born to James, and that fact changed the whole situation. The boy would be educated in his father’s religion, and England was threatened with a Roman Catholic dynasty in which each 644 JAMES IL i6S8 successive ruler would, from his childhood, be brought up in the belief that he might break through all legal restraints whenever he could have the approval of judges appointed by himself and liable to dismissal whenever he pleased. At first the general dislike of this disagreeable fact took the shape of incredulity, and it was almost universally believed, without a shadow of foundation, that the boy was a supposititious child procured from some poor mother and brought in a warming-pan into the queen’s chamber. Whether he were supposititious or not, there was no doubt that he would be treated as James’s heir. Tories were as much concerned as Whigs at the prospect before them. The doctrine of non-resistance was forgotten, and on June 30, the day of the bishops’ acquittal, seven important personages, some being Whigs and some Tories, invited the Prince of Orange to land with an armed force to defend the liberties of England. 19. Landing of William. 1688. — William would probably not have accepted the invitation if the constitutional rights of English- men had alone been at stake ; but he had made it the object of his life to struggle against Louis, and he knew that war was on the point of breaking out between Louis and an alliance in which almost every European prince took part excepting James. He accepted the invitation that he might bring England into that alliance ; and made preparations, which could not be hidden from James, James made concessions, abolished the Ecclesiastical Commission, gave back the charters of the City of London and the other cor- porations, and restored the Fellows of Magdalen. Anxious as William was to come, he was delayed for some time. The army of Louis was on the southern frontier of the Spanish Netherlands, and William could not stir as long as an invasion of his Spanish allies was threatened. Louis, however, offered James the assistance of his fleet to repel the expected Dutch expedition. James replied that he was quite able to take care of himself. Louis lost his temper, withdrew his army from the frontier of the Netherlands, and sent it to begin the war with the allies by burning and ravaging the Palatinate. William put to sea, intending to land in Torbay. On the morning of November 5 it was found that the fleet had passed the haven for which it was bound ; and as the wind was blowing it strongly on, there seemed no possibility of returning. William believed that nothing but failure was before him. “ You may go to prayers, doctor,” he said to Burnet, an English clergy- man who accompanied him ; “ all is over.” In a moment the wind changed and bore the fleet back into Torbay, and William 1688-1689 645 FLIGHT OF JAMES was enabled to land safely at Brixham, Burnet, a warm-hearted but garrulous and inquisitive man, began asking him questions about his plans. If there was one thing that William disliked more than another, it was the interference of clergymen in military matters. He therefore looked Burnet in the face, replying only by another question : “ Well, doctor, what do you think of pre- destination now ? ” Both he and Burnet were convinced that God had Himself guided them thus far in safety for the deliverance of His people. 20. William’s March upon London. 1688. — William marched upon London, and, after a while, the gentry of the counties through which he passed poured in to support him. The north and the midlands rose under the Earls of Devonshire and Danby and other lords. Whig and Tory. The doctrine of non-resistance was thrown to the winds. James set out with his troops to combat William. He reached Salisbury, but the officers of his own army and his courtiers deserted him. Amongst those who fled to William was Lord Churchill, afterwards known as the Duke of Marlborough and the greatest soldier of the age. He had re- ceived many favours from James, which he now repaid by inciting all those whom he could influence to abandon their king. Amongst these was James’s younger daughter Anne, over whom Churchill’s wife exercised a most powerful influence, and who now, together with her husband. Prince George of Denmark, fled to William. James, left almost alone, made his way back to London, which he reached on November 27. On the 30th he ordered the pre- paration of writs for the election of a Parliament, and proposed an accommodation with William, who by that time had reached Hungerford. It was agreed that both armies should remain at a distance of forty miles from London in. order to enable the new Parliament to meet in safety. James was, in reality, de- termined not to submit. On December 10 he sent his wife and son to France. On the nth he attempted to follow them, burning the writs and dropping the great seal into the Thames, in the hope that everything might fall into confusion for want of the symbol of legitimate authority. There were riots in London, and the Roman Catholic chapels were sacked and destroyed. There was a general call to William to hasten his march. On the 12th, however, James was stopped near Sheerness by some fishermen and brought back to London. William had no mind to have a second royal martyr on his hands, and did everything to frighten James into another flight. On December 18 James left London 646 JAMES II. 1689 and William arrived at Whitehall. On December 23, with William’s connivance, James embarked for France. 21. A Convention Parliament Summoned. 1688. — Amongst the crowd which welcomed William was Sergeant Maynard, an old man of ninety. “ You must,” said William to him, “ have sur- vived all the lawyers of your standing.” “Yes, sir,” replied Maynard, “ and, but for your Highness, I should have survived the laws too.” He expressed the general sense of almost every Englishman. How to return to a legal system with the least possible disturbance was the problem to be faced. William con- sulted the House of Lords and an assembly composed of all persons who had sat in any of Charles’s Parliaments, together with special representatives of the City. Members of James’s one Parliament were not summoned, on the plea that the return to it of members chosen by the remodelled corporations made it no true Parliament. The body thus consulted advised William to call a Convention, which would be a Parliament in everything except that there was no king to summon it. 22. The Throne declared Vacant. 1689. — On January 22, 1689, the Convention met. The House of Commons contained a majority of Whigs, whilst the Tories were in a majority in the Lords. On the 28th the Commons resolved that “king James II., having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between king and people, and by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons having violated the funda- mental laws and having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, had abdicated the government, and that the throne had thereby become vacant.” This lumbering resolution was unanimously adopted. The Whigs were pleased with the clause which made the vacancy of the throne depend on James’s misgovemment, and the Tories were pleased with the clause which made it depend on his so-called voluntary abdication. The Tories in the Lords proposed that James should remain nominally king, but that the country should be governed by a regent. Danby, however, and a small knot of Tories supported the Whigs, and the proposal was rejected. Danby had, indeed, a plan of his own. James, he held, had really abdicated, and the crown had therefore passed to the next heir. That heir was not, according to him, the supposititious infant, but the eldest daughter of James, Mary Princess of Orange, who was now in her own right queen of England. It was an ingenious theory, but two circumstances were against its being carried into practice. In the first place, Mary scolded Danby for THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS 647 1689 daring to set her above her husband. In the second place William made it known that he would neither be regent nor administer the government under his wife. Danby therefore withdrew his motion, and on February 6 the Lords voted, as the Commons had voted before, that James had abdicated and the throne was vacant. 23. William and Mary to be Joint Sovereigns. 1689. — A Declaration of Rights was prepared condemning the dispensing power as lately exercised and the other extravagant actions of James II., while both Houses concurred in offering the crown to William and Mary as joint sovereigns. As long as William lived he was to administer the government, Mary only attaining to actual power in the event of her surviving her husband. After the death of both, the crown was to go first to any children which might be born to them, then to Anne and her children, and, lastly, to any children of William by a second wife in case of his surviving Mary and marrying again. As a matter of fact, William had no children by Mary, who died about eight years before him, and he never married again. On February 13 William and Mary accepted the crown on the conditions offered to them. 24. Character of the Revolution. — The main characteristic of the revolution thus effected was that it established the supre- macy of Parliament by setting up a king and queen who owed their position to a Parliamentary vote. People had been found to believe that James II. was king by a Divine right. Nobody could believe that of William. Parliament, which had set him up, could pull him down, and he would have therefore to conform his government to the will of the nation manifested in Parliament. The political revolution of 1689 succeeded, whilst the Puritan Revolution of 1641 failed, because, in 1641, the political aim of setting the Parliament above the king was complicated by an ecclesiastical dispute which had split Parliament and the nation into two hostile parties. In 1689 there was practically neither a political nor an ecclesiastical dispute. Tories and Whigs combined to support the change, and Churchmen and Dissenters made common cause against the small Roman Catholic minority which had only been dangerous because it had the Crown at its back, and because the Crown had been supported by Louis and his armies. A Revo- lution thus effected was, no doubt, far less complete than that which had been aimed at by the more advanced assailants of the throne of Charles I. It did not aim at changing more than a small part of the political constitution of the country, nor at changing any part whatever of its social institutions. Its programme, in short, was 648 1689 JAMES II. one for a single generation, not one, like that of the ‘ Heads of the Proposals ’ (see p. 5 5 5) or the ‘ Agreement of the People ’ (see p. 5 56) for several generations. Consequently it did not rouse the anta- gonism which had been fatal even to the best conceived plans of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. It is much to be regretted that the moral tone of the men who brought about the Revolution of 1689 was lower than that which had brought about the Revolution of 1641. That this was the case, however, was mainly the fault of the unwise attempt of the Puritans to enforce morality by law. The individual liberty which was encouraged by the later revolu- tion would in due time work for morality as well as for political improvement. Books recommended for further study of Part VII. Ranke, L. English History (English translation). Vol. iii. p. 310- vol. iv. p. 528. Airy, O. The English Restoration and Louis XIV. Christie, W. D. Life of A. A. Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury. Macaulay, Lord. History of England from the Accession of James II. Vols. i. and ii. Hallam, H. Constitutional History. Chapters XI. -XIV. Mahan, A. T. Influence of the Sea-power upon History. Chapters I.-III. Lodge, R. The Political History of England. Vol. viii. From the Restorat'on to the Death of William III. (1660- 1702). PART VIII THE RISE OF CABINET GOVERNMENT 1689—1754 CHAPTER XLII WILLIAM III. AND MARY II. WILLIAM III. 1689 — 1702. MARY II. 1689— 1694 LEADING DATES The Mutiny Act and the Toleration Act .... 1689 Battle of Killiecrankie ...... July 27, 1689 Relief of Londonderry July 30, 1689 Battle of the Boyne July i, 1690 Surrender of Limerick Oct. 3, 1691 Massacre of Glencoe Feb. 13, 1692 Battle of La Hogue May 19, 1692 The Formation of the Whig Junto .... 1693—1694 The Triennial Act 1694 Death of Mary Dec. 28, 1694 I. The new Government and the Mutiny Act. 1689. — It was unlikely that William would long be popular. He was cold and reserved, and he manifestly cared more for the struggle on the Continent than for the strife which never ceased between English parties. Yet he was sagacious enough to know that it was only by managing English affairs with firmness and wisdom that he could hope to carry England with him in his conflict with France ; and he did his work so well that, though few of his new subjects loved him, most of them learned to respect him. As he owed his crown to the support of both parties, he chose his first ministers from both. In March his throne was exposed to some danger. The army was dissatisfied in consequence of the shabby part which III. U U 650 WILLIAM III. AND MARY II, 1689 it had played when called on to defend James II., and one regi- ment mutinied. Only the Dutch troops could be trusted, and it was by them that the mutiny was suppressed. The punishment of mutinous soldiers by courts martial had been forbidden by the Petition of Right (see p. 508). Parliament now passed a Mutiny Act, William III. which authorised the maintenance of discipline by such courts for six months only. The Act has been since renewed from year to year, and as, if it dropped, the king would have no lawful means of maintaining discipline. Parliament thus maintains control over the army. 2. The Toleration Act and the Nonjurors, 1689. — Still more 1689 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 651 important was the Toleration Act, which gave to Dissenters the legal right to worship publicly, on complying with certain formal- ities. From this toleration Unitarians and Roman Catholics were excluded. The great mass of Protestant Dissenters were well satisfied, and the chief cause of religious strife was thus removed. Mary II. An attempt made to carry a Comprehension Bill (see pp. 598, 599), which was intended to attract Dissenters to the Church by altering the Prayer Book, ended in complete failure. All holders of office in Church and State were required to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance to the new sovereigns. About 400 of the clergy with Archbishop Bancroft and six other bishops refused to swear. Their 652 WILLIAM III. AND MARY II. 1689 offices were conferred on others, and they, holding that they and those who continued to acknowledge them were the true Church, founded a body which, under the name of Nonjurors, continued to exist for more than a century. 3. Locke’s Letters on Toleration. 1689. — The Toleration Act itself was in the main the fruit of the change which had taken place in the political circumstances of the nation since the Restoration. Men had had reason to be afraid of Roman Catholics, and were no longer afraid of Dissenters. Alongside of this political change, how- ever, had grown up a change of opinion amongst the thinking men who had especial influence in the Whig party. In 1689 the philo- sopher Locke published his ‘ Letters on Toleration.’ They were much less heroic than Milton’s ‘ Areopagitica ’ (see p. 546), and instead of dwelling on the bracing effects of liberty on the human spirit, maintained the view that the State had no business to inter- fere with religious conviction. A Church, according to Locke, was ‘ a voluntary society of men join- ing themselves together of their own accord, in order to the public worshipping of God in s-uch manner as they shall judge acceptable to Him and effectual to the salvation of their souls.’ On such voluntary associations the State had no right to impose penalties. 4. Establishment of Presbyterianism in Scotland. 1689. — Scotland and Ireland William had to fight for his crown. In Scot- land, before the Parliament met, the Episcopal clergy were ‘ rabbled,’ that is to say, were driven from their parishes with insult and ill-usage by angry crowds. Parliament then declared James to have forfeited the crown and gave it to William and Mary. It also declared Presbyterianism to be the religion of the countr>\ 5. Killiecrankie. 1689. — To many of the nobles the establish- ment of a clergy which owed them no respect was distasteful, and some, of whom the most conspicuous were the Duke of Gordon and Viscount Dundee, who had till lately been known as Graham of Claverhouse (see p. 620), drew their swords for James. Gordon held out in Edinburgh Castle till June 13. Dundee, following the Royal Arms as borne by William III. 1689-169 KILLIECRANKIE AND GLENCOE 653 example of Montrose (see p. 547), a Graham like himself, gathered the Highland clans around him. On July 27, he drew up his force on the flat ground at the head of the pass of Killiecrankie. William’s general, Mackay, toiled up the steep hillside to attack him. His soldiers had been supplied with bayonets, a new French inven- tion intended to make each soldier a pikeman as well as a musketeer. The invention had not yet been per- fected, and the bayonets had to be fixed in the muzzles of the guns. When Mackay’ s men reached the top exhausted by the climb and the summer heat, they fired their shots, and then, seeing the Highlanders rushing upon them, fumbled with their bayonets. Before they could get them fixed the Highlanders, with their flashing broadswords, were upon them. Dundee had been killed by the first fire, but his men swept the lowland soldiers down the pass, leaping lightly over the rocks and slaying as they went. The High- landers, caring more for plunder than for James, returned home to deposit their booty in safety. 6. The Pacification of the High- lands. 1691—1692. — The High- landers were poor, and in 1691 a dis- tribution of 15,000/. amongst the chiefs of the clans brought them one by one to submission. December 31 was announced as the last day on which the oaths acknowledging Wil- liam would be accepted. By that time all had resolved to give way ; but one of the number, Maclan Glencoe, the head of a small clan, one of the many into which the Macdonalds were divided, took pride in being the last to sub- mit, and made his appearance on the 31st. Unfortunately he by mistake came to a gentleman who had no authority to accept his oath, and when he reached a person who could accept it, the 1, Bayonet as made in 1686. 2, Bayonet of the time of William and Mary. ^54 WILLIAM Hi. AML) MARY II. 1689-169; appointed day had passed. The Master of Stair/ William’s chief minister in Scotland, thought this an excellent opportunity to show the Highlanders that the Government could punish as well as re- ward, and asked William’s leave to destroy Maclan’s clan, on the plea that they had, like most other Highland clans, been guilty in past time of acts of brigandage and murder. William gave his assent, writing that it would be good to ‘ extirpate that set of thieves.’ 7. The Massacre of Glencoe. 1692. — The Master of Stair pro- ceeded to execute, in a peculiarly treacherous manner, the order which he had obtained. He sent into Glencoe a party of soldiers, who gave out on their arrival that they had come as friends. They lived with the clansmen, ate at their tables, joked, and played at cards with them. On the morning of February 13, 1692, whilst it was still dark, the soldiers surrounded the huts of those Very men with whom they had been making merry the evening before. They then dragged many of them out of their beds and murdered them, firing at such as fled. Not a few, indeed, succeeded in making their escape, but the mountains on either side of the glen Were lofty and rugged, and most of those who took refuge in them died of cold and hunger amidst the rocks and the snow. When the tale was told at Edinburgh the Scottish Parliament broke out into indignation, and William had to dismiss the Master of Stair from office. It was the first time that the Lowland Scotch had shown compassion for Highlanders. Hitherto they had always treated them as a wild and savage race of plunderers for whom there was no mercy. 8. The Siege of Londonderry. 1689. — Ireland William had to deal with something like national resistance. On March 12 James, bringing with him some French officers, landed at Kinsale. Tyrconnel had ready for him an ill-equipped and ill-disciplined Irish army. To the native Irish James was still the lawful king, whose title was unaffected by anything that an English Parliament could do. To the English and Scottish colonists he was a mere usurper, the enemy of their creed and nation. The northern Protestants, chased from their homes with outrage, took refuge m Enniskillen and Londonderry. In Londonderry the governor, Lundy, prepared to surrender, but when James arrived with his army the inhabitants took the defence into their own hands and closed the gates in his face. The besiegers strictly blockaded ^ In Scotland, the eldest sons of lords and viscounts were known by the title of Master. 1689 Jambs //. iM Ireland 65$ the town by land and threw a boom across the river Foyle, so that no food might enter from the sea. The defenders were before long reduced to feed on horse-flesh, and they had not much of that. From the top of the cathedral they could see ships which William had sent to their relief, but the ships lay inactive for weeks. Men who had been well off were glad to feed on the flesh of dogs, and even to gnaw hides in the hope of getting nourishment out of them. At last, on July 30, three of the ships moved up the river. One of them dashed at the boom and broke it, though she \^as herself driven on shore by the recoil. The tide, however, rose and floated her off. The whole store of food was borne safely to the town, and Londonderry was saved. James and his Irish army marched away. On the day of his retreat an Irish force was defeated at Newtown Butler by the Protestants of Enniskillen. 9. The Irish Parliament. 1689. — On May 7, wiiHst James was before Londonderry, the Irish Parliament met at Dublin. The House of Commons was almost entirely composed of native Irish, and the Parliament passed an Act annulling all the English con- fiscations since 1641. The lands taken by force in times past were to be restored to the Irish owners or their heirs. Those English, however, who had acquired Irish confiscated lands by purchase were to be compensated, and to find money for this compensation an Act of Attainder was passed against about 2,000 of William’s partisans. As most of them were out of harm’s way, but little blood was likely to be shed, though a great deal of property would change owners. A considerable part of Irish land having been confiscated by the English authorities during the past forty years, this proceeding did not appear in Ireland to be as outrageous as it would have seemed in a settled country like England. 10. Schomberg sent to Ireland. 1689.— Once more England and Ireland were brought into direct antagonism. Not only did Protestant Englishmen sympathise deeply with the wrongs of their countrymen in Ireland, whilst they were unable to perceive that the Irish had suffered any wrongs at all, but they could not fail to see that if James established himself in Ireland, he would next attempt, with French help, to establish himself in England. As it had been in Elizabeth’s reign so it was now. Either England must conquer Ireland, or Ireland would be used by a foreign nation to conquer England. Accordingly, in August, Schomberg — who had been a French marshal, but, being a Protestant, had resigned his high position after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (see p. 638) rather than renounce his 656 WILLIAM ILL AND MARV II. 1689-1691 faith — was sent by William with an English army to Carrickfergus. The weather was bad, and the arrangements of the commissariat were worse, so that disease broke out among the soldiers, and nothing serious was done during the remainder of the year. 1 1. The Bill of Rights and the Dissolution of the Convention Parliament. 1689 — 1690. — In England, the Convention Parliament had passed a Bill of Rights, embodying the demands of the former Declaration of Rights (see p. 647). Since then it had grown intractable. The Whig majority had forgotten the services rendered by the Tories against James, and, treating them as enemies, was eager to take vengeance on them. When, therefore, a Bill of Indemnity was brought in, the Whigs excepted from it so many of the Tory leaders on the ground that they had supported the harsh acts of the last two kings, that William, who cared for neither party, suddenly prorogued Parliament and then dissolved it. 12. Settlement of the Revenue. 16901, — A new Parliament, in which the majority was Tory, met on Marcn 20, 1690, and oy confining to four years their grant of nearly half the revenue of the Crown, put a check upon any attempt of a future king to make himself absolute. Subsequently the grant became annual ; after which no king could avoid summoning Parliament every year, as he could not make himself financially independent of the House of Commons. The supremacy of Parliament was thus, as far as law could do it, practically secured. Finally, an Act of Grace' gave an indemnity to all excepting a few persons, to whom no harm was intended as long as they abstained from attacking the Government. 13. The Conquest of Ireland. 1690 — 1691. On June 14, 1690, William landed at Carrickfergus. On July i, he defeated James at the battle of the Boyne. Schomberg was killed, and James fled to Kinsale, where he embarked for France. William entered Dublin in triumph, and, marching on through the country, on August 8 laid siege to Limerick. Wet weather set in and caused disease amongst the besiegers, whilst the Irish general, Sarsfield, sweep- ing round them, destroyed the siege guns on their way to batter the walls. William for the time abandoned the attack and returned to England. In 1691 a Dutch general, Ginkell, was placed in command of the English army. Under him were Mackay, who had been defeated at Killiecrankie, and Ruvigny, a lAn Act of Grace was similar to an Act of Indemnity, except that it originated with the king, and could only be accepted or rejected, not amended by the Houses. 1689-1690 THE CITY OF THE VIOLATED TREATY 657 French Protestant refugee. Thus commanded, William’s troops took Athlone on June 30, and on July 12 destroyed the Irish army at Aughrim. Limerick was again besieged, and, on October 3, it capitulated. All officers and soldiers who wished to go to France were allowed to emigrate. To the Irish Catholics were granted such privileges in the exercise of their religion as they had enjoyed in the reign of Charles II., when there had been a connivance at the exercise of the Roman Catholic worship so long as it was not obtrusive. The Irish Parliament, however, representing now the English colony alone, called for persecuting measures, and William had to govern Ireland, if he was to govern Ireland at all, in accord- ance with its wishes. Limerick became deservedly known amongst the Irish as ‘ the City of the violated treaty.’ 14. War with France. 1689 — 1690. — In the meantime, whilst William was distracted by foes in his own kingdom, Louis had been doing his best to get the better of his enemies. In 1689 the allies were able to make head against him without any de- cisive result. In 1690 Louis sent his best Admiral, Tourville, to sweep the Channel and invade England whilst William was away in Ireland. Off Beachy Head Tourville was met by a combined English and Dutch fleet. In the battle which followed, the English Admiral, Herbert, who had lately been created Lord Torrington, kept, probably through mere mismanagement, his own ships out of harm’s way, whilst he allowed his Dutch allies to expose them- selves to danger. Under these circumstances Tourville gained the victory, whilst in the Netherlands the French Marshal, Luxembourg, defeated the allied armies at Fleurus. Though William had been for some time unpopular in England as a foreigner, yet the nation now rallied round him as the enemy of the French. Tourville sailed down the Channel, and asked a fisherman with whom he came up what he thought of King James. “He is a very worthy gentleman, I believe,” was the reply, “ God bless him.” Tourville then asked the fisherman to take service on board his ship. “What? I,” answered the man,' “ go with the French to fight against the English? Your honour must excuse me; I could not do it to save my life.” Thousands of Englishmen who were indifferent to the claims of James or William would have nothing to say to James because he had put himself under the protection of the French. 1 5. Disgrace of Marlborough. 1691 — 1692. — Churchill, who had been created Earl of Marlborough by William, had won distinction as a soldier both in Ireland and in the Netherlands. Both as an 658 WILLIAM III. AND MARY II. 1691-1693 Englishman and as a soldier he was offended at the favour shown to foreigners by William. Dutchmen and Frenchmen were promoted over the heads of English officers. Dutchmen filled the most lucra- tive posts at court, and were raised to the English peerage. It was, perhaps, natural that William should advance those whom he knew best and trusted most, but in so doing he alienated a great number of Englishmen. Men high in office doubted whether a government thus constituted could last, and, partly because they were personally disgusted, partly because they wished to make themselves safe in any event, entered into communication with James, and promised to support his claims, a promise which they intended to keep or break as might be most convenient to themselves. Marlborough went further than any. In 1691, he offered to move an address in the House of Lords, asking William to dismiss the foreigners, assuring James that, if William refused, the army and navy would expel him from England ; and he also induced the Princess Anne to put herself in opposition to her sister, the Queen. On this William deprived Marlborough of all his offices. 16. La Hogue, Steinkirk, and Landen. 1692 — 1693. — Amongst those who had offered their services to James was Admiral Russell, a brother of the Lord Russell who had been beheaded (see p. 626). He was an ill-tempered man, and being dissatisfied in consequence of some real or fancied slight, told a Jacobite agent that he was will- ing to help James to regain the throne. Yet his offer was not with- out limitation. “ Do not think,” he added, “ that I will let the French triumph over us in our o^vn sea. Understand this, that if I meet them I fight them ; ay, though His Majesty himself should be on board.” Russell kept his word as far as the fighting was concerned. When in 1692 a French fleet and army were made ready for the invasion of England, he met the fleet near the Bay of La Hogue and utterly defeated it. His sailors followed up their victory and set on fire the greater number of the French ships, though they lay under the pro- tection of batteries on shore. The French navy, indeed, was not swept from the sea, but the mastery had passed into the hands of the English. No further attempt was made by the French in this war to invade England, and Louis, intent upon victories on shore, took little trouble to maintain his navy. On land Louis still had the superiority. In 1692, the year of the English victory at La Hogue, his army took Namur, and defeated the allies at Steinkirk with William at their head. In 1693 the F rench won another victory at N eerwinden, or, ac- cording to another name sometimes given to the battle, at Landen. 17. Beginning of the National Debt. 1692. — After both these 1692-1694 THk LAST PlkCk OF GOLD 659 defeats, William had, in his usual fashion, so rallied his defeated troops, that the French gained little by their victories. In the end success would come to the side which had most endurance. Money was as much needed as men, and, in 1692, Parliament decided on borrowing 1,000,000/. for the support of the war. Kings and Parlia- ments had often borrowed money before, but in the long run they had failed either to pay interest or to repay the principal, and this loan is understood to be the beginning of the National Debt, because it was the first on which interest was steadily paid. The last piece of gold, the French king had said, would carry the day, and England with her commerce was likely to provide more gold than France, where trade was throttled by the constant interference of the Government, and deprived of the protection of an efficient navy. 18. Disorder in the Government. 1693. — On his return after his defeat at Neerwinden, William found everything in disorder. The House of Commons was out of temper in consequence of the military failure, and still more because of the corruption prevailing amongst the king’s ministers, and the disorder of the administration. The system of drawing ministers from both parties had led to quarrels, and the House of Commons was at least as inefficient as the Government. There was no assured majority in it. If, as often happened, fifty or a hundred Whigs went off one day to amuse themselves at tennis, or to see a new play or a cock-fight, the Tories carried everything before them. If, on another day, fifty or a hundred Tories chose to disport themselves in the same manner, the Whigs could undo all that had been done by their rivals. There was, in those times, no fear of the constituencies before the eyes of a member of Parliament. No division-lists were printed and no speeches reported. “Nobody,” said an active politician, “ can know one day what a House of Commons will do the next.” 19. The Whig Junto. 1693 — 1694. — Acting upon the advice of Sunderland, who, though in James’s reign he had changed his religion to retain his place, was a shrewd observer of mankind, William provided a remedy for these disorders. Before the end of 1694 he discharged his Toiy ministers and filled their posts with Whigs, who had now the sole possession of office. The four leading Whigs, who were consulted on all important matters and who were popularly known as the Junto, were Lord Somers, the Lord Keeper, a statesmanlike and large-minded lawyer ; Admiral Russell, the First Lord of the Admiralty ; Charles Montague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, an acute and 66o WILLIAM III AND MARY II. 1694 able financier ; and Thomas Wharton, afterwards Lord Wharton, Comptroller of the Household, a man of the worst character but an excellent electioneering agent, versed in all the arts which win adherents to a political party. What W’^illiam hoped from this change of system was that, by ha\*ing ministers who were of one mind, he w ould be able to have a House of Commons of one mind. Whig members w ould think it w’orth while to attend the House steadily, at personal inconvenience to themselves, not only because they wdshed to keep their own friends in ofl&ce, but because those friends, as long as they remained in office, would dispose of plenty of well-paid posts and rewards of various kinds, and were more likely to give them to men who voted steadily for them than to those who did not. 20. The Junto the Beginning of the Modem Cabinet. — Nothing was further from William’s thoughts than the introduc- tion of a new kind of government. The ministers w^ere still his ministers, and what he expected of them was that they w ould carry on the w^ar more efficiently. Nevertheless, the formation of the Junto w^as a great step in advance in the direction of the modem Cabinet system, because it recognised frankly what Charles II. had occasionally recognised tacitly, that the growth of the power of the House of Commons was so great that the king could not govern satisfactorily unless the view^s of his ministers accorded with those of a majority of the House of Commons. It is e\ident now that this admission would ultimately lead to government, not by the king, but by a Cabinet supporting itself on an organised party in the House of Commons ; but ideas grow slowly, and there w'ould be much opposition to overcome before such a system could take root with general approbation. 21. The Bank of England. 1694. — The increased strength of W^illiam’s government w^as not long in showing itself In 1694 the Bank of England was founded, at the suggestion of William Paterson, a Scotchman wffio, through the influence of Montague, had become a member of the House of Commons. The growing wealth of the country made it necessary that a place should be foimd in wffiich money might be more safely deposited than with the goldsmiths (see p. 604), and the new' Bank, having received deposits of money, made a loan to the Crown on the security of a Parliamentary promise that interest should be paid till the capital was returned. The Government was thereby put in possession of sufficient resources to enable it to carry on the w'ar successfully. This would not have happened unless moneyed men had been i 694 the whig JUNTO 66i confident in the stability of William’s government and of Parlia- mentary institutions. 22. The Place Bill. 1694. — Useful as the concentration of power in the hands of the Whig Junto was, it raised alarm lest the ministers should become too strong. The system of winning votes in Parliament by corruption was on the increase, and the favourite device of a minister in need of support was to give to a member of the House of Commons a place revocable at the pleasure of the Crown, and thereby to bind him by self-interest to vote as the minister pleased. This system, bad enough when the ministers were of different parties, became intolerable when they were all of one party, and it now seemed possible that the Whig Junto might keep itself permanently in office by the votes which it purchased. Independent members, indeed, had from time to time introduced a Place Bill, making it illegal for any member of the House of Commons to hold not merely small offices unconnected with politics, but even the great ministerial posts, such as those of a Secretary of State or a Chancellor of the Exchequer ; but the influence of the ministers had been too strong for them, and they were no more successful in 1694 than they had been in former years. 23. The Second Triennial Act. 1694. — Another grievance was actually removed in 1694. As the law then stood a king who had a Parliament to his mind might retain it to his death, even if the feelings of the nation had undergone a complete change, as had been the case in the course of the seventeen and a half years during which Charles II. retained the Cavalier Parliament. By the Triennial Act of 1694 it was enacted that no Parliament should last longer than three years. It was, therefore, quite different from the Triennial Act of 1641 (see p. 530), which enacted that a Parlia- ment should be summoned at least once in three years. 24. Death of Mary. 1694.— Scarcely was the Triennial Act passed when Queen Mary was attacked by the small-pox, and in those days, when vaccination had not yet been discovered, the ravages caused by the small-pox were enormous. The physicians soon assured William that there was no hope. He was stern and self-contained in the presence of most men, but he was warmly affectionate to the few whom he really loved. His grief was now heart-rending : “ There is no hope,” he said to one of the bishops. “ I was the happiest man on earth, and I am the most miserable. She had no fault — none : you knew her well, but you could not know — nobody but myself could know — her goodness.” The 662 WILLIAM III. AND MARY II. 1694 Part of Greenwich Hospital. Built after the design of Sir Christopher Wren. 1694-1695 A NOBLE MONUMENT 663 queen died, but she left a memorial behind her. Charles II. had begun to build a magnificent palace at Greenwich. When the news of the Battle of La Hogue reached England, Mary announced her intention of completing the palace as a place of refuge for sailors disabled in the service of their country. Greenwich Hospital is the lasting monument of the gentle queen. CHAPTER XLIII WILLIAM III {alone), 1694—1702 LEADING DATES William III., 1689—1702 The Liberty of the Press 1695 I'he Assassination Plot 1696 Treaty of Ryswick 1697 The First Partition Treaty 1698 The Second Partition Treaty 1700 Death of Charles II. of Spain Nov. i, 1700 The Act of Settlement 1701 Death of James II Sept. 6, 1701 The Grand Alliance Sept. 7, 1701 Death of William III March 8, 1702 1. The Liberty of the Press. 1695. — Ever since the Restora- tion, except for a short interval, there had been a series of licensing acts, authorising the Crown to appoint a licenser, without whose leave no book or newspaper could be published. In 1695 the House of Commons refused to renew the Act, and the press suddenly became free. The House does not seem to have had any idea of the importance of this step, and established the liberty of the press simply because the licensers had given a good deal of annoyance. Yet what they did would hardly have been done twenty years before. The Toleration Act, allowing men to worship as they pleased, and to preach as they pleased, had brought about a state of mind which was certain, before long, to lead to the permission to men to print what they pleased. 2. The Surrender of Namur. 1695. — The campaign of 1695, in the Netherlands, was marked by William’s first success. His financial resources were now far greater than those of Louis, and he took Namur, though a French army was in the field to relieve 664 WILLIAM III. 1695-1696 it. The French had never lost a battle or a fortified town during fifty-two years, but at last their career of victory was checked. 3. The Restoration of the Currency and the Treason-Trials Act. 1696. — At home Charles Montague, with the assistance of Sir Isaac Newton, the great mathematician and astronomer, suc- ceeded in restoring the currency. Coins, up to that time, had been usually struck with smooth edges, and rogues had been in the habit of clipping off thin flakes of gold or silver as they passed through their hands. The result was that sixpences or shillings were seldom worth their full value. There were constant quarrels over every payment. New coins were now issued with milled edges, so that it would be impossible for anyone to clip them without being detected. The act authorising the re-coinage was followed by another, allowing persons accused of treason to have lawyers to plead for them in court ; a permission which, up to this time, had been refused. 4. Ministerial Corruption. 1695 — 1696. — In spite of the success of William’s government, there were in existence grave causes of dissatisfaction with the state of affairs. Corruption reigned amongst those whose influence was worth selling. In 1695 the Duke of Leeds — better known by his earlier title of Danby — was found guilty of taking a bribe, and it was well known that even ministers who did not take bribes became wealthy by means of gifts received for their services, as, indeed, ministers had done in former reigns. What was worse still, English ministers had, almost from the beginning of William’s reign, endeavoured to make their position sure in the event of a counter-revolution, by pro- fessing allegiance to James whilst they remained in the service of William. At one time Marlborough had been guilty of even greater baseness, having sent to James information of an English expedition against Brest, in consequence of which the expedition was driven off with heavy loss, and its commander, Talmash, slain. No wonder William trusted his Dutch servants as he trusted no English ones, and that he sought to reward them by grants which, according to precedents set by earlier Kings, he held himself entitled to make out of the property of the Crown. Bentinck, to whom he was especially attached, he had made Earl of Portland ; but when, in 1696, he proposed to give him a large estate in Wales, the Commons remonstrated, and Portland declined the gift. 5. The Assassination Plot. 1696. — From the unpopularity which attached itself to William in consequence of these pro- 1696 AN ASSASSINATION PLOT 665 ceedings the Jacobites conceived new hopes. Louis offered to send soldiers to their help if they would first rise in insurrection. Front of Hampton Court Palace ; built by Sir Christopher Wren for William III. They, on the other hand, offered to rise if Louis would first send soldiers. About forty Jacobites agreed in thinking that the shortest way out of the difficulty was to murder William. They knew that, III. X X 666 WILLIAM III 1696 when he went out hunting from Hampton Court, he returned by a narrow lane, and that he usually had with him only twenty-five guards. They thought it would be easy work to spring into the lane and shoot him. The plot was, however, betrayed, and some Part of Hampton Court ; built for William III. by Sir Christopher Wren. of the plotters were executed. The discovery of this design to assassinate William made him once more popular. In imitation of what had been done when Elizabeth's life was in danger (see p. 456), the greater part of the Lords and Commons bound themselves by an association to defend William’s government. [696-1699 THE SPANISH SUCCESSION 667 and to support the succession of the Princess Anne in the event of his death. The form of this association was circulated in the country, and signed by thousands. 6. The Peace of Ryswick. 1697. — Since the taking of Namur there had been no more fighting. In 1697 ^ general peace was signed at Ryswick. Louis gave up all the conquests which he had made in the war, and acknowledged William as king. William had, for the first time, the satisfaction of bringing to a close a war from which his great antagonist had gained no advantage. France was impoverished and England was prosperous. As Louis had said, the last gold piece had won (see p. 659). William returned thanks for the peace in the new St. Paul’s built by Sir Christopher Wren in place of the old cathedral destroyed in the great fire (see p. 592). 7. Reduction of the Army. 1698 — 1699. — Scarcely was the war at an end when a controversy broke out between William and the House of Commons. William knew that the larger the armed force which England could maintain, the more chance there was that Louis would keep the peace which he had been forced to sign. The Commons, on the other hand, were anxious to diminish the ex- penditure, and were specially jealous of the existence of a large standing army which might be used, as it had been' used by Cromwell, to establish an absolute government. Many Whigs deserted the ministers and joined the Tories on this point. In January 1698, the army was reduced to 10,000 men. In December it was reduced to 7,000. In March 1699, William was compelled to dismiss his Dutch guards. His irritation was so great that it was with the greatest difficulty that he was held back from abdicating the throne. 8. Signature and Failure of the First Partition Treaty. 1698—1699. — In the meanwhile, William was engaged in a delicate negotiation. It was well known that, whenever Charles H. of Spain died, Louis XIV. would claim the Spanish monarchy for one of his own family in right of his wife, Charles’s eldest sister, Maria Theresa, whilst the Emperor Leopold would also claim it for himself or for one of his sons in the right of his mother, Maria, the aunt of Charles, on the ground that she was the only one amongst the sisters and aunts of Charles H. who had not renounced the succession. His own first wife Margaret Theresa, and Louis’s wife Maria Theresa, who were both sisters of the King of Spain, as well as Louis’s mother Anne, had all, on their respective marriages abandoned their claims. It was unlikely that either France or 668 WILLIAM III. 1698 Austria would submit without compulsion to see the territories of its rival increased so largely ; and in 1698, William, hoping to avert a war, signed a secret Partition Treaty vnth Louis. According to this treaty the bulk of the Spanish monarchy was to be assigned West front of St- Paul's Cathedral church ; built by Sir Christopher Wren. 66g 1698-1699 TI{£: MINISTERS AND THE HOUSE to a young man whose own territories were too small to give umbrage either to France or to Austria if he added to them those of the Spanish monarchy. This young man was the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, the grandson of Leopold by his first wife, Charles’s sister Margaret Theresa,' whilst small portions of the territory under the Spanish Crown were to be allotted respectively to Louis’s eldest son, the Dauphin, and to the Archduke Charles, the younger of Leopold’s two sons by a second wife. Unfortunately, the death of the Electoral Prince in February 1699 overset this arrangement and enormously increased the difficulty of satisfying both France and Austria, especially as it was just at this time that Parliament reduced William’s army to 7,000 men (see p. 667), thus leading Louis to suppose that he might defy England with impunity. 9. Break-up of the Whig Junto. 1699. — In home affairs, too, William was in considerable difficulty. When he had brought together the Whig Junto, he had done so because he found it con- venient, not because he thought of binding himself never to keep ministers in office unless they were supported by a majority in the House of Commons. The modern doctrine that for ministers to remain in office after a serious defeat in the House of Commons is injurious both to themselves and to the public service had not yet been heard of, and this lesson, like so many others, had to be learned by experience. Again and again in the debates on the reduction of the army the ministers had been outvoted. The House also found fault with the administration of the Admiralty by Russell, who in 1697 been created Earl of Orford, and appointed a 1 Genealogy of the claimants of the Spanish monarchy (the names of the claimants are in capitals, and the names of princesses who had renounced their claims in italics) : — Philip IIK, king of Spain, 1598—1621 Louis XIII., Philip IV., king of Spain, Maria = Ferdinand III., Emperor, king of France, 1621—1665 f 1635—1658 1610—1643 I Louis XIV., = Maria Charles II., king = Leopold I., = Eleanor of Neuburg king of France, I Theresa of Spain, I Emperor, 1643—1715 1665—1700 1658—1705 Louis (the Dauphin), 1 d. 1711 I I I I I Louis, Duke of PHILIP V., Maximilian = Maria Joseph I., The ARCHDUKE Burgundy, king of Spain Emanuel, I Antonia Emperor, CHARLES, afteorwards rf. 1712 Elector of 1705—1711 Charles VI., Bavaria Emperor. I 1711—1740 Joseph Ferdinand, the Electoral Prince. d. 1699 670 WILLIAM III. 1699-1700 commission, in defiance of the ministers, to take into consideration certain extensive grants of forfeited estates in Ireland which had been made by William to his favourites. Though William failed to perceive the impossibility of governing satisfactorily with minis- ters who had against them a joint majority composed of Tories and discontented Whigs, those who were personally affected by its attacks readily perceived the danger into which they were running. In the course of 1699 Orford and Montague resigned their offices. William fell back upon his original system of com- bining Whigs and Tories. The Whigs, however, still prepon- derated, especially as Somers, the wisest statesman of the day, remained Lord Chancellor. 10. The Irish Grants and the Fall of Somers. 1700. — After the reduction of Ireland large tracts of land had fallen to the Crown, and William had made grants out of them to persons whom he favoured, especially to persons of foreign origin. Amongst these were brave foreign soldiers like Ginkell and Ruvigny (see p. 656), now Earls of Athlone and Galway, as well as mere personal favourites, such as Elizabeth Villiers, who had, many years before, been William’s mistress. In 1700, however, the Commons pro- posed to annul all William’s Irish grants. Besides this the House proposed to grant away some of the estates to favourites of their own, and declared land forfeited which in law had never been forfeited at all. As the Lords resisted the latter parts of this scheme, the Commons invented a plan for coercing them. They tacked their bill, about Irish forfeitures to their grant of supplies for the year ; that is to say, made it part of the bill by which the supplies were given to the Crown. As the peers were not allowed to alter a money bill, they must accept or reject the whole, including the provisions made by the Commons about the Irish forfeitures. William foresaw that, in the heated temper of the Commons, they would throw the whole government into confusion rather than give way, and at his instance the Lords succumbed. The victory of the Commons brought into evidence their power of beating down the resistance both of the king and of the House of Lords, but it was a victory marred by the intemperateness of their conduct, and by the in- justice of some of the provisions for which they contended. Fierce attacks had also been made in the House of Commons on Somers, and William ordered Somers to resign. The principle that ministers with whom the House of Commons is dissatisfied cannot remain in office was thus established. 11. The Darien Expedition. 1698 — 1700. — It was not in Eng- 671 1^-1700 AN AGREEMENT WITH LOUIS XIV, land only that William met with resistance. The commerce of Scotland was small, and Scotchmen were excluded from all share in the English trading companies. Paterson, who had been the originator of the Bank of England, urged his countrymen to settle in Darien, as the Isthmus of Panama was then called, where, placed as they would be between two oceans, they would, as he told them, have the trade of the world in their hands.* Forgetting not only that Darien was claimed by Spain, but that its climate was exceedingly unhealthy, Scotchmen of all ranks joined eagerly in a company which was to acquire this valuable position. In 1698 and 1699 two expeditions sailed to take possession of the isthmus. By the spring of 1700 most of those who had set out with the highest hopes had perished of disease, whilst the few who remained alive had been expelled by the Spaniards. All Scotland threw the blame of the disaster on William, because he had not embroiled England in war with Spain to defend these unauthorised intruders on her domain. 12. The Second Partition Treaty. 1700. — In the spring of 1700, whilst the weakness and unpopularity of William were being published to the world, he concluded a second partition treaty with Louis. The Archduke Charles was to be king of Spain, of the Spanish Netherlands, and of all the Spanish colonies ; France was to have Guipuscoa, on the Spanish shore of the Bay of Biscay, and all the Spanish possessions in Italy, though Louis declared his intention of abandoning the Duchy of Milan to the Duke of Lorraine in exchange for Lorraine. The proposal of this Treaty came from Louis, who certainly had very little idea of carrying it into effect, whilst the Emperor, who would gain much by it for his son, the Archduke Charles, refused his consent, perhaps thinking that it was of little importance to him to place his son on the throne of Spain, if Italy, which lay so much nearer to his own hereditary dominions, w’as to be abandoned to the French. 13. Deaths of the Duke of Gloucester and of the King of Spain. 1700. — Two deaths, which occurred in 1700, affected the politics of England and Europe for some time to come. Anne had had several children, all of whom died young, the last of them, the Duke of Gloucester, dying on July 29 in this year. The question of the succession to the throne after Anne’s death was thus thrown open. Charles II. of Spain died on November i. Louis had long been intriguing for his inheritance, and his intrigues had been success- ful. Charles, before he died, left by will the whole of his dominions to Louis’s grandson, Philip, hereafter to be known as Philip V., king ^72 William in. 1700-1701 of Spain. Louis accepted the inheritance, and threw to the winds the Partition Treaty which he had made with William. 14. A Tory Ministry. 1700 — 1701. — It seemed as if the chief work of William’s life had been undone, and that France would domineer over Europe unchecked. In England there was but little desire to engage in a new war, and, before the end of 1700, William was obliged to appoint a Tory ministry. There was a Tory majority in the new Parliament which met on February 6, 1701. The great majority of the Tories had by this time thrown off their belief in the indefeasible Divine right of kings, and acknow- ledged William without difficulty. Their chief political ideas were the maintenance of peace abroad, and the pre-eminence of the Church of England at home, though they — more or less thoroughly — accepted the Toleration Act. Their main supporters were the country gentlemen and the country clergy, whilst the Whigs, who supported William in his desire for a war with France, and who took under their patronage the Dissenters, were upheld by the great landowners, and by the commercial class in the towns. 15. The Act of Settlement and the Succession. 1701. — The first work of the Tory Parliament was the Act of Settlement. By this Act the succession was settled, after Anne’s death, on Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her descendants. She was the daughter of Elizabeth, queen of Bohemia (see pp. 488, 490), and was thus the granddaughter of James I. The principle on which the selection rested was that she was the nearest Protestant heir, all the living de- scendants of Charles I., except William and Anne, being Roman Catholics. 16. The Act of Settlement and the Crown. 1701. — The view that the nation had a right to fix the succession was now accepted by the Tories as fully as by the Whigs ; but the Tories, seeing that William was inclined to trust their opponents more than them- selves, now went beyond the Whigs in their desire to restrict the powers of the Crown. By the Tory Act of Settlement the future Hanoverian sovereign was (i) to join in the Communion of the Church of England ; (2) not to declare war without consent of Parliament on behalf of territories possessed by him on the Continent, and (3) not to leave the three kingdoms without con- sent of Parliament — an article which was repealed in the first year of George I. A stipulation (4) that no pardon under the great seal was to be pleadable in bar of impeachment, was intended to prevent William or his successors from protecting ministers against Parliament, as Charles II. had attempted to do 1701 A CONSTITUTIONAL STATUTE 673 in Danby’s case (see p. 617). A further stipulation was (5) that after Anne’s death no man, unless born in England or of English parents abroad, should sit in the Privy Council or in Parliament, or hold office or lands granted him by the Crown. These five articles all sprang from jealousy of a foreign sovereign. A sixth, enacting (6) that the judges should, henceforward, hold their places as long as they behaved well, but might be removed on an address from both Houses of Parliament, was an improvement in the constitution, irrespective of all personal considerations. It has prevented, ever since, the repetition of the scandal caused by James II. when he changed some of the judges for the purpose of getting a judgment in his own favour (see p. 639). 17. The Act of Settlement and the Ministers. 1701. — There were two other articles in the Act, of which one (7) declared that, under the future Hanoverian sovereign, all matters proper to the Privy Council should be transacted there, and that all resolutions taken in it should be signed by those councillors who assented to them ; whilst the other (8) embodied the provisions of the rejected Place Bill (see p. 661), to the effect that no one holding a place or pension from the Crown should sit in the House of Commons. Both these articles were directed, not so much against the Crown as against the growing power of the ministers. At this time, indeed, the prevailing wish of the country squires who made up the bulk of the Tory party was to make the House of Commons effectively, as well as in name, predominant ; and they therefore watched with alarm the growth of the power of the Cabinet, as the informal meetings of the ministers who directed the affairs of the kingdom were now called. As the Cabinet, unlike the old Privy Council, kept no re- cord of its proceedings, the Tories were alarmed lest its members should escape responsibility, and should also, by offering places and pensions to their supporters in the House, contrive to secure a majority in it, even when they had the greater number of independent members against them. The article relating to the Privy Council was, however, repealed early in the next reign, as it was found that no one was willing to give advice if he was liable to be called in question and punished for giving it, so that the system of holding private Cabinet meetings where advice could be given without fear of consequences was not long interrupted. The article for excluding placemen and pensioners, on the other hand, merely overshot the mark, and in the next reign it was so modified that only holders of new places created subsequently to 1705 were excluded from the House, as well as persons who held pensions revocable at the 6f4 William Hi. 1701 pleasure of the Crown ; whilst all members accepting old places Were to vacate their seats, and to appeal for re-election to a con- stituency if they thought fit to do so. Subsequent legislation went farther and disqualified persons holding many of the old places from sitting in parliament, with the general result that, whilst the holders of pensions and smaller places are now excluded from the House of Commonsj the important ministers of the Crown are allowed to sit there, thereby keeping up that close connection be- tween ministers and Parliament which is so efficacious in promoting a good understanding between them. 18. The Tory Foreign Policy. 1701.— In foreign policy the Tories blamed William and the Whigs for concluding the Partition Treaties. France and Spain, they held, would still be mutually jealous of one another, even though Louis sat on the throne of France and his grandson on the throne of Spain, whereas the terri- tory which, according to the second treaty, would have been actually annexed to F ranee, would have given to Louis exorbitant influence in Europe. Accordingly they impeached the leading Whigs, Somers, Portland, Orford, and Montague, who had lately become Lord Halifax. The impeached peers were, however, supported by the House of Lords, and nothing could be done against them. If only Louis had behaved with ordinary prudence, the peace poficy of the Tories would have carried the day. He seemed, however, resolved to show that he meant to dispose of the whole of the forces of both monarchies. There was a line of fortified towns, known as the barrier fortresses, raised on the southern frontier of the Spanish Netherlands, to defend them against France, at a time when France and Spain were hostile. As the Spanish Government had lately shown itself incapable of keeping fortresses in repair or of providing them with sufficient garrisons, it had been agreed that half of each garrison should be composed of Dutch soldiers. Early in 1701, Louis, with the assistance of the Spanish half of each garrison, got possession of every one of these fortresses in a single night, turned out the Dutch, and replaced them by French soldiers. For all military purposes the Spanish Netherlands might as well have been under the immediate government of Louis. 19. The Kentish Petition. 1701. — To the Dutch the possibility of a French army advancing without hindrance to their frontier was extremely alarming ; while in England there had always been a strong feeling against the occupation by the French of the coast opposite the mouth of the Thames. Louis’s interference in the Netherlands therefore did something to rouse a warlike spirit in 1701 PREPARATIONS FOR WAR 675 England. In April a petition to the House of Commons was drawn up by the gentlemen of Kent and presented by five of their number. This Kentish Petition asked the Commons to sup- port the king and to ‘ turn their loyal addresses into Bills of supply.’ The House sent the five who brought the petition to the Tower, on the plea that the constituencies had done their work when they had elected their members, and had*no right to influence the proceed- ings of the House when once the elections had been completed. As the Tories had defended the authority of the House against the ministers, so they now defended it against the electors. 20. The Grand Alliance. 1701. — William saw that the feeling of the country would soon be on the side of war. Having obtained the consent, even of the Tory House of Commons, to defensive measures, he raised new troops and sent 10,000 men to protect the Dutch against any attack which Louis might make upon them. At the head of this force he placed Marlborough, whom he had again taken into favour (see p. 658). In September he advanced a step farther. War had already broken out in Italy between France and Spain on the one side, and the Emperor Leopold, as ruler of the Austrian dominions, on the other. Both William and the Dutch would have been glad of a compromise with Louis, and would have left Spain to Philip V. if Leopold could have part, at least, of the Spanish dominions in Italy. Louis would hear of no compromise, and on September 7 William signed the Grand Alliance, as it was called, between England, Austria, and the Dutch Republic ; of which the objects were to restore to the Dutch the control of the barrier fortresses, to secure to Leopold the Italian possessions of Spain, and to provide that the Crowns of France and Spain should never be united. 21. Death of James II. 1701. — The day before this treaty was signed James II. died in France. Louis at once acknowledged as king his son, the child who had been held in England to be supposititious, and who was afterwards known as the Pretender by his enemies, and as James HI. by his friends. At once all England burst into a storm of indignation against Louis, for having dared to acknowledge as king of England a boy whose title had been rejected by the English Parliament and nation. William seized the oppor- tunity and dissolved the Tory Parliament. A new Parliament was returned with a small Whig majority. It passed an Act ordering all persons holding office to take an oath of abjuration of the Pretender’s title, and raised the army to 40,000 men, granting at the same time a considerable sum for the navy. 676 WILLIAM lit. 1702 22. Death of William. 1702. — Early in 1702 William was looking forward to taking the command in the war which was beginning. On February 20 his horse stumbled over a mole-hill in Hampton Park. He fell, and broke his collar bone. He lingered for some days, and, on March 8, he died. His work, if not accomplished, was at least in a fair way of being accomplished. His main object in life had been to prevent Louis from domineering in Europe, whilst the maintenance of the constitutional liberties of England had been with him only a secondary object. That he succeeded in what he undertook against Louis was owing, primarily, to the self-sufficiency and obstinacy, first of Louis himself and then of James II. ; but all the blunders of his adversaries would have availed him little if he had not himself been possessed of invincible patience and of the tact which perceives the line which divides the practicable from the impracticable. That he was a Continental statesman with Continental aims stood in the way of his popularity in England. His merit was that, being aware how necessary English support was to him on the Continent, he recognised that his only hope of securing the help of England lay in persistept devotion to her domestic interests and her constitutional liberties ; and that devotion, in spite of some blunders and some weaknesses, he un- interruptedly gave to her during the whole course of his reign. CHAPTER XLIV ANNE. 1702 — 1714 LEADING DATES Accession of Anne 1702 Battle of Blenheim 1704 Battle of Ramillies 1706 Union with Scotland 1707 Battles of Almanza and Oudenarde 1708 Battle of Malplaquet 1709 The Sacheverell Trial 1710 Battles of Brihuega and Villa Viciosa 1710 Dismissal of Marlborough and Creation of Twelve Peers 1711 Treaty of Utrecht 1713 Death of Anne 1714 I. Marlborough and the Tories. 1702. — Anne was a good- hearted woman of no great ability, warmly attached to the Church of England, and ready to support it in its claims against the 1702 MARLBOROUGH AND THE QUEEN 677 Dissenters. She therefore preferred the Tories to the Whigs, and filled all the ministerial offices with Tories. Marlborough, who, through his wife, had boundless influence over the Queen, found it expedient to declare himself a Tory, though he had little sympathy Queen Anne ; from a portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller with the extravagances of the extreme members of that party, and wanted merely to have a firm Government which would support him in his military enterprises. His chief ally was Lord Godolphin, to whose son one of his daughters was married. Godolphin was 678 ANNE 1702-1703 Lord Treasurer, and, being an excellent financier, was likely to be able to find the money needed for a great war. He was also a fitting man to keep the ministers from quarrelling with one another. He had frequently been in office, and he liked official work better than party strife. “ Little Sidney Godolphin,” Charles II. had once said of him, “ is never in the way, and never out of the way,” and this character he retained to the end. 2. Louis XIV. and Marlborough. 1702. — As far as the war and foreign affairs were concerned, Marlborough was the true successor of William III. The difficulties \\ith which he had to contend were, indeed, enormous. Louis XIV., at the opening of the war, had a fine military position. His flanks were guarded by the possession of the Spanish Netherlands on the left and of Spain itself on the right, whilst an alliance which he formed with the Elector of Bavaria gave him military command of a tract of land accessible without much difficulty from his OA\m territor}’. This tract, on the one hand, enabled a French army to make an easy attack on the Austrian dominions beyond the Inn, whilst on the other hand it dmded the forces of the allies into two parts, cutting off the Austrian army in Italy, under Prince Eugene, from the English and Dutch armies in the Netherlands, both of which were under the command of Marlborough. Louis was, moreover, the sole master of all his armies, and could easily secure obedience to his orders. Marlborough had the more difficult task of securing obedience, not only from the English and Dutch armies, but from the numerous contingents sent by the German princes, most of whom now joined the Grand Alliance. The most important of these princes was Frederick L, the Elector of Brandenburg, who had been made by the Emperor king of Prussia, in order to induce him to join the allies. To the difficult task of guiding this hetero- geneous following, ^larlborough brought not only a consummate military genius far transcending that of William, but a temper as imperturbable as William’s o\ra. 3. Marlborough’s First Campaign in the Netherlands. 1702 — 1703. — Marlborough’s aim was to break Louis’s power in South Germany, but he knew better than to attempt this at once. The French held the fortresses of the Spanish Netherlands and of the Rhine-countr}', covering the roads by which the Dutch territory could be assailed with advantage on its eastern and south-eastern sides ; and, as long as this was the case, it was certain that the Dutch would not allow their army to go far from home. Marl- borough therefore devoted the two campaigns of 1702 and 1703 to 1697-1703 THE FIRST EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE 679 The first Eddystone Lighthouse, erected in 1697 ; destroyed in 1703 68o AATJVE 1702-1703 freeing the Dutch from this danger. In these two years he took Kaiserswerth and Bonn, on the Rhine, and Roermonde, Liege and Huy on the Meuse. The roads by which a French army could approach the Dutch frontier were thus barred against attack. 4. The Occasional Conformity Bill. 1702 — 1703. — At the close of the campaign of 1702 Marlborough was created a duke. He spent the winter in England, where he found Parliament busy with an Occasional Conformity Bill, the object of which was to inflict penalties upon Dissenters who, having received the sacrament in church in order to qualify themselves for office, attended their own chapels during the tenure of the office thus obtained. The queen, the High Tories, and most of the clergy were eager to prevent such an evasion of the Test Act, especially as the Dissenters who occasionally conformed were Whigs to a man. The Bill passed the Commons, where the Tories were a majority. It failed to satisfy the House of Lords, in which the majority was Whig. In the next session, at the end of 1703, the Bill again passed the Commons, but was rejected by the Lords. Though Marlborough and Godolphin voted for it to please the queen, they disliked the measure, as causing ill-will between parties which they wished to unite against the common enemy. 5. Progress of the War in Italy, Spain and Germany. 1702 — 1703. — In 1702 and 1703, whilst Marlborough was fighting in the Netherlands, Prince Eugene of Savoy, the Austrian commander, and a general of the highest order, had been struggling against the French in Italy. In 1703 he won over the Duke of Savoy from his alliance with Louis, but he could not prevent a great part of the Duke’s territory from being overrun by French troops. In the same year Portugal deserted France and joined the allies. By the Methuen Treaty now formed, England attached Portugal to her by community of interests, engaging that the duty on Portuguese wines should be at least one-third less than that on French, whilst Portugal admitted English woollen goods to her market. During the first two years of the war, however, little of military importance took place in any part of the Peninsula. By the end of 1703 the combined forces of the French and Bavarians had gained con- siderable successes in Germany, and, by the capture of Augsburg, Old Breisach and Landau, had secured the communications between France and Bavaria. 6. Ministerial Changes. 1703 — 1704. — Before Marlborough could assail Louis’ position in Germany he had to make sure of his own position at home. The High Tories weakened him not only by 1703-1704 A CaMPOSITE MINISTRY 681 alienating the Dissenters, but by their lukewarmness about the war. Their leaders, the Earls of Rochester and Not- tingham, held that the war ought to be mainly carried on at sea and to be purely defen- sive on land, and had no sym- pathy with Marlborough in his design of destroying the pre- dominance of Louis in Europe. Early in 1703 Marlborough found an opportunity of getting rid of Rochester. In the spring of 1704 he came into collision with Nottingham. There was a rising of the Protestant sub- jects of Louis in the Cevennes, usually known as the rising of the Camisards, because they fought with their shirts over their clothes. Marlborough was anxious to assist them, but was thwarted by Notting- ham, who held it to be wrong, in any case, to support rebel- lion. Nottingham was accord- ingly dismissed, and the vacant places were filled by Harley and St. John. Both of the new ministers called them- selves moderate Tories. Harley was an influential member of Parliament, with a talent for intrigue and a love of middle courses. St. John, profligate in his life, was the most brilliant orator and the ablest and most unscrupulous politician of the day. A few Whigs, of no great note, also received places. It was Marlborough’s policy to in. areepie oi at. iJride's, Y leet Street, Lond< built by Sir Christopher Wren, 1701-170 Y V 682 ANNE 1704-1705 secure the support of a body of ministers who would avoid irritating anyone, and would thus help him in his military designs. An attempt made by the High Tories in the Commons to force the Lords to accept the Occasional Conformity Bill, by tacking it (see p. 670) to a Bill for a land tax, was defeated with the help of Harley and St. John. 7. The Campaign of Blenheim. 1704. — The campaign of 1704 was likely to be a critical one. The F rench and Bavarians intended to push on to Vienna and to compel the Emperor to separate himself from his allies. Marlborough, perceiving that if the French were allowed to carry their project into execution they would become the masters of Europe, anticipated them by marching to the Upper Danube, carrying with him the Dutch army in spite of the reluctance of the Dutch Government. Having effected a junction with the Austrian commander Prince Eugene, and with Louis of Baden who was at the head of the forces of other German states, the combined armies stormed the Schellenberg, a hill over Donauworth, and then devastated Bavaria. A French army under Marshal Tallard hastened to the aid of the Elector of Bavaria. Marlborough and Eugene, between whom no jealousies ever arose, turned round, and utterly defeated Tallard at Blenheim. It was Marlborough’s genius which had foreseen the surprising results of a victory on the Danube. His success marks the end of a period of F rench military superiority in Europe. The F rench had won every battle in which they had been engaged since 1643, when they defeated the Spaniards at Rocroi. It was, however, something more than prestige which was lost by F ranee. The whole of the territory of the Duke of Bavaria, the most important German ally of Louis, was at the mercy of the allies, and before the end of the year scarcely a vestige of French authority was left in Germany. Marlborough received a grant of the manor of Woodstock, on which the huge and ungraceful pile which bears the name of Blenheim was built for him at the public expense. 8. Operations in Spain. 1704 — 1705. — In 1704 the Archduke Charles, assuming the name of Charles III. of Spain, landed at Lisbon. The Spaniards regarded him as a foreign intruder, whilst they cherished Philip V. as if he had been their native king. The first foothold which Charles acquired in Spain was at Gibraltar, which surrendered in August to the English admiral. Sir George Rooke. In 1705 the French and Spaniards tried in vain to retake the fortress. The most important success of the allies in 1705 was Che capture of Barcelona — an achievement of which the chief merit 1704 BLENHEIM 683 Part of Blenheim t built bv Vanbrueh ii 684 ANN£ 1705-1706 belongs to the English commander, the eccentric Lord Peter- borough, whose brilliant conceptions were too often thrown away by his ignorance of that art in which Marlborough excelled, the art of courteously overlooking the defects of others. The importance of Barcelona arose from its being the chief place in Catalonia, a province which clung to its local independence, and which vigor- ously espoused the cause of Charles, simply because Philip ruled in Castile. Soon afterwards Valencia was overrun by the allies. In other parts of Europe there were no military events of note. In the course of 1705 the Emperor Leopold I. died, and his son J oseph (the elder brother of the Archduke Charles) succeeded him in the empire as well as in his hereditary dominions. 9. A Whig Parliament. 1705 — 1706. — At home the High Tories raised the cry of “ The Church in danger” ; but a Whig majority was returned to Parliament, and Marlborough and Godolphin entered into friendly communications with the Whig leaders. One of the results of the understanding arrived at was a compromise on that article in the Act of Settlement which would, after the accession of the House of Hanover, have excluded ministers as well as other placemen from the House of Commons (see p. 673). It was arranged in 1706 that the holding of a pension or of an office created after October 25, 1705, should disqualify, whilst all other offices should be compatible with a seat, provided that the holder, at the time of his appointment, presented himself for a fresh election. 10. The Campaign of 1706 in the Netherlands and in Italy. 1706. — In May, 1706, Marlborough won a second great victory at Ramillies, and before long, except that they continued to hold a few isolated fortresses, the French were swept out of the Spanish Netherlands as they had been swept out of Germany in 1704. In September, Eugene came to the succour of the Duke of Savoy, defeated the French who were besieging Turin, and drove their armies out of Italy. 11. Campaign of 1706 in Spain. 1706. — In Spain the success of the allies was less unmixed. Barcelona indeed beat off a French besieging army, and the old Huguenot refugee Ruvigny, now known as the Earl of Galway (see p. 670), marched from Por- tugal and occupied Madrid in June ; but the Portuguese under his command left him in order to plunder, and, before the end of July, he learnt that the French commander, the Duke of Berwick (the illegitimate son of James 11. by Marlborough’s sister, Arabella Churchill), had received ample reinforcements As all the country ijo 2 -tyoi EnOLa]^!) Akb scotIand 685 round was hostile, Galway had nothing for it but to leave Madrid. In August he was joined by the Archduke Charles and Peter- borough, though the latter soon afterwards betook himself to Italy on diplomatic service. When Peterborough afterwards returned to Spain, all authority had slipped out of his hands. Galway, un- able to maintain himself in Castile, retreated to Valencia. Whilst he had been in the interior, Aragon had declared for Charles, and Alicante had been captured by an English fleet. 12. The Union with Scotland. 1702 — 1707. — Far more im- portant to England than all that was taking place in Spain was the conclusion of the Union with Scotland. In 1702 Commissioners had met to discuss its terms. The Scots had naturally been anxious for freedom of trade and equality of commercial privileges. As the English were unwilling to grant this, the Scottish Parlia- ment, in 1703, retorted by an Act of Security, providing that the successor to the Scottish crown, after the queen’s death, should not be the same person as the successor to the crown of Eng- land. In 1704, in consequence of the defiant attitude of Scotland, the queen was forced to give the royal assent to the Act of Security. What the Scots virtu- ally meant by it was, that Eng- land must make her choice either to accept Scotland as an equal partner with full equality of benefits and rights, or must have her as an alienated neighbour with a national sovereign of her own, capable of renewing that ancient league with France which had cost England so dear ’m earlier times. England retaliated with an enactment that Scotchmen, coming to England, should no longer enjoy the privileges to which they were entitled by the decision of the Judges in the case of the Postnati (see p. 483), until the Scottish Parliament had settled the succession in the same way that it was settled in England. Godolphin and his fellow-ministers were, however, too wise to prolong this war of threats. They gave way on free trade and commercial equality, and in 1707 the union of the two nations and the two Parliaments was finally accepted on both sides Forty-five members of the House of Commons Royal Arms as borne by Anne. 6^6 AMm were to be chosen by Scottish constituencies, and the Scottish peers were to elect sixteen of their own number to sit in the House of Lords. Scotland maintained her own Church, her own law, and the control of her own fortresses. She remained a nation in heart, voluntarily merging her legislative authority in that of the neigh- bouring nation. 13. The Irish Penal Laws. — It would have been well both for England and Ireland if the Irish race had been capable of enforcing its claims even to a just and lenient treatment by its masters. Unfortunately the Irish population, beaten in war and deprived of its natural leaders by the emigration of its most vigorous soldiers, was subjected to the Parliament of the British Protestant colony. In spite of the terms made at Limerick (see p. 657), the Parliament at Dublin, after excluding Catholics from its benches, passed laws of which the result was to make well- nigh intolerable the position of the professors of the religion of at least three-fourths of the inhabitants of Ireland. Catholic land- owners were impoverished by an enforced partition of their lands amongst their sons, and by the enactment that if a single son turned Protestant the whole of the inheritance was to pass to him. Catholic children, upon the death of their fathers, were entrusted to Protestant guardians, who were directed to bring them up as Pro- testants. A Catholic priest who converted a Protestant to his faith was to be imprisoned, and one who celebrated a marriage between a Catholic and a Protestant was to be hanged. Oaths were imposed on the priests which no conscientious Catholic could take, and each priest who refused the oath was to be banished, and, if he returned to Ireland, was to forfeit his life. Any persons refusing to give evi- dence which might lead to the detection of such priests were liable to imprisonment or fine. In addition to these and other similar enactments, the Irishman who was true to his religion had to bear the daily scorn and contumely of men of English or Scottish descent and religion, who looked upon him as a being of an inferior race, and scarcely deigned to admit him even to their presence. 14. Irish Commerce Crushed. — Though the Parliament in Dublin was allowed to deal thus with the lives and property of those whom its members would have scorned to speak of as their fellow- countrymen, it had to purchase the support of England by sub- mitting to that English commercial monopoly against which the Scots had successfully rebelled. In the reign of Charles II. land- owners in Ireland — for the most part Protestant landowners — 4705-170^ A WHIG MINISTRY 6^7 exported cattle to England until the English Parliament absolutely killed this trade by prohibiting the reception at any English port of cattle, sheep, and swine, beef, pork, and mutton, and even of butter and cheese imported from Ireland, lest they should compete with the produce of the English landowner. Debarred from this source of prosperity Ireland made steady progress in woollen manufactures till, in 1699, the English Parliament forbade the export of woollen goods from Ireland to any country except to England, where they were practically barred out by prohibitive duties, lest their sale should injure the profits of English manu- facturers. The ruling race in Ireland was too dependent on the English Parliament to be capable of resisting these enactments. 15. Gradual Formation of a Whig Ministry. 1705—1708.— In England power passed gradually into the hands of Whig ministers. In 1705 the Whig Cowper became Lord Chancellor. In 1706 the Earl of Sunderland,^ Marlborough’s son-in-law, became Secretary of State. The queen was strongly averse to Sunderland's promotion, as she looked on the Whigs as enemies of the Church, and Sunderland was the most acrimonious of the Whigs. More- over, Anne was growing weary of the arrogant temper of the Duchess of Marlborough, and had begun to transfer her confidence to Harley’s cousin, Abigail Hill, who became Mrs. Masham in 1707, a soft-spoken, unpretentious woman, whose companionship was calm and soothing. There was, however, a grave political question at issue as well as a personal one. The Whigs, finding the Tories lukewarm about the war and harsh towards the Dis- senters, insisted on the appointment of a compact ministry consist- ing of Whigs alone. The queen, on the other hand, upheld the doctrine that the choice of ministers depended on herself, and that it was desirable to unite moderate men of both parties in her service. Harley supported her in this view, and, being detected by his colleagues in intriguing against them with the help of Mrs. Masham, was, together with St. John, turned out of office in February, 1708. By the end of that year the ministry became completely Whig. Marlborough and Godolphin declared them- selves to be Whigs, Somers became President of the Council, Wharton Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. 16. Progress of Cabinet Government. 1708. — In one respect the Whig ministry completed in 1708 resembles that which served William III. under the name of the Whig Junto in 1695. Both were formed of men of one political opinion : both owed their 1 Son of the minister of Charles II. and James II. ANNE m influence to the necessity of unity of action in time of war. There was, however, one great difference between the two ministries. The Whig ministry of William III. was formed by the sovereign for his own purposes ; whereas the Whig ministry of Anne was Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough : from a portrait, by Sir G. Kneller, belonging to Earl Spencer, K.G. formed in defiance of the sovereign. The idea of government by a Cabinet resting on a party majority in Parliament, and forcing its will on the sovereign, originated with the Tory ministers who forced themselves on William III. towards the end of his reign, but it first took definite shape in the Whig ministiy^ of the reign of Anne. J Year of 'FAilUkEs 'vj&! 17. Progress of the War. 1707 — 1708. — There had been no- thing to dazzle the eyes of Englishmen in the campaign of 1707. An attempt to take Toulon, by a joint attack of Prince Eugene on land and of the English navy under Sir Cloudesley Shovel, had Tohn Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough ; from a portrait belonging to Earl Spencer, K.G. failed, and, on the return of the fleet, three English ships were wrecked off the Scilly Isles and the admiral himself drowned. In Spain Galway was defeated at Almanza, and nearer home all the success achieved was that the Pretender, after setting forth to <590 ANNE 1708-1709 invade Scotland with a French force, thought it prudent to return without landing. The campaign of 1708 was of a difterent character. The Dutch had made themselves disagreeable in the conquered Spanish Netherlands, and the French general, Ven- dome, was therefore welcomed by the inhabitants, and took Ghent and Bruges with little difficulty. Marlborough, however, met him at Oudenarde, utterly defeated him, and, before the end of the year, not only retook the places which had been lost, but, advancing on French territory, took Lille after a prolonged siege. In the same year General Stanhope reduced Minorca, an island of importance from the goodness of its harbour, Port Mahon, which formed an excellent basis for naval operations in the Mediterranean. 18. The Conference at The Hague and the Battle of Mal- plaquet. 1709. — In F ranee the peasants were starving, and Louis, in quest of peace, entered on negotiations at The Hague. The allies insisted upon his abandonment not only of portions of his own territory, but upon the surrender by his grandson of the whole of the Spanish monarchy. To all this he agreed, but when he found that, instead of obtaining peace in return, he was only to have a two months’ truce, during which he was to join in expelling his grandson from Spain, he drew back. “ If I must wage war,” he said, “ I would rather wage it against my enemies than against my children.” No doubt the allies believed that they could not trust Louis really to abandon Philip unless he actually sent an army against him. They were at fault, partly, in being blind to the impossibility of holding Spain in defiance of the Spaniards, partly in neglecting to foresee that the English nation would not long continue to support a war waged for an object which seemed to concern it so little as the possession of the Spanish Peninsula. Finding that nothing more was to be had by negotiation, Louis put forth all his strength. He sent forth a fresh army ill-clothed and half-starved, but resolute to do its utmost for its country’s sake. This army was, on September ii, attacked at Malplaquet by the combined forces of Marlborough and Eugene. The allies were again victorious, but they lost 20,000 men, whilst only 12,000 fell on the side of the French. 19. The Sacheverell Trial. 1710. — Before another campaign was opened the Whig ministry was tottering to its fall. On November 5, 1709, a certain Dr. Sacheverell preached in St. Paul’s a sermon upholding the doctrine of non-resistance (see p. 61 1), attacking the Dissenters, reviling toleration, and personally abus- A TORY MINISTRY 691 1^16 ing Godolphin. In ^pite of Somers’s advice to leave Sacheverell alone, the Whig ministers decided to impeach him. What the Whigs wanted was an opportunity for solemnly recording their views on the principles of resistance and toleration established at the Revolution, and such an opportunity they obtained during the impeachment, which occupied the first months of 1710. Dis- senters, however, who were mainly drawn from the middle classes, were no more liked by the mob than they were by the country gentlemen, and their discredit was shared by their protectors the Whigs. When the queen passed there were shouts raised of “ God bless your Majesty and the Church. We hope your Majesty is for Dr. Sacheverell.” There were riots in the streets, and Dis- senters’ chapels were sacked and burnt. In the end the Whig House of Lords pronounced Sacheverell guilty, but did not venture to do more than order his sermons to be burnt and himself pro- hibited from preaching for the next three years. By this sentence which was a virtual defeat of the Whigs and a triumph of the Tories, Sacheverell gained rather than lost by his condemnation. Wherever he went he was uproariously welcomed, and he was consoled for his enforced silence with a well-endowed living. 20. The Fall of the Whigs. 1710. — Anne saw in this out- burst a sign that it would now be easy for her to get rid of her ministers. She was the better able to make the attempt, as there were, in the spring of 1710, fresh conferences for peace at Ger- truydenberg, in which it was proposed to solve all difficulties by leaving to Philip some part of the Spanish monarchy other than Spain itself. No general agreement, however, could be obtained, and England seemed to be committed to an interminable war. All the blame of its continuance was unjustly thrown on Marl- borough. The queen effected cautiously the change which she was bent on making. Harley, who was her chief adviser, recommended her to revert to the system which had prevailed when he had been last in office (see p. 687), and to form a ministry composed of moderate Whigs and Tories of which the direction should fall to herself. 21. A Tory Parliament and Ministry. 1710. — Harley’s plan of a combined ministry fell to the ground. A new House of Com- mons, elected in 1710, being strongly Tory, resolved to secure power, permanently if possible, for the country gentry and the country clergy, and to reduce to impotence the wealthy peers, with the merchants and Dissenters who formed the strength of the Whigs. Harley and St. John were compelled by their supporters to form a purely Tory ministry. ANNE 692 1710-1711 22. Brihuega and Villa Viciosa. 171O. — The Tories had no wish to keep up the war except so far as it would serve special English interests, and, in the course of 1710, the danger of being engaged in an endless war in Spain appeared greater than ever. In the summer, indeed, the combined English and Austrian armies defeated the Spaniards at Saragossa, and Charles once more entered Madrid as a conqueror ; but, before the end of the year, one of Louis’s best generals, Vendome, was sent to Spain to lead the French and Spanish armies. On December 9 he compelled Stanhope, the English commander, to surrender at Brihuega, and though a battle which he fought on the loth with the Austrian Staremberg at Villa Viciosa was indecisive, Staremberg was obliged to retreat to Barcelona, leaving all Spain, except Catalonia, in the hands of Philip. 23. Overtures to France. 1710 — 1711. — Even before this bad news reached England, Harley and St. John, without troubling themselves about the interests of their allies, had opened secret negotiations for peace, on the basis of leaving Spain to Philip, and of acquiring for England separately as many advantages as possible. The Tory party had never had much inclination to defend the interests of Europe as a whole, and, at the end of 1710, it might reasonably be doubted whether the interests of Europe as a whole were to be served by prolonging the struggle to place the Archduke Charles on the throne of Spain. The real objection against the conduct of the new ministers was not that they opened negotiations for peace, but that they negotiated after the fashion of conspirators. Not only did they, in 1711, send secret emissaries, first Gautier and afterwards the poet Prior, to treat privately with Louis, but when, in the September of that year, preliminaries were agreed to as a basis for a private understanding between Eng- land and France, they actually communicated a false copy of them to the Dutch. By this time, indeed, there was a fresh reason for making peace. The Emperor Joseph I. had died in April without leaving a son, and was succeeded in his hereditary dominions by his brother, the Archduke Charles. It might fairly be argued that it was at least as dangerous in 1711 to give the whole of the Spanish dominions to the ruler of the Austrian territories, as it had been in 1702 to give them to the grandson of the king of France. 24. Literature and Politics. 1710. — In order to defend their policy the Tory ministers had, on their first accession to power, looked about for literary supporters. In the reign of Anne a literature had arisen in prose and verse which may fairly be de- 1710 ADDISON AND SWIFT 693 scribed as prosaic. It had nothing of the high imagination which illuminated the pages of the great Elizabethan writers. It was sensible and intelligent, aiming not at rousing the feelings, but at being plainly understood. Addison, in his writings, for instance, mingled criticism with attractive arguments in favour of a morality of common sense, which he addressed to that numerous class which shrank from the high demands of Milton. Addison, like most other writers of the day, was a Whig, the political views of the Whigs having, at that time, a strong hold upon men of intelligence. Writers like Addison exercised consider- able influence over the frequenters of the London coffee-houses, where political affairs were discussed. The support of this class, usually spoken of as ‘the Town,’ was at that time more worth winning than either before or since. As there were no. Parlia- mentary reports, and no speeches on politics delivered in public, only those who li v ed near the place in which Parliament met could have any knowledge of the details of political action. They gained this knowledge from the lips of the actors, and were able, by their personal conversation, to influence in turn the conduct of the actors themselves. The services of a persuasive writer who had the ear of ‘ the Town’ was therefore coveted by everybody of ministers. 25. Jonathan Swift. — The writer won over by the Tory minis- ters was Jonathan Swift. He was unequalled in satirical power, arising from a combination of lucid expression with a habit of regarding the actions of men as springing from the lowest motives. He was a clergyman, and he wished to be a bishop. At first he attached himself to the Whigs. The Whigs, however, were un- willing, or perhaps unable, to give him what he wanted, his writings being of too unclerical a nature ; and all that they pro- cured for him was a living in Ireland, which he seldom visited. With personal motives were mingled more creditable reasons for disliking the Whigs. He was devoted to the interests of the Church of England, not as a fosterer of spiritual life, but as a bulwark against what he regarded as the extravagance of the Roman Catholics on the one hand, and of the Dissenters on the other. In the beginning of the reign Anne had made over the tenths and first-fruits of the English clergy, annexed to the Crown by Henry VI 1 1 , (see p. 390), to a body of commissioners, who were to use them for the increase of the means of the poorer clergy. Swift wanted to see this grant, usually known as Queen Anne’s Bounty, extended to Ireland. The Whig ministers had not only re- fused this, but had shown signs of intending to give the Dissenters 694 ANN^ 1710-1711 a share of political power. Swift was afraid that, if Parliament and public offices were thrown open to Dissenters, there would be again a government as fanatical as that which popular imagin?4? Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin; from the National Portrait Gallery. tion believed Cromwell’s to have been, and it was partly in con- sequence of this fear that he deserted the Whigs and joined the Tories. His first article in defence of his new allies was written in November 1710. A year later in November 1711, shortly after 1711 STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE HOUSES 695 the preliminaries of peace had been signed, appeared The Conduct of the Allies. Every action of the Dutch and of the Austrians was traced to mean cupidity, in order that England might be urged to look upon the war as a mere scramble for wealth and power, in which she was entitled to the largest share of the plunder. 26. The Imperial Election. 1711. — The English ministers, at least, could not lay claim to any superior morality. In the spring of 1711, although engaged in a secret negotiation with Louis, which led before the end of the year to the signature of prelimi- naries (see p. 692), they had sent Marlborough to Flanders with loud professions of intending to carry on the war vigorously, and Marlborough, though his wife had just been dismissed from all her posts at Court, set out with the full expectation of striking a decisive blow against the French. In this he failed, mainly for want of proper support from his own Government. On the other hand, the Archduke, now a candidate for the empire, justified Swift’s contention by recalling his own troops under Eugene to support his personal claims. In October 1711 he was chosen emperor as Charles VI., after leaving Marlborough with forces quite inadequate to the accomplishment of anything of import- ance. 27. The Occasional Conformity Act and the Creation of Peers. 1711. — When Parliament met on December 7, the Whigs, who at this time had very nearly a majority in the House of Lords, secured one by an unprincipled coalition with Nottingham, one of the strictest of Tories, who was discontented because he was excluded from office. They agreed to vote for the Occasional Con- formity Bill (see p. 680), to please him, and he agreed to vote for a warlike policy on the Continent, to please them. The Occasional Conformity Bill therefore became law, whilst the ministerial foreign policy was condemned by the House of Lords. The credit of that House stood high, and, though the ministers had the House of Commons at their back, most of them thought that it would be impossible to defy its censures. Harley, however, who was not easily frightened, persuaded the queen first to dismiss Marlborough from all his offices, and then to create twelve new Tory peers. By this means the ministry secured a majority in that House which had alone opposed them. Apart from the immediate questions of the day, this creation of peers had a wide constitutional significance. Just as the deposition of James H. had made it evident that if king and Parliament pulled different ways it was for the king to give way, so the creation of peers in 1711 made it evident that if the 696 ANNE 1712-1713 two Houses pulled different ways, it was for the House of Lords to give way. 28. The Armistice and the Treaty of Utrecht. 1712— 1713. — In 1712 the Duke of Ormond, a strong Tory, was sent to command in the Netherlands. After operations had commenced, he received a despatch from St. John not only restraining him from fighting, in consequence of an understanding with France, but directing him to conceal these orders from his Dutch allies. If Ormond had obeyed these orders, he would have exposed the Dutch to in- evitable defeat ; but he was too much of a gentleman to let his allies attack the enemy in the false belief that they ^vould be assisted by the English, and he therefore saved their army by disclosing his secret instructions. The negotiations with France were now pushed on. Shabby as the conduct of the ministers was, they had now the full confidence of the queen, who in 1711 made Harley Lord High Treasurer and Earl of Oxford, and, in 1712, made St. John Viscount Bolingbroke. In July the French fell upon Eugene and defeated him at Denain, and the Dutch, seeing the difficulty of carrying on war without English support, agreed to make peace on the terms proposed by England. On March 31, 1713, a treaty of peace, in which, for the present, the Emperor declined to share, was signed at Utrecht. 29. Terms of the Treaty of Utrecht. 1713. — As far as the continental Powers were concerned the main conditions of the Treaty of Utrecht were that Spain and the Indies should remain under Philip V., and that Sicily was to go to the Duke of Savoy, who was to bear the title of king of Sicily ; whilst Naples, the duchy of Milan, and the Spanish Netherlands were given to Charles VI., though the last-named territory was to be retained by the Dutch till he agreed to sign the Treaty. The Dutch were to be allowed to place garrisons in certain towns of the so-called barrier (see p. 674) on the southern frontier of what had lately been the Spanish Netherlands. England obtained the largest share of the material advantages of the peace, whilst she lost credit by her ill- faith in concealing her abandonment of her allies, and especially in giving up the Catalans to the vengeance of Philip. In Europe she was to keep Gibraltar and Minorca, and obtained from France a promise to destroy the fortifications of Dunkirk. In America she acquired territory round Hudson’s Bay, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the French part of St. Christopher’s. By an accompanying treaty with Spain, called the Assiento Treaty, she had the sole right of importing negro slaves into the Spanish colonies in America, a traffic which would now be scouted as infamous but 713 THE TREATY OF UTRECHT 697 which was then coveted as lucrative, and she also obtained the right of sending yearly to Panama a ship of 600 tons laden with goods for the Spanish colonists. 30. Effect of the Treaty of Utrecht on International rela- tions. — The general character of the Treaty of Utrecht is of greater historical importance than its details. It marks the end of a period of European history during which there was often some reality and always some pretence of combining together for common purposes of general interest, and not merely for the particular interests of the several states. Down to the Treaties of Westphalia (see p. 564) in 1648, Catholics had combined against Protestants and Protestants against Catholics. After that date, States which feared the overbearing insolence of Louis XIV. had combined against France. The Treaty of Utrecht ushered in a period lasting almost to the end of the eighteenth century, when each State stood up for its own interests alone, when no steady combinations could be formed, and when greed for material acces- sions was most conspicuous because no purpose of seeking the general good existed. Swift threw the blame upon the allies, and the Whigs threw the blame upon the Tories. The truth is that States combine readily through fear, and very seldom through a desire for the common good, and when Louis XIV. ceased to be formidable each State thought exclusively of its own interests. 31. England as a sea-power. 1713. — The success of the Tory ministers seemed complete. In reality, the very terms of the Treaty of Utrecht revealed their weakness. In seeking to gain material advantages for England, Oxford and Bolingbroke had been forced to look for them in advantages to trade, and in the in- crease of colonial dominion by which trade might be encouraged. Thereby they strengthened the trading class, which was the main support of the Whigs, whilst the landed gentry, on whom their own power mainly rested, received no benefit. Not that the Tories could well help doing what they had done. During the two wars which had been waged since the fall of James II. an immense change had been taking place in the relations between England and the other European States, irrespective of the victories of Marlborough in the field. Both France and the States General of the Dutch Netherlands had been forced to wage an exhausting war on their land frontier. The consequence was that the Dutch were no longer able to compete with the English at sea, and that Louis being, after the battle of La Hogue, compelled to limit his efforts either at sea or on land, decided to limit them at sea. The U\. . 2 ^ 698 ANNE 1713 result was, that though there were no important English naval victories between the battle of La Hogue and the Peace of Utrecht, the English navy at the end of the war was vastly superior to the navies of its only possible rivals, France and the Dutch Republic. Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke : from a picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller. England was now the one great sea-power in Europe, not so much through her own increasing strength as through the decay of the maritime vigour of other states. 1711-1714 the TORIES AND THE SUCCESSION 699 32. Position of the Tories. 1711— 1713.- The increase of maritime power necessarily leading to an increase of the influence of the commercial class, the Tory leaders were filled with alarm about the future, and tried to secure their power by legislation which, as they hoped, might arrest the changes which seemed likely in the future, and to strengthen their party by artificial means against changes of public opinion, much as the men of the Long Parliament and the Protectorate had formerly tried to do. In 1711 the Occasional Conformity Act had gone far to prevent Dissenters from holding office or sitting in Parliament, and earJier in the same year had been passed a Property Qualification Act which enacted that no one who did not hold land worth at least 200/. a year should sit in the House of Commons, thus excluding mere traders, who were for the most part Whigs. In 1713 the Tories were confronted with a further difficulty. Anne’s health was failing, and the legal heir, the Electress Sophia, and her son, the Elector of Hanover, were both favourable to the Whigs. The Tories began to talk of securing the succession to the Pretender, the son of James II., by force or fraud. If only he had changed his religion and had avowed himself a Protestant, it is almost certain that an effort, possibly successful, would have been made to place him on the throne when Anne died. The Pretender was a man of little capacity, but he was too honest to change his religion for worldly ends, and he flatly refused to do so. The Tories were split into hostile parties by his refusal. Some, the pure Jacobites, clung to him in spite of it ; some went over to the Whigs. The bulk of them were too bewildered to know what to do. They were aware that their supporters, the country gentry and the country clergy, would refuse to submit to a Roman Catholic king, and yet they could not voluntarily support the claims of the Electress Sophia and her son, whose succession they feared. To add to the distractions of the party its leaders, Oxford and Bolingbroke, quarrelled with one another. 33. The Last Days and Death of Anne. 1714. — In 1714 Swift suggested that the difficulty would be at an end if his friends would accept the Hanoverian succession, and at the same time so weaken the Whigs by repressive legislation that the new Hanove- rian sovereign would be obliged to govern in accordance with the will of the Tories. In pursuance of this plan Bolingbroke carried through Parliament a Schism Act, by which no one was allowed to keep a school without license from the bishop. Oxford, who was always in favour of a middle course, and ther«fore disliked violent 700 ANNE 1714 measures against the Dissenters, was driven from office, and Boling- broke then hoped to control the Government for some time to come. Before a successor to Oxford was appointed, whilst the ministers were without any distinct policy or acknowledged head, and whilst even Bolingbroke himself had not definitely made up his mind as to The Choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral church, looking west, as finished by Sir Christopher Wren; from an engraving by Trevit, about 1710. his future plans,. the queen was taken ill. Bollngbroke’s enemies, the Dukes of Somerset and Argyle, made their appearance unex- pectedly in the Council, and obtained the consent of the queen to the appointment of the Duke of Shrewsbury as Treasurer. The queen died on August i, and the Elector of Hanover, now heir tq 1714 THE Hano verian succession 70 i the Crown by the provisions of the Act of Settlement (see p. 672), in consequence of the recent death of his mother, the Electress Sophia, was at once proclaimed by the title of George I. 34. Politics and Art. — In art as in politics the end of the reign of Anne completes a change long in progress from the ideal to the convenient. As in affairs of state the material interests of the country gentleman and of the trader took the place of the great causes which called out the enthusiasm of Cavalier and Roundhead in the Civil War, so in art painting became a mode of perpetuating the features of those who were rich enough to pay for having their portraits taken ; and architecture, which had long forgotten the life and beauty of the mediaeval churches, was losing even the stateli- ness which Sir Christopher Wren gave to such buildings as the new St. Paul’s (p. 668) and Greenwich Hospital (p. 662). Even Wren could not give much of this high quality to steeples such as those of St. Bride’s, Fleet Street (p. 681), because the horizontal lines of an architecture derived from the Greeks through the Romans are unsuited to the soaring motive of a mediaeval spire ; nor could his domestic buildings, such as those at Hampton Court (pp. 665, 666), altogether overcome the necessity of making the inmates comfortable at the expense of architectural beauty. His successor, Vanbrugh, in building Blenheim Palace (see p. 683), sought out combinations neither graceful nor dignified in the hope of thereby avoiding that which was merely commonplace ; but on the whole it was the commonplace which was gaining ground, and which ultimately pervaded the domestic buildings raised during the greater part of the eighteenth century. yo2 CHAPTER XLV TOWNSHEND, SUNDERLAND, AND WALPOLE. 1714— 1737 LEADING DATES Reign of George I., 1714—1727. Accession of George I. Mar’s Rising The Septennial Act .... The South Sea Bubble Walpole, First Lord of the Treasury Accession of George II. The Excise Bill Death of Queen Caroline . Reign of George II., 1727-1760 August I, 1714 . 1715 . 1716 . 1720 . 1721 . June 12, 1727 • 1733 November 20, 1737 I. George I. and the Whigs. 1714. — Before George I.‘ arrived in England a thorough change was made by his orders in all the offices of Government. With scarcely an exception all Tories were 1 Genealogy of the first three Hanoverian kings : — James 1. 1603-1625 Charles I. 1625-1649 Elizabeth = Frederick V. , Elector Palatine Charles II. 1660-1685 James II. 1685-1689 Sophia = Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover I I Mary = William HI. Anne 1689-1694 1689-1702 1702 — 1714 George I. = Sophia Dorothea 1 7 14-1727 I of Celle George II. = Caroline of Anspach 1727-1760 I Frederick, William Augustus , Prince of Wales = Augusta of Duke of Cumberland died 1751 I Saxe-Gotha George III. 1760-1820 1714 ACCESS JON OF GEORGE 1. 703 dismissed, and Whigs appointed in their place. As tlie new king intended to take a leading part in the Government, he placed the more important offices in the hands of men who had hitherto been George I. : from an engraving by Vertue. less prominent than the great Whig leaders of Anne’s reign. The most conspicuous of the new ministers was Lord Townshend, who became Secretary of State. When the king arrived he found that 704 TOWNSHEND, SUNDERLANb, ^ WALPOLE 17 14 - 15 his own power was much less than he had expected. He could not speak English, and all communications between himself and his ministers were carried on in bad Latin. He therefore set the example, which all subsequent sovereigns have followed, of ab- staining from attending Cabinet meetings, where the discussion took place in a language unintelligible to him. This abstention had important constitutional results. The Cabinet, which for some time had been growing independent of the sovereign, became still more independent, especially as George knew no more of English ways than he knew of the English language, and was obliged to take most of the advice of his ministers on trust. He could not think of replacing them by Tories, because he had been led to look upon all Tories as Jacobites. 2. The Whigs and the Nation. 1714. The Whigs, however, needed the support of Parliament more than the support of the king. The great landowners who directed their policy were wealthy and intelligent, and therefore unpopular amongst the country gentry and the country clergy. They aimed at establishing a sort of aristocratic republic with a king nominally at its head, in which fair play should be given to the Dissenters, and the trading classes encouraged. Yet they were clear-sighted enough to perceive that it was impossible to govern without the support of the House of Commons ; and it was with the support of the House of Commons that the Tories in the last four years of Anne’s reign had maintained themselves in power by appealing to the prejudices of the country gentry and the country clergy. The Whig tenure of power was, therefore, not likely to last long unless they could find some means of crushing opponents who had been, and might easily be again, more popular than themselves. 3. The Whigs and Parliament. 1715.— For the moment, in- deed, the Whigs had the advantage. In 1715 a new Parliament was chosen, and many Tories who were, after all, not really Jaco- bites voted for Whig candidates in alarm lest their own leaders should bring back the Pretender, whom they distrusted as a Roman Catholic. The Whigs, therefore, had a majority in the House of Commons, whilst they had already recovered the majority in the House of Lords which they had temporarily lost by the recent creation of the Tory peers (see p. 695). In order to make their success permanent by getting rid of the leaders of the party opposed to them, the Whigs prepared to impeach Oxford, Bolingbroke, and Ormond as traitors, on the ground of the secret agreements which they had made with the French during the 1715-1716 THE OLD pRELENbMR ^05 negotiation of the Treaty of Utrecht. Oxford, with his usual cool- ness, stayed to face the attack, and got off with two years’ imprison- ment. Bolingbroke and Ormond fled to France, where Boling- broke entered the service of the Pretender as Secretary of Stata. Acts of attainder were passed against both. These high-handed proceedings of the Whigs nearly defeated their object. The German king had by this time become unpopular, and Jacobitism increased amongst the Tories, most of whom had submitted to him at his first coming. In all parts o^" England and Scotland large numbers made ready for a rising against his government. Boling- broke urged Louis XIV. to support them. Louis, however, died without having given his consent, and the Jacobites of Great Britain had to dispense with foreign aid. 4. Mar’s Rising. 1715 — 1716. — Under these circumstances Bolingbroke urged delay, but the Pretender — headstrong and in- competent — ordered the Earl of Mar, his chief supporter in Scot- land, to rise against the Government. On September 3 Mar took the field, and, on October 7, a gentleman of Northumberland, named Forster, declared for the Pretender in the north of England. The Whig ministers, unpopular as they were, had the advantage in their position as the actual rulers of the country, and, now that the Tory leaders had been got rid of, they had the advantage in ability. Argyle commanded for the Government in Scotland, and on November 13 he fought a drawn battle with Mar on Sheriffmuir. Though half of each army defeated half of the other, Mar — who throughout the whole campaign showed himself singularly incom- petent — allowed Argyle to secure the advantages of a victory. Forster, though supported by men of influence on both sides of the border — Lord Derwentwater from England and Lords Nithsdale and Kenmurefrom Scotland — showed himself as incompetent as Mar, and surrendered at Preston on the same day as that on which the battle was fought on Sheriffmuir. On December 2 the Pretender himself landed at Peterhead, and on January 6, 1716, he entered Dundee. He was, however, so dull and unenterprising that his very followers despised him, some even asking whether he could really speak. By this time the Government, having suppressed all attempts at resistance in England, was preparing to send a powerful army into Scotland, and the Pretender prudently took shipping for France, where he soon dismissed Bolingbroke, whose advice was too good to be to his taste. Derwentwater and Kenmure were beheaded on Tower Hill. Nithsdale escaped through the address of his wife, who visited him in prison, and sent him out dressed 7 o 6 TOWNSHEND, SUNDERLAND, Sf WALPOLE 1716 in her clothes. Thirty-eight persons of lower rank were put to death, and the estates of many others were forfeited. 5. The Septennial Act. 1716.— Successful as the Whigs had been in the field, they did not venture to face the elections to a new Parliament, which, in accordance with the Triennial Act (see p. 661), must be held in the beginning of 1718. Accordingly they passed a Septennial Act, by which the existing Parliament pro- longed its own duration for four years longer than was allowed by the law as it stood at the time when the House of Commons was chosen. This proceeding strained to the uttermost the doctrine that a British Parliament — unlike Parliaments in countries like the A Coach of the early part of the eighteenth century : from an engraving by Kip. present U nited States, in which a written constitution exists — can make any law it pleases, even if it effects the greatest changes in the institutions of the State. Hitherto the king had acted, as a restraint upon Parliament by exercising his right of refusing the Royal Assent to Bills. This prerogative, however, which had been exercised for the last time by Anne in 1707, now dropped out of use, and Parliament thereby became supreme as far as other branches of the Government were concerned. The question of its relations to the constituencies assumed new importance ; and in 1716 at least the Whigs were of opinion that the duration of Parliament should be lengthened in order to make the House of Commons more independent of them. They were afraid lest the supremacy which 1716 PEACE AND WAR lo’) had been wrested from the Crown should pass into the hands of an ignorant, ill-informed multitude. Yet they were unable — even if they had been willing — to make the House of Commons a per- manent oligarchy. As the duration of Parliament could not be in- definitely prolonged without provoking violent opposition, the Whigs had only gained a respite during which they would have to do their best to make themselves more acceptable to the nation than they were when the Septennial Act was passed. 6. England and France. 1716. — One of the chief causes of the fall of the Whigs in Anne’s reign had been their advocacy of war : now, however, they stood forward as the advocates of peace. In effecting this change of front they were helped by the disappear- ance of those of their leaders who had been foremost in the struggle with France. Somers, Halifax, and Wharton died before the end of 1716, and, though Marlborough still lived, he was incapacitated by disease from acting in public. Still more helpful to the Whig party was a change which had taken place in F ranee. The King of France was now a sickly child, Louis XV., the great-grandson of Louis XIV- If he died (as most people expected him to do), there would be two competitors for the throne of France— the one, his uncle Philip V. of Spain, the grandson of Louis XIV. (who was, indeed, his nearest male relation, but who, in accordance with the Treaty of Utrecht, had renounced all claim to the French throne), and the other, the duke of Orleans, who was now Regent of France,' and was the nearest male relation of Louis XV. after Philip V. As it was believed that, in the event of the young king’s death, Philip V. would assert his claim in spite of his renunciation, it was to the interest of the Duke of Orleans to be on friendly terms with ' Genealogy of the family of Louis XIV. : — Louis XIII. i6io — 1643 Louis XIV. = Maria Theresa 1643-1715 I of Spain Philip, Duke of Orleans Louis the Dauphin, Philip, Duke of Orleans, Regent died 1711 Louis, Duke of Burgundy, died 1712 Philip V., king 01 Spain Louis XV. 1715-1774 ^o8 TOWNSHEND, SUNDERLAND, HLlLPOlE 171^ England ; whilst it was equally to the interest of England to ex- clude Philip V. from the French throne, in order to prevent that union between France and Spain which the Whigs had striven to prevent in the late war. It therefore became possible for the Whigs to pursue their aim — the separation between France and Sp>ain — by that peaceful understanding with the F rench Government which had gained popularity for the Tories in the time of Anne. On An early form of Steam-pump for mines : from an engraving dated 1717. November 28, 1716, an agreement was arrived at by which the Regent promised his support to the Hanoverian succession in England, whilst England promised to support the exclusion of Philip V. from the throne of France. A few weeks later the Dutch gave their assent to this arrangement, and a triple alliance was thus formed against Philip and the Pretender. 7. The Whiff Schism. 1716 — 1717. — Though the Whig minis^ 1715-1719 SPLIT IN THE WHIG PAP TV 709 ters had their own way in most matters, they found it necessary to comply with the king in some things. He had two ruling motives — anxiety to strengthen the electorate of Hanover, and hatred of his own eldest son George, Prince of Wales. In the interests of Hanover he had, in 1715, purchased the secularised bishoprics of Bremen and Verden from Frederick IV., king of Denmark. Though the Whig ministers had consented to the purchase of these territories, some of them — especially Townshend and his brother-in-law Sir Robert Walpole, who was the ablest of the rising Whigs — had said hard things of the grasping Hanoverian favourites and mistresses, upon whom George squandered English gold. In 1716 the Tzar Peter the Great sent troops into Mecklenburg — the first interference of Russia in Western affairs ; and George, being anxious to keep the Russians at a distance, complained of Townshend for being unwilling to engage England in driving them out. Then, too, the king, who had quarrelled with the Prince of Wales, believed (prob- ably without foundation) that Townshend had shown some favour to the object of his displeasure, on which he took the Secretaryship from him, sending him to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant. In 1717 Charles XII. of Sweden, angry about Bremen and Verden, which he claimed for himself, formed an alliance with Spain — which was once more growing in vigour, under the care of Philip’s new Italian minister, Alberoni — and even projected an invasion of Scot- land in the interests of the Pretender. The scheme was discovered in England and averted. When Parliament was asked to vote money for a war against Sweden, Walpole spoke but coldly on behalf of the proposal. The king dismissed Townshend, and Walpole resigned. The Whig party being thus split in two, the leaders of the ministry as reconstituted were Sunderland and Stanhope, the latter being the general who had fought in Spain, and who was soon afterwards raised to the peerage as Lord Stanhope. 8. The Quadruple Alliance. 1718—1720. — In foreign affairs Sunderland and Stanhope maintained the alliance with France which had been the corner-stone of the policy of their prede- cessors. In 1717 Alberoni seized Sardinia, which had been given to Austria by the treaty of Utrecht, and sent an army into Sicily to begin the re-conquest of those Italian possessions which Spain had lost by the same treaty. In 1718 was formed a Quadruple Alliance, in which the Emperor joined Great Britain, France, and the Dutch Republic. A Spanish army overran the greater part of Sicily, but the Spanish fleet was destroyed by Admiral Sir George Byng off Cape Passaro. In Alberoni sent two frigates to land Jacobites in 710 TOWNSHEND, SUNDERLAND, ^ WALPOLE 1719-20 Scotland. The expedition failed, and France and England forced Philip to dismiss his minister. In 1720 Philip agreed to abandon both Sicily and Sardinia. Sicily was given to Austria, and Sar- dinia went to the Duke of Savoy, who now bore the title of King of Sardinia, instead of that of King of Sicily ; and soon afterwards the King of Spain removed the obstructions which he had hitherto thrown in the way of the execution of the clause in the Treaty of Utrecht by which the landing of goods at Panama from a single English ship had been permitted (see p. 697). After this Europe had peace for twelve years. 9. The Relief of the Dissenters, and the Peerage Bill. 1719. — The two sections of the Whigs were opposed to one another, rather upon personal than on political grounds. Walpole was, however, more cautious than Sunderland or Stanhope. Sunderland and Stanhope, in 1719, obtained the repeal of the Occasional Conformity Act and of the Schism Act, which had been the work of the tri- umphant Tories in the reign of Anne (see p. 699) ; but when they showed signs of wishing to repeal the Test Act of the reign of Charles II. (see p. 607), thereby not merely oftering religious liberty to Dissenters, but also proposing to qualify them for office, Walpole was startled, thinking that the unpopularity of such a measure might prove the ruin of the Whigs. The main subject of quarrel between the rival statesmen was, however, a Peerage Bill which Sunderland and Stanhope laid before Parliament. According to this proposal the king was to be allowed to create only six addi- tional peerages (except in the case of a member of the Royal F amily), after which he could only make a new peer upon the extinction of an old peerage. This measure, which passed the House of Lords, was rejected in the Commons, mainly in consequence of Walpole’s opposition. It is hardly to be doubted that its framers looked for- ward to the possible election of a Tory House of Commons, and wished to hinder a Tory minister from making himself master of the House of Lords by creating a large number of peers, as Harley and St. John had done in 1711 (see p. 695). According to them, the House of Lords was to be the bulwark of the Whigs against a Tory House of Commons. It was Walpole’s merit that he saw distinctly that this could not be, as the Bill, if it had passed, would have made the House of Lords a narrow oligarchy capable of setting at defiance both the Crown and the House of Commons. It was, moreover, clear to him that the Commons must from hence- forth be the chief member of the constitutional organisation. If the Whigs were to win the battle, they must win it by possessing 1720 JOINT- STOCK COMPANIES 71 1 a majority in the House of Commons, and not by setting up the artificial barrier of a restricted House of Lords. It is unlikely that Sunderland acknowledged the inferiority of his own statesmanship to that of Walpole, but he had felt his power, and in 1720 admitted both him and Townshend to subordinate offices in the government. 10. The South Sea Bubble. 1720. — Few things served the Whigs so well as their adoption of a policy of peace, to which their short war with Spain hardly furnished an exception. With the cessation of the risks due to war trade increased rapidly, and with the increase of trade came a violent increase of speculation. Joint-stock companies, which had hitherto been limited to a few Group showing costumes and sedan chair, about 1720 : from an engraving by Kip. great undertakings, were formed in large numbers. Some, being managed by men of experience, met with success ; whilst others, started by swindlers or by persons ignorant of trade, speedily collapsed, and ruined those who had embarked their capital in them. Amongst these latter the most prominent was the South Sea Company, which had been formed by Harley, in 171I) to carry on such trade with Spanish America as might be rendered possible by the expected treaty with Spain. Trade with the Spanish colonies was allowed by the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht to a single English ship in each year, and the Assiento treaty had also granted to the English the right of importing negroes into them (see p. 696). All classes in England were under the delusion that the 712 TOWNSHEND, S UNDEELAND, WALPOLE 1721-27 was hard to see how the House of Commons could represent the people at large, because, for the most part, the people were too ignorant and ill-educated to have any political opinions at all. The electors, if left to themselves, might return a Parliament as Tory as had been the Parliaments which had supported Oxford and Bolingbroke. Therefore the Whigs, even before Wal^pole secured power, had determined that the electors should not be left to themselves. In many boroughs the right of voting was confined to the corporation ; and as large numbers of these • boroughs were mere villages or even hamlets, the members of their corporations were poor men — easily accessible to arguments addressed to their pockets. The wealthiest lando^vner in the neighbourhood was usually a \Vhig, who would use his influence and his purse in securing the election of his own nominee. Electors found that, if they voted for the Whig candidate, their lives would be made easy to them, whilst if they voted for the Tory candidate they would be much worse off. In the House of Commons itself the same system of corruption was pursued. What amount of ready money Walpole paid to his supporters has been disputed, and it was certainly much less than has usually been supposed ; but he had in his gift all the offices held under the Crown, a large number of which were sinecures with large pay and no duties. Needy members discovered that if they wanted money they must support Walpole, and ambitious members discovered that if they wanted office they could only obtain it by supporting Walpole. It is therefore not surprising that all the rising talent in the country declared itself Whig. 14. Walpole and Corruption. — Yet, evil as this system was, it was rendered tolerable by the knowledge that the only alternative — the return of the Tory party to power, probably bringing with it a restoration of the Stuart dynasty — would have been still more disastrous. The political creed of the Tory squires and of the Tory clergy was founded on religious intolerance and contempt for trade. What they wanted was a king who would keep down dissenters and moneyed men, and accordingly most of the Tories had by this time become Jacobites. The great WTiig nobles, on the other hand, were for religious toleration and for weakening the power of the king. The Whigs gained the day, partly because they were more intelligent than their rivals, partly because the predominance even of a corrupt House of Commons — with its free speech and its show of government by argument rather than by arbitrary will — was in itself advantageous as matters then stood. 1722-1726 ST. TIN'S CHUNCH 715 The interior of St. Martin's-in-the- Fields, London , built by James Gibbs, 1722-1726. 7i6 TOWNSHEND, SC/NDE ELAND, 6- WALPOLE 172T-27 In all this work they found a fitting leader in Walpole. He was devoted to duty and was single-eyed in devoting himself to the in- terests of his country ; but his manners and his mind were alike coarse, and he did not shrink from the employment of the lowest means to accomplish his ends. On the other hand it may be said in his favour that he was not vindictive, and that he contented himself with excluding his rivals from power, without even seeking to inflict punishment upon them. 15. ‘Quieta non movere.’ — Walpole took for his motto Quieta non movere (let sleeping dogs lie). In many periods of English history such a confession would have been disgraceful to a states- man. In Walpole’s days it was an honourable one. The work before him was to maintain toleration and constitutional govern- ment, and he was aware that he could only hope for success if he Ploughing with oxen in the eighteenth century. avoided awakening the ignorant passions which were slumbering around. He remembered the storm of popular rage to which the Whigs had been exposed in the time of the Sacheverell trial (see p. 690), and he was resolved to show no favour to the Dissenters which would provoke another outburst against them. The Dis- senters were most eager to obtain a repeal of the Test Act (see p. 606) for themselves, though not for the Catholics. Walpole, who knew the anger which would be excited if he proposed such a measure, always told them that the time was not convenient. At last they asked him to tell them when the time would be convenient. “ I will answer you frankly,” was his reply, “ Never ! ” Year after year, however, he passed through Parliament a Bill indemnifying all persons who had held offices in defiance of the Test Act, and thus Dissenters got what they wanted without exciting attention. 16. The Prime Ministership.— When any number of men meet 1721-1727 CABINET system n? together to transact business, there must be one to take the lead if their meetings are not to end in confusion. Till the death of Anne, Cabinets had met in the presence of the sovereign, and were regarded as his or her advisers. Yet even then their growing independence was beginning to make it necessary for them to find a leader or leaders in their own body, and people began to look first to Marlborough and Godolphin and then to Harley and St. John as superior to other members of the Cabinet, and even to apply to one or the other of them loosely the term ‘ first minister.’ After the accession of George I., when the king ceased to sit in the Cabinet, it became still more necessary for that body to find a leader, and Townshend at first and afterwards Sunderland are sometimes spoken of by modern writers as Prime Ministers. No such position was, however, openly assigned to them by contem- poraries, and when Walpole entered office in 1721 ministers were still regarded as equal amongst themselves. It was Walpole’s chief contribution to constitutional progress that he created the Prime Ministership in his own person, and thereby gave to Cabinet government that unity which every government must possess if its action is to be enduring, and which earlier governments possessed through the presidency of the king. Yet so. hateful was the new idea that Walpole had to disclaim any intention of making himself Prime Minister ; and the word came into familiar TOWmH^lND, StlNDERtANb, WALPOLE 1723-2^ use by being applied to him tauntingly by his enemies, as the fit name for a minister who wanted to convert all other ministers into his instruments instead of regarding them as his equals. 17. Walpole and Carteret. 1723 — 1724. — Walpole’s first trial of strength was with Lord Carteret, one of the Secretaries of State, a man of great ability, who had the advantage of being able to address the king in German, whilst Walpole had to address him in Latin. Walpole founded his policy of peace on an alliance with France, whilst Carteret inherited the tradition of the Whigs of Anne’s reign in favour of a continental alliance against F ranee. Between Carteret and Walpole a rivalry soon sprang up, and in 1724 Carteret was forced to resign the Secretaryship, though he remained a member of the Cabinet for some time to come. 18. Wood’s Halfpence. 1724. — The first instance of Walpole’s method of averting popular discontent by avoiding a collision with strong feeling arose when a grant was made to a certain Wood of the right of issuing a copper coinage in Ireland. The coins were good in themselves, but Wood had bought the right of coining them by bribes to the king’s German mistresses, and Irishmen naturally concluded that they were to pay the cost. Swift, delighted at the opportunity of scourging his old enemies the Whigs, poured scorn and ridicule upon Wood’s Halfpence in ‘ The Drapier’s Letters,’ and for the first time in Irish history both races and both creeds were united in resistance to the obnoxious grant. Walpole dreaded a disturbthised with Maria Theresa, and George IJ. warmly supported Election Scenes— The Chairing of the Member : from a painting by Hogarth. 736 WALPOLE, CARTERET, THE PELHAMS 1743 her against the French. Carteret’s policy was to bring about a good understanding between Frederick and Maria Theresa, and to unite all Germany against the French. He very nearly suc- ceeded in his object. In 1743 George II. was in Germany at the head of an army of Hessians and Hanoverians, combined with Election Scenes— The Election Dinner : from a painting by Hogarth, 1743-1744 CARTERET^S FOREIGN POLICY 737 Dutch and Austrian forces. On June 27 he defeated the French at Dettingen on the Main. In July the new Bavarian emperor undertook to desert the French on condition of receiving a subsidy from England ; and if this arrangement had been carried out, all Germany would probably have been united against France. New- castle, however, being jealous of Carteret, and too timid to embark on so far-sighted a combination, refused to sanction the agree- ment, and the German powers were soon once more in strife with one another. In 1744 Frederick and Maria Theresa were again at war, and France — with which, in spite of the battle of Dettingen, only the German Electorate of Hanover, and not England, had as yet been avowedly at war — now declared war against England. Charles Edward, the son of the Pretender — who was known in England as the Young Pretender, and amongst his own friends as the Prince of Wales — was sent with a French fleet to invade England. The fleet was, however, shattered by a storm, and the danger was thus for a time averted. II. Carteret and the Family Compact. 1743 — 1744. — Carteret’s object had been to take up again the policy of the Whigs of Anne’s time as opposed to the policy of the time of Walpole. The former had aimed at a general European combination against France, the latter at keeping the peace by a French alliance. Reasons were not wanting for such a change of policy. France was now formidable, not only on account of her renewed military strength, but by reason of her close alliance with Spain (with which Eng- land was still at war), the Family Compact — first signed in 1733 (seep. 725) — having been renewed in 1743. Carteret, who had a better knowledge of Continental affairs — and especially of German affairs — than any man of his day, thought it wise to oppose so dangerous a combination. There were, however, many difficulties in his way, even as far as the Continent was concerned. The German powers were too intent on their own quarrels to be easily brought to care for common interests, and, as far as England was concerned, Carteret could not reasonably expect support. England had roused herself sufficiently to care for the welfare of her trade and the protection of her smugglers, but she was far more of a maritime than of a Continental power ; and, whilst the effects of the Family Compact — not a syllable of which had yet been made public — were seen in a close alliance between France and Spain on the Continent, no such effects had as yet been seen at sea. When Spain was attacked by England in 1739 France had given no help to her ally. As Carteret was more 7^8 WALPOLE, CARTERET, THE PELHAMS 1744 remiss even than Walpole in carrying on the maritime war against Spain, people unfairly thought that all his continental schemes were merely the fruit of his subservience to the king’s predilection for anything that would profit the Hanoverian electorate. Pitt, who afterwards took up much of Carteret’s policy, thundered against him with passionate invective as the base minister who was selling the interests of England for the profit of Hanover. 12. Carteret’s Fall. 1744. — Other causes contributed to weaken Carteret. He had no voice in the military arrangements, and the armies were put under w^om-out or incompetent officers. His greatest weakness, however, arose from his never having sat in the House of Commons, and his consequent inability to under- stand its ways. “ I want,” he said to a young politician, “ to instil a noble ambition into you ; to make you knock the heads of the kings of Europe together, and jumble out something that may be of service to this country.” “ What is it to me,” he said on an- other occasion, “ who is made a judge or who is a bishop ? It is my business to make kings and emperors, and to maintain the balance of Europe.” “ Then,” was the obvious reply, “ those who want to be bishops and judges will apply to those who submit to make it their business.” Newcastle, at least, stuck to the work of making judges and bishops, and thereby gained the House Grenadier of the First Regiment of Footguards, 1745. Uniform of the Footguards, 1745 - i744 CARTERET'S FALL 739 of Commons to his side. He insisted on Carteret’s dismissal, and on November 23, 1744, Carteret — who had just become, by his mother’s death, Earl Granville — was driven, in spite of the king’s warm support, to resign office. 13. The Broad-bottomed Administration. 1744. — Henry Pel- ham, Newcastle’s brother, who had for some time been First Lord of the Treasury, now became virtually Prime Minister. He was a good man of business, and anxious to return to Walpole’s policy of peace. His administration was distinguished as the Broad- bottomed Administration, because everyone whose influence or talents rendered him at all dangerous was at once given a place in it. The consequence was that, for the only time since party- government began, there was no Opposition in the House of Commons. For the present, indeed, the king refused to admit Pitt to office, but Pitt knew that the ministers were friendly to him, and abstained from attacking them. When once, however, the Pelhams had turned out Granville, they forgot their professions, and squandered English money on Hanoverian troops and German princes, without any of Carteret’s genius to enable them to use their allies for any good purpose whatever. A large British force, indeed, joined the allies to defend the Netherlands against a French army at that time under a great general. Marshal Saxe ; and on May II, 1745, a battle was fought at Fontenoy. The British column, headed by the king’s second son, the Duke of Cumber- land, pressed steadily on into the heart of the French line, and, driving everything before it, all but won the day. The Dutch, however, failed to second it, and the French guard, falling upon the isolated column, drove it back. The British army had main- tained its honourable traditions, but the French gained the battle ; and the frontier towns of the Austrian Netherlands fell at once into their hands. 14. The Young Pretender in Scotland. 1745. — The French victory at Fontenoy encouraged Charles Edward to try his fortunes in Scotland. On July 25, 1745, he landed in Moidart, in the West Highlands, with only seven friends, known afterwards as the “ seven men of Moidart.” The few Highland chiefs who came to meet him shook their heads at his rash enterprise ; but his gallant bearing and persuasive words soon swept away their scruples, and they bade their clans follow a prince who had thrown himself on the generosity of the Highlanders. On August 19 Charles Edward raised the Royal Standard in Glenfinnan, and was soon at the head of 1,600 men. It was a small force with 740 WALPOLE, CARTERET, THE PELHAMS 1744-45 which to overrun Scotland, but the Prince had the best of allies in the incapacity of the British commander, Sir John Cope. Military commands were at that time bestowed on men whose friends had influence enough to secure votes to the government in Parliament ; and inquiry was seldom made, when an officer was selected for promotion, whether he was in any way fit for the post. Cope inexplicably withdrew to Inverness, and Charles Edward marched straight upon Edinburgh, In Scotland the traders, having gained much by the Union, were Hanoverians to a man ; ^ but a large part of the population of Edinburgh regretted the loss of the advantages which the town had possessed as a capital, and there was, more- over, a widespread dissatisfaction with the Hanoverian govern- ment, because it had imposed an excise on whisky. In Edinburgh, therefore, Charles Edward was welcomed. Before long Cop>e returned by sea from Inverness to Dunbar, at the head of his little army of 2,200 men. On the morning of September 21, as day was breaking, Charles Edward, now at the head of 2,500 Highlanders, fell upon him at Preston Pans. With a yell and a rush, the Highlanders broke up the English ranks. Cope him- self was amongst the foremost in the flight. 15. The March to Derby. 1745. — Many of the Highlanders returned to their glens with their booty, but reinforcements streamed in, and Charles Edward, now at the head of 6,000 men, crossed the Border, hoping to rouse England in his support. England was strangely apathetic. Walpole and the Whigs had weaned English- men of Jacobitism, but they had never appealed to any popular sentiment, and though few joined Charles Edward, there was no general rising against him. They found numbers were gathering round. They gave London a good fright. The king’s guards were sent out to Finchley to defend London, and troops from other quarters gathered menacingly round Charles Edward’s line of march. When on December 5 the Highlanders reached Derby, they were exposed to an attack fi-om forces far superior to their own ; and, further progress being hopeless, they turned back. The king had made ready to leave England if necessary ; and it is said that on Black Friday — as it was called — the Bank of England cashed cheques in sixpences, in order to delay payment as long as possible. 16. Falkirk and Culloden. 1746. — Charles Edward won one more victory. On January 17 he defeated Hawley — a general as 1 The character of Baillie Nicol Jarvie in Scott’s ' Rob Roy ’ conveys much instruction on this point. 1745-1746 THE YOUNG PRETENDER 741 incompetent as Cope— at Falkirk. The Duke of Cumberland, how- ever, advanced into Scotland with an army of 8,000, whilst Charles Edward (who retreated to Inverness) had now but 5,000 with him. Cumberland was not a great general, but he had some knowledge of the art of war. His men, moreover, were well drilled, and the advantage of superior training soon became manifest. On the 742 WALPOLE, CARTERET, THE PELHAMS 1746 morning of April 16, Charles Edward tried to surprise Cumberland on Culloden Moor. The Highlanders arrived too late in the field for a surprise, but they charged as vigorously as at Preston Pans. They broke the first line of the enemy, but the second line held The Rt. Hon. William Rut, Raymasictr ot tne r urce^, atterwards Earl of Chatham : from a painting by Hoare. firm, and they were broken in turn. Cumberland slaughtered his now helpless enemies with unrelenting cruelty, and gained for him- self the name of the Butcher, which he never lost. The wounded were dragged from their hiding-places and shot, and a building in 745-1754 last YEATS OF HENRY PELHAM 743 which twenty disabled Highlanders had sought refuge was burnt to the ground with the wretched fugitives inside it. Charles Edward himself wandered long amongst the mountains. Though a heavy price was set on his head, not a Highlander would betray him. At one moment, when escape seemed impossible, a young lady. Flora Macdonald, dressed him as her maidservant, and thus carried him off in safety. At last he succeeded in making his way back to France. His later life was aimless, and he sank into drunkenness. He did not die till 1788, and his brother Henry, who had become a Cardinal, survived till 1807. Henry was the last descendant, in the male line, of the House of Stuart, though there are descendants of Henrietta, the youngest daughter of Charles I., still living, amongst whom the most conspicuous is the present King of Italy. 17. The Pelhams and the King. 1745. — The Pelhams made use of the struggle in Scotland to press for Pitt’s admission to the ministry, and, on the king’s refusal, resigned office. George II. ordered Granville (see p. 739) to form a ministry, but Granville found it impossible to gain the support of a majority in the Houses, and in forty-eight hours he gave up the task. The Pelhams were reinstated in power, bringing Pitt with them. It was the first thorough acknowledgment by a king that he was powerless in the face of Parliament. It is true that the majority commanded by the Pelhams was secured by unblushing corruption ; but there was as yet no popular sentiment opposed to that corruption to which the king could appeal. 18. End of the War. 1746—1748. — The war on the Continent still continued. The French overran the Austrian Netherlands, but were checked in Italy, whilst the English were successful at sea. At last, in 1748, a general peace was made at Aix-la-Chapelle, every power restoring its conquests with the exception of F rederick, who kept Silesia for Prussia. 19. End of Henry Pelham’s Ministry. 1748 — 1754. — The re- mainder of Henry Pelham’s ministry was uneventful. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII. had set straight an error which had grown up in the Calendar, and the new Gregorian Calendar had by this time been adopted by most European powers. England, however, had long objected even to be set right by a Pope, and in the eighteenth century the almanac was eleven days wrong. What was really, for instance, September ii was known in England as September i. In 1751 an Act of Parliament ordered that eleven days should be dropped out of the calendar, in order to make the reckoning correct. Large numbers of people fancied that they were cheated out of 744 WALPOLE, CARTERET, ^ THE PELHAMS eleven days’ pay, and mobs went about, shouting, “ Give us our eleven days.” In 1754 Henry Pelham died. The new constitu- tional doctrine that England was governed by the Cabinet, and that the Cabinet could retain office irrespective of the king’s good- will if it could secure the support of Parliament, was now fully established. Books recommended for the further study of Part VIII. Macaulay, Lord. History of England. Vols. iii.-v. Stanhope, Lord. Reign of Anne. = History of England from the Peace of Utrecht. Vols. i.-iv. Harrop, R. Bolingbroke. Parnell, Colonel. War of the Spanish Succession. Stebbing, W. Peterborough. Lecky, W. E. H. History of England in the Eighteenth Century. Vols. i. ii. Morley, J. Walpole. Ballantyne, a. Lord Carteret. Mahan, Capt. A. T. The Influence of Sea Power upon History, Chapters iv.-vii. Lodge, R. The Political History of England. Vol. viii. (1660-1702). Leadam, T. S. The Political History of England. Vol. ix. (1702-1760). PART IX THE FALL OF THE WHIGS AND THE RISE OF THE NEW TORYISM. 1754—1789 CHAPTER XLVII NEWCASTLE AND PITT. 1754 — 1760 LEADING DATES Reign of George II., 1727—1760 Newcastle Prime Minister 1754 Beginning of the Seven Years’ War 1756 Ministry of Devonshire and Pitt 1756 Coalition between Pitt and Newcastle 1757 Conquest of Cape Breton 1758 Capture of Quebec 1759 Conquest of Canada 1760 Death of George II Oct. 25, 1760 Formation of the East India Company 1600 Death of Aurungxebe 1707 Clive’s Defence of Arcot . . 1751 Battle of Plassey 1757 Battle of Wandewash . . 1760 I. Butler, Wesley, and Whitefield. 1736 — 1754. — In religion as well as in politics everything savouring of enthusiasm had long been scouted, and in polite society little of moral earnestness was to be found. There had, indeed, been much discussion as to the truth of Christianity, and for a long time there was a steady growth of opinion in favour of deism. Latterly, however, there had been a strong reaction in favour of Christian doctrines. Their noblest advocate, Butler, whose Analogy was published in 1736, writing as he did for educated men, appealed to the reason rather than to the heart. The task of moving the masses fell into the hands of John III, 3 C 746 NEWCASTLE AND PITT 1738-1754 Wesley, who had in his youth striven to live a pious, beneficent life at Oxford, where he and his followers had been nicknamed Metho- dists. In 1738, Wesley came to believe that no real Christianity was possible without conversion, or a supernatural conviction of salva- tion. That which he believed he taught, and his enthusiasm gained him followers, in whom he kindled zeal equal to his ovra. Wesley was a minister of the Church of England, and in that Church he wished to abide ; but the clergy counted him as a madman, and, in 1739, he was obliged to gather his followers elsewhere than in churches. Whitefield, a bom orator, whose views were very similar to those of Wesley, preferred to preach in the open air. He stirred the hearts of immense crowds, as many as twenty thousand some- times coming to hear him. At Kingswood, near Bristol, the colliers flocked to him in multitudes, their tears flowing down in w'hite streaks over faces blackened with coal-dust Wesley was, however, the organiser of the movement, and gathered into con- gregations those who had been converted, teaching them to con- fess their sins one to another, and to relate in public their spiritual experiences. There was no room for such enthusiasm in the Church of that day, and, much against his will, Wesley was compelled to organise his congregations outside the Church. What he and WTiitefield did had a value, apart from their system and teaching. They reminded their generation that man has a heart as well as a head, and that the cultivation of the intellect is not aU that is necessary to raise human nature above bmtality ; and thus they stirred to higher and purer thoughts thousands of their countiyrnen who were sunk in inertness and vice. As a matter of course they were persecuted, and men of intelligence and position thought it w'ell that it should be so. 2. Fielding and Hogarth. — In literature and art, as well as in religion, a new life w^as making itself manifest. Fielding, in his ‘Tom Jones’ and ‘Joseph Andrews,’ has been styled the creator of the modem novel in its portraiture of living humanity. Hogarth w^as undoubtedly the originator of an English school of painting. Both Fielding and Hogarth were often coarse in expression, but their tendencies w'ere moral, and their work robust and vigorous. 3. Newcastle, Pitt, and Fox. 1754 — 1755. — In politics, too, the time of drow'sy inaction was coming to an end. “ Now,” said George II., when he heard of Pelham’s death, “I shall have no peace.” Newcastle was, indeed, appointed First Lord of the Treasury and was regarded as Prime Minister in his brother’s place, but Newcastle had not his brother’s capacity for business. 1754 A COMING WAR 747 and, besides that, he was not in the House of Commons. He must choose some one to lead the House of Commons, and there were three persons on whom his choice might fall : Murray, Pitt, and Henry Fox. Murray, who was the greatest lawyer of the day, had no ambition except that of becoming Chief Justice, and was disqualified by his professional turn of mind from occupying a political post. Newcastle objected to Pitt as too opinionated, whilst Fox seemed just the man to suit him. Newcastle and Fox both loved corruption, but whilst Newcastle loved it for the sake of the pleasure of exer- cising patronage, F ox loved it for the sake of its profits. F ox was the ablest debater of his day, and might have risen high if he had not preferred to hold unimportant but well-paid posts rather than impor- tant posts of which the pay was less. He now refused Newcastle’s proposal that he should lead the House of Commons^ because New- castle insisted on keeping the secret-service money — in other words, the money spent in bribing men to vote for the government — in his own hands. Fox truly said that it was impossible for him to ask members for their votes unless he knew whether they had been bribed or not. Accordingly Newcastle appointed Sir Thomas Robinson to lead the House. Robinson was a diplomatist, who having been long absent from England, knew nothing about the ways of members. Pitt and Fox, agreeing in nothing else, joined in baiting Robinson. Whenever he made a mistake they ironically took his part on the ground that he had been so long abroad that he could not be expected to know better. Robinson threw up his post in disgust, and, in 1755, Fox abandoning the conditions on which he had formerly insisted became Secretary of State with the leadership of the House of Commons. 4. The French in America. 1754. — In 1754, when Newcastle succeeded his brother as Prime Minister, there was already danger of a war with France. In North America France possessed Louis- iana, at the mouth of the Mississippi, and Canada, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence. Between the two was a vast region, at that time only inhabited by Indians, who used it for purposes of hunting, and sold furs to the French Canadians. France, which already possessed a line of scattered forts between Canada and Louisiana, claimed the whole of the region to the west of the Alleghany Mountains as her own. On the other hand, there were now thirteen English colonies, and the colonists were beginning to find their way westward over the mountains, especially at the head of the Ohio river, refusing to be penned in by the French forts be- yond the Alleghanies. Between the English and the F rench colonists 748 NEWCASTLE AND PITT 1754-1756 fighting began in 1754. The contest then begun was one for the possession of the basin of the Ohio, though the possession of that would ultimately bring with it the power to colonise the far vaster basin of the Mississippi and its affluents. Therein lay the answer to a further question, as yet unsuspected, whether the English or the French was to be the predominating race in America and in the world of the future. Great Britain was once more drifting into a war which, like the war with Spain in 1739, would be one for mercantile and colonial expansion. The difference was that, whereas in 1739 she was matched with the decaying mon- archy of Spain, she was now matched against the vigorous mon- archy of France. The Family Compact uniting Spain and France had as yet caused little real danger to England. As France had shown no signs of supporting Spain in America in 1739, Spain showed no signs of supporting France in 1754. 5. Newcastle’s Blundering. 1754 — 1756. — Newcastle was not the man to conduct a great war successfully. In 1754, hearing that the French had established a fort called Fort Duquesne, at the head of the Ohio valley, he sent General Braddock from England to capture it. In 1755 Braddock, one of those brave, but unintel- ligent officers of whom there were many in the British service, falling into an ambuscade of French and Indians, was himself killed and his troops routed. Newcastle could not make up his mind whether to fight or not. It was finally resolved that, though war was not to be declared, Hawke was, by way of reprisal for the capture of British shipping, to seize any French ships he met with. Naturally, when Hawke carried out these instructions, the French regarded the seizure of their ships as an act of piracy. Meanwhile George II. was frightened lest Hanover should be lost if a war broke out, and, by his direction, Newcastle agreed to treaties giving subsidies to various German states and even to Russia, in return for promises to find troops for the defence of Hanover. Against this system Pitt openly declared himself “ I think,” he said, “ regard ought to be had to Hanover, if it should be attacked on our account ; but we could not find money to defend it by subsidies, and if we could that is not the way to defend it.” Behind Pitt was the rising spirit of the nation, eager to enter on a struggle for colonial empire, but not wishing to incur loss for the sake of the king’s German electorate. Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a close ally of Pitt, refused to give the money needed to pay a subsidy to Hesse, and both he and Pitt were dismissed from their offices. Newcastle had an overwhelming majority in both Houses, but so helpless was he that in 1756 he 1756 r^EWCASTLE'S RESIGNATION 749 actually asked the king to bring Hanoverian and Hessian soldiers to England to save it from a French invasion. 6. The Loss of Minorca. 1756. — The weakness of the Govern- ment weakened the hands of its officers. In 1756 a French fleet and army assailed Port Mahon, in the island of Minorca, which was still a British possession. Admiral Byng set out to relieve it, but, though he was brave, he was deficient in energy, and, finding the French ships more numerous than his own, thought it prudent to withdraw without serious fighting. Before long the whole of Minorca fell into the hands of the French. Port Mahon and Gibraltar were the two ports on which English maritime operations in the Mediterranean could be based, and it is therefore no wonder that there was a howl of indignation in England at the loss of one of them. The popular theory was that Byng had been bribed to avoid fighting. The charge was utterly false, but so many bribes were taken in those days that it cannot be said to have been un- reasonable. Byng was brought home to await his trial. 7. Beginning of the Seven Years’ War. 1756. — After this, war was at last declared. What might have been the result if England and France had been obliged to fight it out alone, it is impossible to say. France, however, had other enemies than England. Whilst England had only a sea frontier, France had a land frontier as well, and, therefore, whilst England was able to throw her main strength into a struggle for mastery on the sea and for the acquisition of colonies, France threw her main strength into her efforts to become predominant by land, and consequently neglected her navy and her colonies. She now, at the very time when England was ready to challenge her power in America, em- barked on a war in Europe which was alone sufficient to occupy her energy. This time she forsook her old policy of hostility to Austria, and joined with Austria, Russia, and the German states to attack and dismember Prussia. The war which was thus begun in 1756 is known as the Seven Years’ War. 8. Ministry of Devonshire and Pitt. 1756 — 1757. — So strong was the feeling aroused by Newcastle’s incompetence that his own subordinates were frightened. In October, 1756, Fox resigned, and no one could be found to fill his place. Murray would give no help to the ministry, and was allowed to become Chief Justice, with the title of Lord Mansfield, under which he is known as one of the greatest of English judges. Newcastle, helpless and frightened lest the mob which was raving for the hanging of Byng should want to hang him too, also resigned. The Duke of Devonshire 750 NEWCASTLE AND PITT 1756-1757 became First Lord of the Treasury, with Pitt as Secretary of State and practically Prime Minister. At once Pitt took vigorous measures for the prosecution of the war. Money was raised, and men levied. It was not, however, merely by his energy that Pitt differed from the former ministers. Newcastle relied on a Parliamentary majority acquired by influence and corruption ; Pitt had confidence in the nation and in himself as well. “ My Lord,” he said to Devonshire, “ I know that I can save this nation and that nobody else can.” He understood how to inspire the con- fidence which he needed. He sent out of England the Hanoverian and Hessian troops which had been brought over to protect the country, and passed a Bill for re-organising the national militia. He even raised regiments in the very Highlands, out of the men who had been the most vigorous enemies of the House of Hanover, knowing that the Highlanders had fought under Charles Edward far more because they were poor than because they reverenced the House of Stuart. On the other hand, he moved for a grant of 200,000/. for the protection of Hanover. It seemed as if Pitt was about to fall back on the policy of Carteret. There was, however, this difference, that whereas with Carteret the war on the Continent was alone thought of, with Pitt intervention on the Con- tinent was regarded as subsidiary to the great colonial struggle on which England was now embarked. 9. Pitt’s Dismissal. 1757. — Pitt was the most popular man in England, but he had only a scanty following in the House of Com- mons, and he was disliked by the king on account of his former declamations against payments for the sake of Hanover. Whilst he was in office Byng was brought to trial and condemned to be shot as a coward, which he certainly was not. Pitt pleaded for Byng’s life with the king, telling him that the House of Commons was favourably disposed. “You have taught me,” was George’s reply, “ to look for the sense of my people in other places than the House of Commons.” Byng received no pardon, and died bravely, having been guilty of no more than an error of judgment. Soon afterwards the king dismissed Pitt. At once there was an outburst of feeling in his favour. “For some weeks,” wrote a brilliant letter-writer of the day, “ it rained gold boxes.” The reference was to the boxes in which numerous corporations sent the freedom of their respective cities or boroughs to Pitt. 10. Nature of Pitt’s Popularity. 1757. — Pitt’s popularity, though wide-spread, was not like that by which a popular statesman is supported at the present day. It was not a popularity amongst A call FOk PITT 751 1757 the nation at large, of which the majority could not at that time either read or write, or appreciate a political discussion. Pitt’s enthusiastic admirers were to be found amongst the merchants and tradesmen of the towns. These were the men who had built up England’s commercial prosperity by their thrift and honesty. Amongst them the profligacy, the drunkenness, and the gambling which disgraced polite society found little place. They had borne long with Newcastle and his like because times had been quiet, and the Government, scandalous as it was, never harassed English- men in their business or their pleasure. Now that times were dangerous they called for Pitt — the Great Commoner, as they styled him — to assume power, not because they were conscious of his latent capacity for statesmanship, but because they knew him to be even ostentatiously uncorrupt. To the end of his life Pitt called himself a Whig, but his hostility to a system of government in which patronage was distributed to those who could bring most votes to the Government, without regard to merit, led him to place himself in opposition to Newcastle, and ultimately led to his es- trangement from the great Whig families. By opposing power derived from popular support to power based on parliamentary connection, he introduced into constitutional struggles an element which had long been left out of account, and thus became (though unintentionally) a precursor of the new Toryism which, in the hands of his son, broke the power of the Whigs. II. Coalition between Pitt and Newcastle. 1757. — The middle class in the towns formed, at this time, the most vigorous element in English society ; but it disposed of few votes in Parlia- ment. The great majority in the House of Commons sought for loaves and fishes, and as they knew that incompetency might hope for reward from Newcastle but not from Pitt, they steadily voted as Newcastle bade them, even after he had ceased to hold office. Newcastle, however, could not make up his mind whether he wished to resume office or not. He was too fond of the lower sort of power to share it willingly with any colleague whose in- telligence was greater than his own, and too timid to grasp authority at a time when it was dangerous to its possessor. Ac- cordingly, he long vacillated between acceptance and refusal, and for eleven weeks there was no ministry at all. At last an admirable arrangement was made. A coalition was effected between New- castle and Pitt. Newcastle was to be First Lord of the Treasury to manage the business of patronage, and Pitt was to be Secretary of State to manage the business of politics and war. Both were 752 NEWCASTLE AND PITT 1757-175^ satisfied ; Newcastle gave to Pitt the Parliamentary majority which he wanted, and Pitt took on himself the responsibility which Newcastle shunned. Fox got a lucrative appointment without political influence, and in a few years made himself enormously rich. 12. Military Disasters. 1757. — When Pitt took office in com- bination with Newcastle things were going badly. In America, French reinforcements were poured into Canada, and an attempt made by Lord Loudon, the British commander, to take Louis- burg, a strong fortress which guarded the French island of Cape Breton, failed signally. In Germany, the king of Prussia, Frederick the Great, after overrunning Saxony in the preceding year, now, in 1757, attempted to overrun Bohemia. After winning a battle at Prague in May, he was disastrously defeated at Kolin in June, and driven out of the country. A French army, in the mean- while, entered Hanover and defeated the Duke of Cumberland at Hastenbeck ; after which Cumberland signed the Convention of Closterseven in September, leaving Hanover in the hands of the enemy. “ Here is my son,” said George II. of him when he returned to England, “ who has ruined me and disgraced himself.” 13. Pitt and Frederick the Great. 1757—1758. — Pitt set him- self to remedy the mischief, as far as he could. His plans for military action were often faulty, but he had indomitable courage, and an almost unique power of inspiring others with courage. Boldly throwing aside the traditions of the century, according to which appointments in the army and navy were given to men of good birth, or of families whose favour would bring votes in Parliament, he chose commanders for their merit. Every young officer knew that Pitt’s eye was on him, and that he would be pro- moted if he conducted himself well, even if he were poor and fnendless. A new spirit was breathed into both services. Before Pitt could achieve anything, Frederick’s military genius had given him the mastery over his enemies. In November the King of Prussia smote down the French at Rossbach, and in December he smote down the Austrians at Leuthen. Pitt at once saw that a close alliance with Frederick was necessary if England was to main- tain her struggle with France beyond the Atlantic. In 1758, there- fore, he repudiated the Convention of Closterseven, which had not been brought into a binding form, gave a subsidy of 700,000/. a year to Frederick, and sent 12,000 English soldiers to join the Han- overian army in defending Hanover. The commander of this force was Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, one of the best of Frederick’s generals. In June the Prince defeated the French at Crefeld. 1757-1759 AN- attack on QUEBEC, 753 Frederick had, in the meanwhile, driven back the Russians at Zorn- dorf, but late in the year was beaten at Hachicirch by the Austrians. 14. Fighting in France and America. 1757 — 1758. — Both in 1757 and in 1758 Pitt sent expeditions to harass the French at home. In 1757 an attempt to take Rochefort failed through dis- sensions amongst the commanders. One expedition, in 1758, destroyed some French ships and stores at St. Malo, whilst a. second did some damage at Cherbourg, but was driven off with heavy loss in the Bay of St. Cast. In America Pitt made a great effort to gain his ends. He dismissed the incompetent Loudon, and appointed Abercrombie to command in chief, placing under his orders young men whose ability and energy he had noted, of whom the most conspicuous was Wolfe, who had distinguished himself in the abortive attempt on Rochefort. England’s superiority at sea now told heavily in her favour. In the course of 1758 Louis- burg and Fort Duquesne were taken, though Abercrombie was repulsed at Ticonderoga. In America the British troops, supported as they were by the colonial militia, far outnumbered the French. France was so fully occupied in Germany that she was unable to send more than scanty reinforcements to the Marquis of Montcalm, the commander of the French army in Canada, who had, there- fore, to defend the French possessions in America against heavy odds. 15. The Campaign in Canada. 1759. — Pitt planned a serious attack on Canada for 1759. Abercrombie, having failed at Ticon- deroga, was discarded. Three armies were to be brought from distant points to meet before Quebec, the fortified capital of Canada. Amherst, who replaced Abercrombie, was to capture Ticonderoga and Crown Point, push up by way of Lake Champlain, and approach Quebec from the south. Prideaux and Johnson were to capture Fort Niagara and approach it from the west. Wolfe was to sail up the St. Lawrence and to approach it from the east. The idea that three armies, separated by vast and thinly populated re- gions, could be brought to co-operate at a given time was essentially faulty. In fact, though the western army captured Niagara and the southern army captured Ticonderoga and Crown Point, neither of them got near Quebec that year. Wolfe found himself, with his troops, alone at the meeting-point on the St. Lawrence. The position of Quebec is exceedingly strong, lying between two rivers, the St. Lawrence and the St. Charles. Behind it rise the Heights of Abraham, which are easily defensible, as it has steep cliffs on the river sides. Around the defences of the town Montcalm 754 NEWCASllE AND PITT 1759 1759-1760 THE CAPTURE OF QUEBEC 755 manoeuvred with admirable skill ; and though Wolfe landed his army, he could neither pass his adversary by nor compel him to fight. The season was growing late, and it seemed as if the British general would be forced to return home without accom- plishing his task. 16. The Conquest of Canada. 1759 — 1760. — The St. Lawrence, as it flows by Quebec, is a broad and navigable stream, and Wolfe, re-embarking his troops, moved his ships up the river past Quebec, hoping to be able to achieve something from that side. Though he had but little hope, he resolved to make one desperate attempt. Placing his men in boats at night he floated with them down the river. Gray’s Elegy had been recently published, and Wolfe repeated some of its lines to his officers. “ Now gentlemen,” he said, “ I would rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec ! ” His boats were steered for a point at which there was a zig-zag path up the cliff which edged the Heights of Abraham. It was so narrow that the French had taken no special pre- 756 NEWCASTLE AND PITT 1759-1760 cautions to guard it, and when a few English soldiers reached the top the French sentinels ran off in surprise. The whole British force had time to draw itself up on the plateau of the Heights of Abraham before Montcalm was ready to meet it. In the battle which ensued Wolfe was killed. As he lay dying he heard an officer cry, “ See how they run ! ” Wolfe roused himself to ask, “ Who run ? ” When he heard that it was the enemy he gave orders to cut off their retreat, exclaiming, as he fell back in the arms of his comrades, “ God be praised ! — I will die in peace.” Montcalm, too, was sorely wounded in the battle, and died on the following day, Quebec surrendered, and in 1760 the whole of Canada submitted to the British. 17. The War in Europe ; Naval Successes. 1759. — In 1759, the year in which Quebec was captured, the French threatened to invade England. Pitt let loose upon them three admirals. Rodney bombarded Havre and destroyed the boats in which the invading army was to cross the Channel. Boscawen defeated off Lagos in Portugal a fleet which was on its way from Toulon to protect the crossing. Hawke, a seaman of the highest quality, blockaded another fleet at Brest, till it broke out in a storm. Hawke, however, pursued it, and caught it up off Quiberon Bay. Con- flans, the F rench admiral, took refuge amongst the rocks and shoals which guard the mouth of the river Vilaine. Hawke dashed after him, though a gale was blowing. His sailing-master remonstrated with him at the risk he was incurring. “You have done your duty,” replied Hawke, “ in this remonstrance ; you are now to obey my orders and lay me alongside the French admiral.” A complete victory was the result. 18. Progress of the War in Germany. 1759. — In Germany things went hard with Frederick. Hemmed in by enemies on every side he struggled on with unabated heroism, but with almost continued ill success. The time seemed approaching when Prussia and its king must succumb, borne down by mere numbers ; yet the end of 1760 saw Frederick with sadly diminished forces, yet still alert and hopeful of relief, though he knew not where to look for it. Prince Ferdinand and his British and Hanoverian army at least did him good service by warding off the blows of the French. In 1759 the Prince inflicted on a French army at Minden a defeat which would probably have been decisive but for the misconduct of Lord George Sackville, who, being in command of the cavalry, refused, in spite of distinct orders, to charge at a critical moment. 1759 THE BATTLE OF LAGOS 757 758 NEWCASTLE AND PITT 1600-1707 19. The East India Company. 1600 — 1698. — The super- abundant energy of the English race, for which Pitt provided an outlet in America, made itself also felt, without assistance from the home Government, in Asia. The East India Company, an asso- ciation of private merchants, was constituted by a charter from Elizabeth in 1600, for the purpose of trading in the East. Its most important commerce was for some time with the spice islands of the Eastern Archipelago, but its trade in that quarter was ultimately ruined by the Dutch. In India itself, on the other hand, its age with Catharine of Braganza. In 1686 the Company acquired from the Mogul a piece of ground on the Hoogly, on which it built Fort William, in 1696, round which the town of Calcutta speedily grew up. 20. Break up of the Empire of the Great Mogul. 1658 — 1707. In the meanwhile, Aurungzebe, whose long reign extended from 1658 to 1707 (that is, from the year of the death of Cromwell to tha year of the union with Scotland), weakened the Mogul empire, partly by departing from the tolerant policy of his predecessors, and thus alienating his Hindoo warriors by attacks on their religion^ and partly by an extension of conquest in the Deccan, or Southern India, whereas the earlier dominions of his predecessors had been confined to the north, properly known as Hindustan. Aurungzebe Officer with fusil and gorget. 1759 - factories were secured from violence by the protection of the Great Mo- guls, the descendants of the Maho- medan conquerors of Northern India, who had at one time fixedj their capital at Agra, and at another at Delhi, and who had strengthened their power by a policy of toleration which enabled them to obtain mili- tary support from Hindoos as well as from Mussulmans. At the end of the seventeenth century the East India Company held three posts in India. By the permission of a ruler of the Carnatic it had, in 1639, acquired a piece of ground on which Fort St. George and the town of Madras were built. In 1668 Charles II. made over to the Com- pany Bombay, which he had re- ceived from Portugal on his marri- THE EMPIRE OF THE MOGULS 759 1707 provoked a reaction against his Mahomedan empire in his own life- time, and the Hindoo chieftain Sivaji founded a powerful Hindoo state amongst the Mahrattas of the highlands of the western Deccan. When Au- rungzebe died, in 1707, his vast empire fell to pieces. His lieutenants were known as Subah- dars, or viceroys, under whom were Nawabs or governors of smaller districts. Both Subah- dars and Nawabs, and even Hindoo Rajahs, who had hitherto been allowed by the Great Mogul to rule in de- pendence on himself over territories which their ancestors had governed as sove- reigns, now raised them- selves to practical sove- reignty. Yet they con- tinued to acknowledge nominally their de- pendence on the feeble successors of Aurung- zebe at Delhi, just as a king of Prussia or an elector of Bavaria no- minally acknowledged the supremacy of the Emperor. Each ruler quarrelled and fought tt v <• a/tt.- ^ ° Uniform of Militia, 1759. with his neighbour, and the Mahratta armies gained post after post, and the Mahratta horsemen plundered and devastated far and wide. 21. The Mahratta Confederacy. 1707 — 1744. — The Mahratta power seemed likely to become predominant in the whole of India, when it was threatened with disintegration in consequence of the decadence of the House of Sivaji, as marked as the decadence of 760 NEWCASTLE AND PITT 1744-1750 the Moguls. After an interval of anarchy, power was grasped by an official known as the Peishwah, who ruled at Poonah, and who — though a descendant of Sivaji was always counted as the nominal sovereign — practically controlled the forces of what now became the confederacy of the Mahratta chieftains. Whether the Mahratta power would, under any circumstances, have mastered the whole of India, it is impossible to say. It was checked by the existence of a French settlement at Pondicherry and of an English settle- ment at Madras. Both these places were on the coast of the Carnatic, and consequently far re- moved from the centre of the Mah- ratta power. There were still Mahomedan rulers in that part of India who were the enemies of the Mahrattas, and whose disputes amongst themselves offered advantages to a European who might strengthen himself by taking part in their quarrels. Dupleix, the French governor of Pondicherry, was the first to perceive this, and was also the first to enlist native soldiers, who came to be known in England as sepoys, and to drill them to fight after the European fashion. 22. La Bourdonnais and Dupleix. 1744 — 1750. — When war was declared between France and England in 1744, the French force in the East was superior to the English ; but the French, un- fortunately for them, had two commanders. La Bourdonnais, governor of the Isle of France — now known as the Mauritius — and Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry. In 1746 La Bour- donnais captured Madras, but Dupleix hampered his move- Uniform of a Light Dragoon, about 1760. 1748-1751 CLIVE 761 ments and drove him to return to France, where the Government, instead of giving him the honour due to him, threw him into prison. In 1748 Dupleix, who was as able as he was unscrupu^ lous, successfully defended Pondicherry against an attack from the British, who were now supported by the arrival of a fleet. In 1748 the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle compelled him to surrender Madras ; but it did not compel him to refrain from pushing his fortune further. The Subahdar of the Deccan, the Nizam-ul-Mulk (whose successors are known by the title of Nizam, which they have derived from him), died in 1748, and left rival claimants to his power. Dupleix sent French sepoys to support one of the claim- ants, whilst the English sent English sepoys to support the other. The French candidate defeated his rival, and was installed as Nizam, whilst Dupleix was himself appointed governor of the Carnatic, from the river Kistna to Cape Comorin, by his own puppet the new Nizam. The native Nawab of the Carnatic was subordinated to him. The English settlement at Madras seemed to be incapable of offering further resistance to the French. 23. Dupleix and Clive. 1751 — 1754. — The English were still traders, not warriors, but amongst the clerks in Madras was a young man of twenty-five, Robert Clive. He early showed his undaunted bravery. Having accused an officer of cheating at cards, he was challenged to a duel. His antagonist walked up to him, held his pistol to his head, and bade him withdraw the accusation. “ Fire ! ” cried Clive. “ I said you cheated, and I say so still, and I will never pay you.” The officer threw down his pistol, saying that Clive was mad. In 1751, when Dupleix, paying no attention to the treaty of peace which had been signed in Europe between England and France, threatened Madras, Clive, having volunteered as a soldier, was sent to seize Arcot, the capital of the Nawab of the Carnatic, who was dependent on Dupleix. Clive carried with him a force of sepoys, and as he ap- proached Arcot continued his march, though a violent thunderstorm was raging. The garrison of Arcot was so astonished at his fear- lessness in facing the storm that they fled in a panic, leaving the place in his hands. Shortly, however, a vast force of the native allies of France laid siege to Arcot, and Clive and his men were all but starved. So complete was the ascendency which Clive had gained over his sepoys that when they discovered that all the provisions except a little rice had been exhausted they begged that he and the few Englishmen with him would take the rice. As for themselves, they would be content with the water in which the rice III. 3 D 762 NEWCASTLE AND PITT 1751-1757 had been boiled. Before the siege, Clive had sent to Morari Rao, a Mahratta chief, for aid. The Mahratta held aloof till he heard of the brave defence of Arcot. “ I never thought till now,” he said, “ that the English could fight ; since they can, I will help them.” Morari Rao came to Clive’s help, and Clive gained one success after another. So fearless was he that he became known amongst the natives as Sabat Jung (the daring in war). In 1753 he returned to England, having established English supremacy in south-eastern India. In 1754 Dupleix went back to France, only to suffer the same ill-treatment which had been the lot of Le Bourdonnais. 24. The Black Hole of Calcutta. 1756. — Clive was the servant of a trading company, and his successes were not won like those of Wolfe, a few years later, by the support of the British Government and the valour of a British army. In 1755, when a war with France was imminent, the East India Company sent him out as the governor of Fort St. David, near Madras. When he arrived in 1756 he heard bad news from Calcutta. Surajah Dowlah, the Subahdar of Bengal, knowing that the English merchants were rich, seized all their property and thrust 145 Englishmen and one Englishwoman into a room measuring only eighteen feet by four- teen. In a space so small, many would have been suffocated even in an English climate. Under the scorching Indian sun few could expect to live. The prisoners called for water, and, though some was brought, the skins which contained it were too large to pass through the bars of the window. The prisoners struggled madly for the smallest drop, trampling one another down to reach it. All through the day, and through the night which followed, men were dying in agony. When morning came the doors were thrown open, and of the 146 who entered, only twenty- three staggered out alive. 25. The Battle of Plassey. 1757. — Clive hastened to Bengal to avenge this outrage. He had now with him a regiment in the king's service, and his whole army consisted of 900 Europeans and 1,500 sepoys. On June 23, 1757, he won a great victory at Plassey over 50,000 men of Surajah Dowlah’s army. Clive mingled treachery with force, and had won over Surajah Dowlah’s chief officer, Meer Jaffier, to promise to desert his master. Meer Jaffier, however, doubting on which side victory would fall, held back from the ful- filment of his promise till Clive’s men had all but won the victory. Meer Jaffier was installed as Subahdar of Bengal, though, in con- sequence of his virtual dependence on the Company, he and hi^ 763 1757 THE RESULTS OF PLASSEY successors are usually known by the inferior title of Nawab. In return for his promotion he was compelled to pay large sums of money to those who raised him to power. Clive received as his The third Eddystone Lighthouse ; built by Smeaton in 1759. share more than 200,000/., besides a grant of land worth 27,000/. a year. Long afterwards, when he was called in question for his part in despoiling Meer Jaffier, he told how he had walked through the treasure-house of the Subahdar at Moorshedabad, where gold NEWCASTLE AND PITT 764 1760-1761 and jewels were piled on either side. “ I am astonished,” he added, “ at my own moderation.” 26. The Battle of Wandewash and the capture of Pondicherry. iy6o — 1761. — Around Madras, in the meanwhile, the French, under Lally, began a fresh struggle for supremacy ; but in 1760 Colonel Eyre Coote gained a signal victory at Wandewash, and Pondi- cherry surrendered to him early in 1761. The predominance of Englishmen over Frenchmen in India was thus secured. As yet the English did not undertake the actual government of any part of the country. Nominally, the native rulers around Madras retained their powers ; but they derived their real strength from the support of the armies which the English had organised mainly out of native soldiers. As far as Bengal was concerned, the government continued to be exercised nominally by Meer Jaffier, the Company only receiving from him the zemindary of the district round Calcutta — that is to say, the right of collecting the land-tax, and of keeping the proceeds upon payment of a quit-rent to Meer Jaffier as subahdar. In point of fact, however, the officials of the Company had everything their own way. 27. Death of George II. 1760. — In all that had taken place George II. had little part, except so far as he had given up all thought of resisting ministers with whom he was dissatisfied. “ Ministers,” he once said, “ are the king in this country.” On October 25, 1760, he died suddenly. He was succeeded by his grandson, George III., the son of Frederick, the late Prince of Wales, a young man of twenty-two, whose character and training made it unlikely that he would be content to be thrust into the background as his grandfather had been. 76s CHAPTER XLVIII THE BREAK UP OF THE WHIG PARTY. 1760—1770 LEADING DATES Reign of George III., 1760—1780 Accession of George III . Oct. 25, 1760 Resignation of Pitt Oct. 5, 1761 Bute’s Ministry ........ 1762 The Peace of Paris 1763 Ministry of George Grenville .... . April 8, 1763 The Stamp Act 1765 Ministry of Rockingham . J uly 10, 1765 Repeal of the Stamp Act . . 1766 Ministry of Chatham . July 29, 1766 Grafton Prime Minister 1767 American Import Duties ..... 1767 The Middlesex Elections 1768-9 Lord North Prime Minister 1770 I. Character of George III. 1760. — George III. had been educated by his mother the Princess of Wales in the principles of Bolingbroke’s Patriot King. From her he had learned that it was his duty to break down that coalition of the great Whig families which ruled England by means of the corrupting influence of wealth. “ George, be a king,” were the words which she had dinned into his ears. He came to the throne resolved to overthrow the Whig party connection by setting his own personal authority above that of the great Whig borough-owners, and to govern, in the interest of the whole nation, by ministers who, having been se- lected by himself, would be contented to carry out his policy and to act at his dictation. To a certain extent his intentions resem- bled those of Charles I. Both were well-meaning and desirous of governing in the interests of the nation; but the political situation of the eighteenth diflered much from that of the seventeenth century. Charles I. defied the House of Commons, whereas George III. knew that it was necessary to have the House of Commons on his side, and he knew that it could only be gained by a lavish employ- ment of corruption. Personally, he was simple in his tastes, and strictly moral in his habits ; but in pursuit of his political aims he ^66 THE TREAK VP OF THE WHIG PARTY 1761^1762 employed men of the vilest character, and recklessly lavished places and gifts of money on those whose services he required. He seems to have thought that, as the House of Commons chose to put itself up to sale, it was better that he rather than Newcastle should be its purchaser. 2. The Fall of Pitt. 1761. — George III. and Pitt joined in detesting the yoke of the Whig families ; but they differed as to the remedy for the disease. George III. aimed at crushing them by the exercise of the powers of the Crown ; Pitt, by appealing to the people for support. The king’s first object, therefore, was to get rid of Pitt. Pitt had raised enemies in the Cabinet by his arrogance, and even amongst his friends there was a growing feeling that all necessary objects of the war had been accom- plished. In 1761 Pitt was ready to make peace with France, and was only pursuing his conquests in order to obtain such terms as appeared to him to be reasonable. In June, 1761, there were fresh English successes, and F ranee would probably have submitted to Pitt’s terms, if Charles III., who had recently become king of Spain, had not renewed the Family Compact, knowing that the vast colonial empire of Spain was endangered by the predomin- ance of England in North America. Pitt, having secret intelligence of what had happened, urged the Cabinet to declare war on Spain at once. The Cabinet, however, regarding him as a firebrand, refused to follow him, and on October 5, Pitt resigned office. 3. Resignation of Newcastle and the Peace of Paris. 1762 — 1763. — Pitt was justified by the event. Spain declared war as soon as she thought it convenient to do so ; she was, however, utterly unprepared for it. In 1762 one English expedition reduced Cuba and another reduced Manilla, whilst Spanish commerce was swept from the sea. Pitt got all the credit because it was known that he had foreseen the struggle and had made the preparations which had proved successful. In the meanwhile, the ministry was hope- lessly divided. Alongside of Newcastle and the Whigs were new ministers who had been introduced by George III. In May, 1762, Newcastle was driven to resign, and was succeeded by Lord Bute, the nominee of the king. Peace negotiations had for some time been carried on, and on February 10, 1763, the Peace of Paris was signed. England regained Minorca in the Mediterranean, whilst her possession of Canada, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton, besides that of Senegal and of several West Indian islands, was acknow- ledged by the F rench. Spain ceded Florida to England and acquired Louisiana from France, receiving back again the other colonies 1761-1763 RESULT OF THE SEVEN YEARS^ WAR 767 which she had lost. In India, France received back the towns which had been taken from her, but she could not regain the influence which had passed from her, and England thus retained her predominance in India as well as in America. Frederick com- plained bitterly that England had abandoned him ; yet he suffered little loss in consequence. His enemies gave up their attempt to destroy him, and almost at the same time that peace was signed by England with France and Spain at Paris, he signed the peace of Hubertsburg, which left him in full possession of his dominions. The result of the Seven Years’ War was briefly this, that the British race had become predominant in North America, and that the Prussia of Frederick the Great maintained itself against all its enemies. 4. The King and the Tories. 1762—1763. — In placing Bute in office George III. made his first attempt to break the power of the Whigs. He had already gathered round him the country gentry whose ancestors had formed the strength of the Tory party in the reign of Anne, and who, now that Jacobitism was extinct, were de- lighted to transfer their devotion to a Hanoverian king who would lead them against the great landowners. They were joined by certain discontented Whigs, and out of this combination sprung up a new Tory Party. Parties vary in their aims from time to time without changing their names, and the new Tory Party ceasing to regard the Dissenters as dangerous, no longer asked for special legis- lation against them. The principle which now bound the Tories to the King and to one another was their abhorrence of the Whig connection. They constantly declaimed against the party system, generally holding it to be better that George HI. should give office to such ministers as he held fit, than that ministers should be appointed at the dictation of the leaders of a parliamentary party. 5. The King’s Friends. — The principle upheld by the Tories was so far legitimate that Parliamentary parties in those days were not, as is now the case, combinations of members of Parliament holding definite political opinions and constantly appealing for sup- port to the large masses of their countrymen by whom those opinions are shared. The plain fact was that they were composed of wealthy and influential men who, by the possession of boroughs, gained seats in Parliament for men who would vote for them whether they thought them to be right or wrong, and who, if they could obtain office, gained more votes by the attraction of the patronage of which they had the disposal. George HI., therefore, if he wished to gain his ends, had to follow their example. He consequently ^68 THE BEE AH UP OF THE WHIG PAP TV 1763 resolved to rely on members of Parliament known as the king’s friends, who voted as he bade them, simply because they thought that he, and not the Whig Lords, would, in future, distribute honours and patronage. In this way George III. deserted the part of a constitutional king to reap the advantages of a party leader, being able, no doubt, to plead that the Whigs had ceased to be a con- stitutional party and had established themselves in power less by argument than by the possession of patronage. George’s attempt to change the balance of politics could not, however, succeed at once. Bute’s ministry did not last long. He was a Scotchman, and at that time Scotchmen were very unpopular in England, besides which there were scandals afloat, entirely untrue, about his relations with the king’s mother, the Princess of Wales. Mobs insulted and frightened him. He had not sufficient abilities to fill the post of a Prime Minister, and being, unlike Newcastle, aware of his own defects, on April 8, 1763, he suddenly resigned. 6. The Three Whig Parties. 1763. — By this time the king had no longer a united Whig party to contend against. The bulk of the Whigs, indeed, held together, and having selected Lord Rock- ingham as their leader in the place of Newcastle, had in many ways gained by the change. It is true that Rockingham was not a man of much ability, and was so shy that he seldom ventured to speak in public ; but he was incorruptible himself, and detested the work of corrupting others. Those who followed him renounced the evil ways dear to Newcastle. What these Whigs gained in character they lost in influence over a House of Commons in which many members wanted to be bribed, and did not want to be persuaded. A second party followed the Duke of Bedford, Bed- ford himself was an independent, though not a very wise politician, but his followers simply put themselves up to auction. The Bed- fords, as they were called, understanding that they would command better terms if they hung together, intimated to those who wished for their votes that they would have to buy all, or none. A third party followed Pitt’s brother-in-law, George Grenville. Grenville was a thorough man of business, and quite honest ; but he had little knowledge of mankind. He had quarrelled with Pitt because, whilst Pitt thought of the glories of the war, he himself shrank from its enormous costliness, the national debt having nearly doubled during its progress, rising to more than 132,000,000/. He had, therefore, after Pitt’s resignation and Newcastle’s fall, sup- ported Bute, and, now that the king was compelled to choose between Rockingham, Bedford and Grenville, he naturally selected GENERAL WARRANTS 1763 769 Grenville as Prime Minister, as having seceded from the great Whig connection. 7. Grenville and Wilkes. 1763— 1764.— At first the king got on well with Grenville, as they were both inclined to take high- handed proceedings with those who criticised the Government. John Wilkes, a member of the House of Commons, blamed the Silver cofFee-pot belonging to the Salters’ Company, 1764. king’s speech in No. 45 of the North Briton. The king ordered the prosecution of all concerned in the article, and Lord Halifax, as Secretary of State, issued a warrant for the apprehension of its authors, printers, and publishers. Such a warrant was called a general warrant, because it did not specify the name of any par- ticular person who was to be arrested. On this warrant Wilkes was arrested and sent to the Tower. On May 6, however, he was 770 TBR BREAK UP OF THE WHIG PARTY 1763-1765 discharged by Pratt, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, on the ground that, by his privilege as a member of Parliament, he was protected from arrest, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. Not long afterwards Pratt declared general warrants to be illegal, though there had been several examples of their use. In November, 1763, the House of Commons, urged on by the king and Grenville, voted No. 45 of the North Britoii to be a libel, whilst the House of Lords attacked Wilkes on the ground that in the notes of an indecent poem called An Essay 07 i Woman, of which he was the author, he had assailed Bishop Warburton, a member of that House. Wilkes, indeed, had never published the poem, but its existence was betrayed by Lord Sandwich, one of the Bedford party, who had been a boon companion of Wilkes, and whose life was as profligate as Wilkes’s own. On January 19, 1764, the House of Commons expelled Wilkes on account of No. 45, and on February 21, in the Court of King’s Bench, a verdict was recorded against him both as a libeller and as the author of an obscene poem. Attempts having been made to get rid of him by challenging him to fight duels, he escaped to France and was outlawed by the Court. 8. George III. and Grenville. 1763 — 1764. — Wilkes became suddenly popular because of his indomitable resistance to a king who was at that time unpopular. George III. had shown strength of will, but as yet he had been merely striving for mastery, without proposing any policy which could strike the imaginations of his sub- jects. All officials who yoted against him were dismissed, even when their offices were not political. George III. was as self-willed and dictatorial as Grenville himself, and soon ceased to be' on good terms with the Prime Minister. In September, 1763, Grenville, to increase the number of his supporters in the House of Commons, admitted the Duke of Bedford and his followers to office, but Bed- ford soon made himself even more disagreeable to the King than Grenville. George III., weary of his ministers, made overtures to Pitt to come to his help, but for a long time they remained with- out effect, and much as he now disliked both Grenville and Bedford he was compelled to keep them in office. 9. The Stamp Act. 1765. — One measure indeed of Grenville’s secured the warm support of the king. Since the late war, not only was England burdened with a greatly increased debt, hiJt it had become desirable that a large military force should be kept up for the defence of her increased dominions. The army in America amounted to 10,000 men, and Grenville thought that the 1765 -1 766 THk STAMP ACT 771 colonists ought to pay the expenses of a force of which they were to have the chief benefit — especially as the former war had been carried on in their behalf. If it had been possible, he would have preferred that the money needed should have been granted by the colonists themselves. It was, however, extremely improbable that this would be done. There was no general assembly of the American colonies with which the home Government could treat. Each colony had its own separate assembly, and experience had shown that each colony, even when it granted money at all, was always unwilling to make a grant for the common service of the rolonies as a whole. Each, in fact, looked after its own interests ; Virginia, for instance, not having any wish to provide against a danger threatening Massachusetts, nor Massachusetts any wish to provide against a danger threatening Virginia. Grenville accordingly thought that the only authority to which all the colonies would bow was that of the British Parliament, and, in 1765, he obtained without difficulty the assent of Parliament to a Stamp Act, calculated to raise about 100,000/., by a duty on stamps to be placed on legal documents in America. 10. The Rockingham Ministry. 1765. — Before news could arrive of the effect of the Stamp Act in America, the king had been so exasperated by the rudeness with which Grenville and Bedford treated him that, much as he disliked Rockingham and the old Whigs, he placed them in office until he could find an opportunity of getting rid of them as well. The new ministers were weak, not only because the king disliked them and intrigued against them, but because they refused to resort to bribery, and were therefore unpopular with the members who wanted to be bribed. Nor had they any one amongst them of commanding ability, whilst Pitt, whom Rockingham asked to join him, refused to have anything to do with the old Whigs, whom he detested as cordially as did the king. 11. The Rockingham Ministry and the Repeal of the Stamp Act. 1766. — Before Parliament met in December, news reached England that the Americans had refused to accept the stamped papers sent out to them, and had riotously attacked the officers whose duty it was to distribute them. The British Parliament, in fact, had put itself into the position occupied by Charles I. when he levied ship-money (see p. 523). It was as desirable in the eighteenth century that Americans should pay for the army necessary for their protection as it had been desirable in the seventeenth that English- men should pay for the fleet then needed to defend their coasts. 772 THE BREAK UP OE THE WHIG PARTY 766 Americans in the eighteenth century however, like Englishmen in the seventeenth, thought that the first point to be considered was the authority by which the tax was imposed. If Charles I. might levy ship-money without consent of Parliament, he might levy other taxes in the same wa)% and would thus become absolute master of England. If the British Parliament could le\’y a stamp duty in America, it could levy other duties, and the Americans 'F;^TnnT>fl Borke : from a. paintT-ng by Reynolkis iii t>x» Naaonal Portrait Gallery. would thus be entirely at its mere)'. The Rockingham ministry drew back from the prospect of a struggle with the colonists, and, at its instance, the Stamp Act was repealed early in 1766, though its repeal was accompanied by a Declarator)' Act asserting the right of the British Parliament to tax the colonies as well as to legislate for them. 12. Pitt and Burke. 1766. — In taking this course the Rocking- ham ministry was supported by Edmund Burke, who now entered Parliament for the first rime, and who was the greatest political 766-1767 AMERICAN TAXATION 773 thinker of the age. As Pitt, too, applauded the repeal of the Stamp Act, Rockingham made fresh but unsuccessful efforts to induce him to combine with the ministry. Yet, though Pitt and Burke agreed in disliking the Stamp Act, their reasons for so doing were not the same. Pitt held that the British Parliament had a right to impose duties on American trade, for the sake of regulating it — in other words, of securing a monopoly for British manufactures — but that it had no right to levy internal taxes in America. Burke, on the other hand, detested the very idea of claiming or disclaiming a right to tax, holding that in all political matters the only thing worth discussion was whether any particular action was expedient. America, according to him, was not to be taxed, simply because it was not worth while to irritate the Americans for the sake of any sum of money which could be ob- tained from them. This was not the only point on which Pitt and Burke differed. Burke wished to found government on a combina- tion amongst men of property honestly and intelligently seeking their country’s good, and using the influence which their wealth gave them to fill the benches of the House of Commons with men as right-minded as themselves. Pitt, on the other hand, distrusting all combinations between wealthy landowners, preferred appealing to popular support. 13. The Chatham Ministry. 1766 — 1767. — There was this much of agreement between George III. and Pitt, that they both disliked the Rockingham Whigs, and, in July, 1766, the king dis- missed Rockingham, created Pitt Earl of Chatham, and made him Prime Minister with the office of Lord Privy Seal. Chatham formed his ministry by selecting men of all kinds of opinion who were willing to serve under him. Before the end of the year his health broke down, and his mind was so completely deranged as to render him incapable of attending to business. In 1767 the Duke of Grafton, being First Lord of the Treasury, became nominally Prime Minister, but he was quite incapable of controlling his sub- ordinates, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Towns- hend, a brilliant, unwise speaker, had everything his own way. 14. American Import Duties. 1767. — Although the Stamp Act had been repealed, the irritation caused by its imposition had not died away in America, and the authority of British Acts of Par- liament was set at naught by the colonists. In 1767 Townshend obtained from Parliament an Act imposing on America import duties on glass, red and white lead, painters’ colours, paper, and tea. The produce was estimated at 40,000/., and was to be era- 774 the break UP OF THE WHIG PARTY 1767-1769 ployed, not in maintaining an army to defend the colonies, but in paying their judges and governors, with the object of making them dependent on the Crown, and independent of the public opinion of the colonists. From the point of view of the British Parliament, the colonists were like unruly children, who required to be kept in order. In America, on the other hand, the new duties were denounced as an attempt to govern America from England. Not only did people agree together to avoid the consumption of articles subject to the new duties, but attacks were made on the revenue officers who had to collect the money, and whatever violence was committed against them, juries refused to convict the offenders. On September 4, 1767, before further steps could be taken in England, Townshend died. His successor as Chancellor of the Exchequer was Lord North, who was inclined to carry out Towns- hend’s policy. In reality, however, the king was himself the head of the ministry. 15. The Middlesex Election. 1768 — 1769. — Though before the end of 1768 Chatham recovered his health, he felt himself helpless, and formally resigned office. In that year there was a general election, and Wilkes, reappearing from France, was elected in Middlesex. His election was a token of a wide-spread dissatisfaction, not so much with the taxation of America as with the corruption by which the king had won Parliament to his side. In February, 1769, the House of Commons expelled Wilkes. He was then re-elected, and the House replied not only by expelling him again, but by incapacitating him from sitting in the House during the existing Parliament. When an election was again held, Wilkes was again at the head of the poll, but the House declared his opponent. Colonel Luttrell, to be duly elected, though the votes for him had been very few. A grave constitutional question was thus raised. George Grenville and the Rockingham Whigs agreed in asserting that nothing short of an Act of Parliament passed by both Houses could deprive the electors of their right of choosing whom they would as their representative, though they admitted that the House might expel a member so chosen as often as it pleased. To this doctrine Chatham, who had now recovered his health, gave his warm support. It seemed as if it would be impossible for the ministry to hold out against such a weight of authority and argument. 16. “ Wilkes and Liberty.” 1769. — The opponents of the court on the question of the Middlesex election had on their side two dangerous allies— a libeller and the mob. The libeller, who called WILKES AND LIBERTY m J769 himself ‘Junius,’ was probably Sir Philip Francis. He attacked with malignant bitterness the king and all his instruments. The mob, actuated by a sense of the unfairness with which Wilkes was treated, George III. in 1767 : from a painting by Allan Ramsay in the National Portrait Gallery. took his part warmly. “ Wilkes and liberty ” was their cry. At the time of the Middlesex election ‘ 45 ’ was freely chalked up on the doors of the houses, in allusion to the condemned number of the 776 THE BREAK UP OF THE WHIG PARTY 1769-1770 North Briton. Noblemen most hostile to Wilkes were compelled to illuminate their houses in honour of his success at the poll, and the grave Austrian ambassador was pulled out of his carriage, and ‘45’ chalked on the soles of his boots. In June, Wilkes, having surrendered to take his trial for the publication of No. 45 and the Essay on Woman (see pp. 769, 770), was committed to prison, whence, on May 10, an enormous crowd strove to rescue him, and was only driven off after the soldiers had fired and killed five or six persons. Wilkes was, in June, sentenced to fine and imprisonment as a libeller, but the citizens of London, as en- thusiastic in his favour as the crowd, chose him as Alderman whilst he was still in prison. The badness of his character was forgotten, and his pertinacious stand against the Court was alone remembered. 17. Lord North Prime Minister. 1770. — When Parliament met, in January, 1770, Chatham, now again in full possession of his powers, took up the cause of Wilkes, maintaining that the House of Commons had no right to place Luttrell in his seat. The very sound of his voice dissolved the composite Ministry. Those who had entered it as his followers rallied to their leader. Pratt, who had become Lord Chancellor with the title of Lord Camden, was dismissed. The king, finding that no notable lawyer agreed with him as to the right of the House of Commons to disqualify Wilkes from being elected, persuaded Charles Yorke, an eminent lawyer and a hitherto devoted follower of Rockingham, to accept the Chancellorship, although in so doing he would have to argue against his own settled convictions. Yorke, tempted by the greatness of the prize, accepted the offer, but he was unable to bear the reproaches of his friends, and, for very shame, committed suicide. Grafton resigned office, and other ministers followed his example. The king then made Lord North First Lord of the Treasury, and gave him the position of a Prime Minister, though the title was still held to be invidious, and North himself objected to have it used in his own case. North was an able man, skilful in the management of public affairs, and honestly a supporter of strong measures against Wilkes and the Americans, and he fully adopted the principle that the king was to choose his ministers and to direct their policy. If North could maintain himself in Parliament, the new Toryism, of which the dependence of ministers on the Crown was the leading feature, would have won the day. 777 CHAPTER XLIX THE STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 177O— 1783 I. North and the Opposition. 1770.^ — The opposition, seemingly strong, was weakened by a conflict of opinion amongst its leaders. Chatham declared for Parliamentary reform, suggesting that a third member should be given to each county, as the freeholders, who at thaf time alone voted in county elections, were more in- dependent than the borough electors. Burke and the Rockingham Whigs, on the other hand, objected to any constitutional change as likely in the end to throw power into the hands of the ignorant. The violence of mobs since Wilkes’s election no doubt strengthened the conservative feeling of this section of the Whigs, and, at the same time, made strongly in favour of the Govern- ment, because in times of disorder quiet people are apt to support the Government whether they agree with it politically or not. North was well fitted to take advantage of this state of opinion. He was an easy-going man, who never lost his temper and never gave unnecessary offence. At the same time, he was an able party manager, and' though not a great statesman, was a sensible politician. With the king at his back, he had at his dis- posal all the engines of corruption by which votes were gained, and though members of Parliament had for some time ceased to sell their votes for ready money as they had done in the days of Wal- pole and Newcastle, they still continued to sell them for pensions, III, 3 E LEADING DATES Reign of George III., 1760—1820 Lord North Prime Minister .... Cargoes of Tea thrown into Boston Harbour Beginning of the American War . Declaration of Independence . . . . Capitulation of Saratoga War with France Burke’s Bill for Economical Reform Capitulation of Yorktown Second Rockingham Ministry .... Shelburne Ministry Peace of Palis 1770 1773 1775 1776 1777 1778 1780 1781 1782 1782 1783 778 STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 1770 offices, and especially for sinecures. Moreover, North had the advantage of sharing in the king’s strong feeling against the con- duct of the Americans. Public opinion in England was turning more and more against the Americans, and, for the first time in his reign, George III. found support for his policy in public opinion. 2. North and the Tea Duty. 1770. — Only two courses were open to the British Government ; — the one to treat the Americans Lord North : froni an engraving by Burke, taken from a painting by Dance. as a virtually independent people, allowing them to tax them- selves and to govern themselves as they pleased ; the other to compel them to obedience by military force. It is hardly strange that Englishmen were not wise enough to accept the former alter- native. They did not perceive that the colonists, in refusing the payment of taxes imposed by others than themselves, had a proper foundation for constitutional resistance, whilst they did perceive 1770-1771 P-ARLIAMENT AND THE NEWSPAPERS 779 that the American resistance was not altogether carried on in a constitutional manner. In Massachusetts, especially, all who were concerned in the collection of the import duties were treated with contumely. Soldiers were insulted in the streets. An informer was tarred and feathered. Lord North was, indeed, sensible enough to perceive that Townshend’s import duties roused unnecessary irritation, especially as the net income derived from them was less than 300/. He induced Parliament to repeal all the duties except that of 3^. a pound on tea ; but he openly acknowledged that he kept on the tea-duty, not because anything was to be gained by it, but simply to assert the right of England to tax the colonies. In America a sullen resistance continued to be offered to this claim, becoming more and more defiant as time passed on. 3. The Freedom of Reporting. 1771. — In Parliament Lord North gathered strength. George Grenville having died in 1770 and Bedford early in 1771, the followers of these two leaders resolved to support the Ministry. So, too, did Grafton, who had lately resigned office rather than oppose Chatham, and Wedderburn, an unscrupulous lawyer who had professed the strongest opposition principles, but who now sold himself for the office of Solicitor- General. The combined Opposition was reduced to a hopeless minority. Yet, even thus, though unable to influence the American policy of the Ministry, it was, on one occasion, able to bring about a valuable reform at home. The House of Commons had long been jealous of the reporting of its debates and of the comme*nts of newspapers on its members. In February, 1771, Colonel Onslow, a member of the House, complained that a newspaper had called him ‘ little cocking George,’ and a ‘ paltry, insignificant insect.’ The proposal to summon the printers to the bar was resisted by ob- structive motions from both the followers of Rockingham and the followers of Chatham, and when it was at last carried time had slipped by, and it was found difficult to catch all the printers. One of them, named Miller, was arrested in the city by a messenger of the House, but the messenger, in turn, was arrested and brought before the Lord Mayor and two aldermen — one of whom was Wilkes — who put the messenger in prison for infringing the city charter by making an arrest in the city without the authority of its magistrates. The House of Commons, prudently leaving Wilkes alone, sent the Lord Mayor and the other alderman to the Tower, where they were royally feasted by the city till the end of the session, after which time no imprisonment, by order of either House, can be enforced. The Opposition had gained its point, as since that time no attempt 78o struggle for AMERICA AT INDEPENDENCE 1770-1774 has been made to stop the reporting of debates. It was the free- dom of reporting which ultimately enabled Parliamentary reform to be effected without danger. Only a people which is allowed to have knowledge of the actions and words of its representatives can be trusted to control them. 4. Continued Resistance in America. 1770 — 1772. — In America resistance to the British Government rose and fell from year to year. In 1770 some soldiers at Boston fired, with deadly effect, on a crowd which threatened them, and this ‘ Boston massacre,’ as it was called, so exasperated the townsmen that the governor had to withdraw the troops. Lawlessness spread, as is usually the case when a government has lost the support of public opinion. The revenue officers were subjected to outrage, and, in 1772? a small vessel of war, the ‘ Gaspee,’ was captured and burnt. 5. The Boston Tea Ships. 1773. — The people of New England, though they had agreed to avoid the use of tea, found it difficult to abstain from so pleasant a beverage, and in 1773 Lord North struck a bargain with the East India Company to carry a large quantity to Boston. When the tea ships arrived, a meeting of the townsmen was held, and, after a vain attempt to persuade the governor to send them away, a number of young men, disguised as Red Indians, rushed on board in the dark, broke open the chests with tomahawks, and flung the whole of the tea into the harbour. 6. Repressive Measures. 1774. — When the news of this violence reached England, it was evident to all that either the British Parliament must abandon its claim to enforce the payment of the tea duty or it would have to maintain its authority by force. Burke pleaded for a return to the older system under which Great Britain had been respected for so many years. “ Revert,” he said, “ to your old principles . . . leave America, if she have taxable matter in her, to tax herself. I am not here going into a distinction of rights, nor attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions. I hate the very sound of them. Leave the Americans as they anciently stood. Be content to bind America by laws of trade ; you have always done it. Let this be your reason for binding her trade. Do not burden them with taxes ; you were not used to do so from the beginning. Let this be your reason for not taxing. These are the arguments of states and kingdoms. Leave the rest to the schools, for there only they may be discussed with safety.” The king. Lord North, and Parliament, thought otherwise. They saw that there was anarchy in America, as far as English law was concerned, and they con- 1773 OFFICIAL CHARITY 781 Distribution of His Majesty’s Maundy by the Sub-almoner to His Majesty in the Chapel Royal of Whitehall : from an engraving by Busire 7^2 STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 1774-1775 ceived it to be their duty and their right to bring it to an end. In 1774 was passed the Boston Port Act, prohibiting the landing or shipping of goods at Boston ; the Massachusetts Government Act, transferring the appointment of the Council, or Upper House, together with that of all judges and administrative officers, from a popular electorate to the Crown ; and another Act forbidding public meetings without the leave of the governor. In order to keep down resistance, a soldier, General Gage, was sent to be governor of Massachusetts. 7. The Congress of Philadelphia and the British Parliament. 1774. — The American colonies had always been divided amongst themselves. The four which made up what was popularly called New England — Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island — had been founded by the Puritans in the seven- teenth century, and still retained the democratic character then im- pressed upon them. It was expected in England that the other nine colonies, where different habits prevailed — New York, Penn- sylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia — would take no part in the struggle, if one there was to be. These colonies, however, were frightened lest the British Parliament should alter their constitu- tions as it had just altered that of Massachusetts, and, in September, 1774, a congress, attended by deputies of all the colonies except Georgia, met at Philadelphia under the name of the Continental Congress. Though this Assembly had no legal powers, it had popular support, and it directed the stoppage of all importation from and exportation to Great Britain till the grievances of the colonies had been redressed. There was no sign of any wish for separation, and there is reason to believe that those amongst the colonists who called themselves Loyalists, and would have clung to the connection with Great Britain in spite of all that was hap- pening, formed at least a third of the population. The majority, however, including all the most active spirits, was determined to resist unless concessions were granted. In the meanwhile, prepa- rations for resistance were made, especially in New England; officers were selected, and ‘ minute men ’ — so called because they offered to fly to arms at a minute’s notice-^were enrolled in great numbers. 8. Lexington and Bunker’s Hill. 1775. — Both in America and in England illusions prevailed. The Americans thought that the British Parliament would repeal its obnoxious measures, if only the American case were fairly represented to it, whilst the British 1775 THE FIRST BLOODSHED 783 Parliament continued to regard the power of resistance in America as altogether contemptible. Hostilities began without any de- liberate purpose on either side. On April 18, 1775, a small British force, sent from Boston to seize some arms at Concord, drove off on its way a small party of American volunteers at Lexington. On its return, on the 19th, it found the hedges and walls by the roadside lined with a superior number of volun- teers, and only effected its retreat with heavy loss. After this all New England sprang to arms. On May 10 Ticonderoga was seized, and the command of Lake Champlain gained, whilst on June 16 about 1,500 insurgents entrenched themselves at the top of Breed’s Hill, a height divided from Boston by the Charles river. On June 17, an English force was twice repulsed in an attempt to gain the position, and only succeeded on the third at- tempt after the ammunition of the Americans had been exhausted. The fight is usually known as the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, a neigh- bouring height on which no fighting actually took place. The affair, taken by itself, was not of great importance, but it showed how well Americans could fight behind entrenchments, and how capable they were of developing military qualities unsuspected by the British generals. 9. Conciliatory Efforts. 1775. — After blood had been shed conciliatory efforts were less likely to be successful. An offer to abandon the British claim to tax any American colony which would provide for its own defence and its civil government had been made in March by Lord North, but it was not known in Anrerica till after the conflict at Lexington, and was then sum- marily rejected. On May 10 a second congress was held, at Phil- adelphia, and as it was attended by delegates from all the thirteen colonies, it assumed the style of ‘ The Congress of the United Colonies.’ On July 8, the Congress set forth terms of reconcilia- tion in a petition known as ‘ The Olive Branch Petition,’ but its offers proved as unacceptable in England as Lord North’s had been in America. 10. George Washington in Command. 1775. — Congress, whilst offering peace, prepared for war, and commenced raising an army in its own service, to replace the troops which had hitherto been raised by the separate colonies, and, on June 15, two days before the capture of Breed’s Hill, appointed George Washington commander of this so-called Continental army. Washington was a good soldier, who had fought with distinction in the Seven Years’ War, and was especially skilled in military organisation. His 784 STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 1775-1776 moral qualifications were even higher than his intellectual. He was absolutely unselfish, and possessed of infinite patience. Never were such qualities more needed. The adverse criticisms of English soldiers were, to a great extent, justified by the American volun- teers. They were brave enough, but they were unwilling to submit to the discipline without which an army cannot long exist ; and it sometimes happened that whole regiments, having enlisted for a certain time, would insist on going home when that time expired, even from the presence of the enemy. Washington’s subordinate officers, too, constantly quarrelled with one another, whilst each one considered himself a far better soldier than the commander-in- chief. 11. Progress of the War. 1775—1776. — In the autumn of 1775 the war languished. An American army attempted to over- run Canada, but the Canadians, being Catholics of French descent, had no love for the New England Puritans, and the enterprise failed disastrously. Gage, who commanded the British army in America, was not a vigorous soldier. His successor, Sir William Howe, was equally remiss, and, on March 16, 1776, evacuated Boston. Yet it was not altogether the fault of these two commanders that they did nothing. So little had the British Parliament ex- pected resistance that it had allowed the numbers of the army to sink to a low ebb. In 1774 the whole of the king’s forces did not exceed 17,547 men, and when, in 1775, an attempt was made to raise them to 55,000, it was found impossible to obtain the required number of men in Great Britain. In despair the Government had recourse to a bargain with some German princes for the sale of their sub- jects. In this way 17,742 unhappy Germans were sent off, like so many slaves, to serve George III. in re-conquering America. 12. The Declaration of Independence and the Struggle in New Jersey. 1776 — 1777. — Nothing did more to alienate the Americans than this attempt to put them down by foreign troops. The result was the Declaration of Independence voted by Congress on July 4, 1776. The United States, as they were now to be called, disclaimed all obedience to the British Crown. They had still, however, to make good their words by action, and during the remainder of the year they were distinctly inferior in the field to their adversaries. On September 15 Howe occupied New York, Washington having been compelled to draw off his insubordinate soldiery. The plundering and violence of the American troops alienated a great part of the population, and in December Wash- ington was driven out of New Jersey by Lord Cornwallis. The 1776-1780 SOMERSET HOUSE 786 STRUGGLE FOR AMER/CaAT IMDEpENUeMCE in 6 -im men deserted in shoals, and the inhabitants of the country through which they passed showed no inclination to assist them. Congress fled from Philadelphia to Baltimore. Washington saw that, unless he could inspire his troops with the ardour of success, his case was hopeless, and on Christmas night he dashed at Trenton, where he surprised the Germans in the midst of their reveliy, and carried off 1,000 prisoners. On January 2, 1777, he defeated three British regiments at Princeton. The men of New Jersey rallied round Washington, and New Jersey itself was recovered. The constancy and generalship of Washington had stemmed the tide. 13. French Assistance to America. 1776 — 1777. — If Great Britain had had to deal only with the Americans, it could hardly have failed to wear out their resistance, considering how large a part of the population longed for peace rather than for indepen- dence. Its own population was 8,000,000, whilst that of the United States was less than 2,000,000. A nation, however, which attacks a people inferior to itself in strength must always take into account the probability that other states, which for any reason bear a grudge against her, will take the part of her weaker enemy. In 1776 France, burning, in the first place, to revenge her defeat in the Seven Years’ War, and, in the second place, to break down the British monopoly of American commerce, lent, underhand, large sums- of money to America, and gave other assistance in an equally secret way. “ All Europe is for us,” wrote the American diplomatists who negotiated with France. “Every nation in Europe wishes to see Britain humbled, having all in their turn been offended by her insolence.” French volunteers of good birth, of whom the most noted was Lafayette, crossed the Atlantic to take service under Washington. 14. Brandywine and Saratoga. 1777. — Such help was in- sufficient. On September ii, 1777, Howe defeated Washington on the Brandywine, and, pushing onwards, occupied Philadelphia. The vastness of the country, however, fought for the Americans better than their own armies. Whilst Washington was vainly attempting to defend Pennsylvania, Burgoyne, an English officer of repute, was coming down the valley of the Hudson from Canada, hoping to join Clinton, who was to come up the valley from New York. He never reached Clinton. Though he pushed on far, his troops dwindled away and his provisions fell short. The Ameri- cans occupied every post around his diminished army, and on October 16 he was forced to capitulate at Saratoga. 15. The French Alliance with America, and the Death of 1778-1779 APPROACHING FAILURE 787 Chatham. 1778. — The British disaster at Saratoga encouraged the French Government, and, on February 6, 1778, France openly allied herself with America. Lord North offered to yield anything short of independence, and begged the king to relieve him of office and to appoint Chatham. George III. refused to admit Chatham except as North’s subordinate. Chatham, though he declined this insulting offer, opposed, on April 7, a motion by one of the Rock- ingham Whigs for acknowledging the independence of America, and thus practically gave his support to North. He was ready to give way on all the points originally in dispute, but he could not reconcile himself to the abandonment of the colonies, and he firmly protested against ‘ the dismemberment of this ancient and most noble monarchy.’ As he spoke his voice failed him, and, on rising to make a second speech, he fell back in a fit of apoplexy. On May 1 1 he died. With many faults, he stands forth amongst the greatest figures in English history. He had not merely done great things — he had inspired England with confidence in herself. 16. Valley Forge. 1777 — 1778. — French help was offered to America none too* soon. In the winter of 1777—78 Washington’s army at Valley Forge was almost destitute. Pennsylvania had little sympathy with him in the struggle, and Washington himself spoke of it as an ‘enemy’s country.’ For three days his soldiers had no bread, and nearly 3,000 men were unfit for duty because they were ‘bare-footed and otherwise naked.’ Numbers deserted, and the distress increased as winter wore on. When spring arrived the result of the French alliance was clearly seen. In June the British evacuated Philadelphia, and in July a French fleet appeared off the American coast. Yet the operations of 1778 were desultory. The unwillingness of the Americans to support their army was so great that, at the end of 1778, Washington was almost as despon- dent as he had been at the beginning of the year. 17. George III. and Lord North. 1779. — Each side saw its own difficulties, and, in 1779, every statesman in England was to the full as despondent as Washington. Lord North himself thought it impossible to re-conquer America now that France was her ally. George HI., with a determination which, when it succeeds, is called firmness, and, when it fails, is called obstinacy, declared that he would never yield or give office to any man who would not first sign a declaration that he was ‘ resolved to keep the empire entire, and that no troops shall consequently be withdrawn from America nor independence ever allowed.’ To the king’s resolute will North reluctantly submitted, though in June 1779 Spain allied STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 1778-1780 herself with. France and America against Great Britain. North again and again offered his resignation, but the king forced him to retain office. 18. The French in the Channel. 1779. — The hour of French vengeance had come. Early in 1779 a French naval squadron seized the British possessions in Senegal and on the Gambia, and in the summer of the same year a combined French and Spanish fleet sailed up the Channel, which the British fleet did not even venture to meet. For the first time since the battle of La Hogue the French na^y was master of the sea. The fact was that the circumstances under which the French navy now appeared at sea were different from those under which it had suffered defeat in the Seven Years’ War. In the first place, Louis XVI., who had been king of France since 1774, had paid special attention to the nav)?-, and had both increased the number of his war-ships and had done his utmost to render their crews efficient In the second place, he abandoned the policy which had been pursued by every ruler of France since the days of Richelieu, and which consisted in throwing the whole strength of the country into territorial ag- gression on its land frontier, thus weakening its ability to engage successfully in naval warfare. The new king, by keeping at peace with his neighbours on the Continent, was thus enabled to struggle with better chance of success against England, the old maritime rival of France. 19. English Successes in America. 1779—1780. — In America the British had still the upper hand, as far as fighting w^as con- cerned. In Georgia, the English beat off an attack by the Americans at Savannah, though the latter were supported by a French fleet under D’Estaing, who had previously reduced some of the West India Islands. On May 12, 1780, Sir Henry Clinton took Charles- ton, and after his return to New^ York, Lord Cornwallis, wffiom he left behind in command, defeated the American general. Gates, at Camden in South Carolina. It seemed as if the whole of the southern states, where the opposition to Great Britain was not nearly so strong as in the north, would be brought into subjection. The enormous distances wffiich the British had to traverse again told against them. Cornwallis had not men enough to hold the country which he had subdued and to gain new ground as well, and he w^as driven back as soon as he advanced into North Carolina. Yet, in spite of this failure, the gains of the British were so considerable as to increase the alarm of those .Americans wffio had hoped for a decisive result from their combination with F ranee and Spain. In September, 1779-1780 ECONOMICAL REFORM 789 1780, Benedict Arnold, a general in whom Washington placed complete confidence, plotted to betray to the British commander at New York the forts on the hills round the Hudson. If the plot had succeeded, the struggle for American independence would have been at an end. It was, however, detected, and, though Arnold himself escaped. Major Andrd, the British officer who negotiated with him, was caught within the American lines and hanged as a spy. 19. Economical Reform. 1779 — 1780. — In England there was, as yet, no active opposition to the continuance of the war, but there was a growing dissatisfaction with its apparently endless expense. Towards the close of 1779 the opposition turned this current of feeling against the employment of the patronage of the Crown, by which George III. secured votes in Parliament. They raised a cry, which was fully justified, in favour of Economical Reform, and they gathered large public meetings in their support. The practice of bringing the opinion of public meetings to bear upon Parliament was of recent origin, having sprung into existence 3 n 1769, during the agitation consequent on Wilkes’s election. In 1779 it spread over the country. The signal was given by a meet- ing at York, presided over by Sir George Savile, a highly-respected member of the Rockingham party. These meetings were every- where attended by the orderly classes, and were an indication of the dissatisfaction widely felt with a system through which the House of Commons had become a mere instrument in the king’s hands. In February, 1780, Burke brought in a Bill for the abolition of sinecures, the only use of which was the purchase of votes ; and, in a magnificent speech, pleaded the cause of Economical Reform. Pie put the case in a nutshell when he announced that ‘ the king’s turnspit was a peer of Parliament.’ The House was too alarmed at the outburst of popular feeling to refuse to the Bill a second reading, but it rejected its leading clauses in Committee, and the Bill was consequently dropped. In April, however, Dunning, a Whig lawyer, carried a resolution that ‘ the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished.’ 20. Parliamentary Reform and the Gordon Riots. — Though the opposition was united in favour of Economical Reform, which would render the House of Commons less dependent on the King, it was divided on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, which would have made it more dependent on the nation. Burke, with the greater number of the Rockingham party, opposed the latter, but it was supported by Charles James Fox, the son of the Henry Fox 790 STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 1780 who had been noted as the most corrupt minister of a corrupt time (see pp. 747, 751). The younger Fox was, in private life, a lover of pleasure, especially at the gaming-table, thereby alienating from him the more decorous portion of mankind. Yet, in spite of this, the charm of his kindly nature gained him warm personal friendships, and often disarmed the hostility of opponents. In public life he showed himself early as a ready and fluent speaker. Charles James Fox as a j-oung man : from an engraving by Watson from a painting by Reynolds. always prepared \\ith an answer on the spur of the moment. He w’as ever ready to throw himself enthusiastically into all generous and noble causes, praising beyond measure and abusing beyond measure, and too deficient in tact and self-restraint to secure power on the rare occasions when he attained it 21. The Gordon Riots. 1780. — On June 2, 1780, the Duke of Richmond called, in the House of Lords, for manhood suftrage and 1780 THE GORDON RIOTS 791 1 W I 1 I i I i! li li I I I I .2 I 792 STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 1780-1781 annual Parliaments. That very day the unfitness of the multitude of those times for political power received a strong illustration. In 1778 Sir George Savile had carried a Bill relieving Roman Catholics of some of the hardships inflicted on them by the law. The cry of ‘No Popery’ was at once raised, and, whilst the Duke of Rich- mond was speaking to the peers, a mob, led by Lord George Gordon, a half-crazy fanatic, poured down to Westminster with a petition for the repeal of Savile’s Act. Members of both Houses were hustled and ill-used, and for some time the mob endeavoured to burst into the House of Commons. Failing in this, they streamed off, and sacked and burnt the chapels of Roman Catholic ambas- sadors. The mob, however, loved riot more than they hated Popery. They burnt Newgate and liberated the prisoners. They fell, with special eagerness, upon the houses of magistrates. For six days they were in complete possession of a considerable part of London, plundering and setting fire to houses at their pleasure. Soldiers alone could arrest such a flood of mischief ; and when, at last, soldiers were ordered to attack the mob, the riot was suppressed. 22. The Armed Neutrality. 1780. — The suppression of the riots in London brought back some support to the king, but the enemies of England abroad were growing stronger. English ships claimed the right of search in neutral vessels on the high seas, and they proceeded to confiscate enemies’ goods found in them. They also seized neutral vessels trading with ports of their enemies, which they declared to be blockaded, even when they were not in sufficient force to exercise an effective blockade. A league sprung up amongst the northern states, headed by Russia, to establish an ‘Armed Neutrality’ for protection against such attacks. This league, sup- ported by France, advanced what was then the new doctrine, that ‘Free ships make free goods,’ and proclaimed that ‘paper block- ades ’ — that is to say, blockades not enforced by a sufficient naval squadron — were inadmissible. The Dutch Republic moreover adopted this view and resisted the right of search when used by the English, just as the English, in Walpole’s time, had resisted it when exercised by the Spaniards (see p. 728), and in December, 1780, England declared war on the Republic. 23. The Capitulation of Yorktown. 1781. — The campaign of 1781 was looked forward to as likely to be decisive. Cornwallis pushed on to the conquest of North Carolina, and, though his advanced guard was defeated at Cowpens in January, in March he routed an American army under Greene at Guilford. Once more the enormous size of the country frustrated the plans of the English NEWGATE PRISON 793 17*82 Newgate Prison ; rebuilt in 1782, after the Gordon Riots. 794 STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 1781 commander, who, after a few weeks, being unable to hold any part of the Carolinas except Charleston, went olf to Virginia, The American army was quite unable to inflict a serious defeat on the British in the field. The states themselves left it unpaid and afforded it but scanty means of support. The men deserted in shoals, and those who remained were obliged to obtain food by oppression. “ Scarce any state,” wrote an American general, “ has at this hour an eighth part of its quota in the field. . . . Instead of having the prospect of a glorious offensive campaign before us, we have a bewildered and gloomy one, unless we should receive a powerful aid of ships, land troops, and money, from our generous allies.* In expectation of this help the American forces again grew in numbers, so that Cornwallis, though unconquered, was compelled to fortify a post at Yorktown on the shore of the Chesapeake, where, as long as he was master of the sea, he could defy his enemies. The French fleet under De Grasse, however, soon gained the mastery, and blockaded Yorktowm on the side of the water, while the Ameri- cans blockaded it on the side of the land. On October 19 Cornwallis smrendered, and the American War was virtually at an end. 24. American success. 1781. — American Independence had been the work of an active minority, especially vigorous in New England, and in some other parts further south. This minority was always ready to take advantage of every circumstance arising in their favour, and availing themselves of the assistance of the foreign enemies of England. The cause of America was, to some extent, the cause of England herself The same reasons which made Parliament ready to set aside by an act of power the resistance of the Americans to the payment of a tax to which their representatives had not consented had weighed with the House of Commons when they set aside the repeatedly declared choice of the Middlesex electors. In the one case the British Parliament, in the other case the British House of Conunons, insisted on having its way, because it believed itself in the right The principle of self-govemmenWof the system which acknowledges that it is better to allow a people to blunder in order that they may learn by ex- perience, than to coerce them for their own good — was at stake in both. It seemed as easy to suppress America as it was to suppress the Middlesex electors ; and when England discovered that this was not the case, she learnt a lesson which would teach her in the future how much consideration was due to those de- pendencies which were still left. 25. The Last Days of North’s Ministry. 1781 — 1782. — The 1781-1782 NORTH^S RESIGNATION 795 news of the surrender at Yorktown reached England on No- vember 25. “ O God ! ” cried North when he heard it, “ it is all over.” The king ihsisted on North’s retaining office and pro- longing the struggle. During the next few months Minorca sur- rendered to the Spaniards, and De Grasse’s fleet captured one West India island after another. The supporters of the ministry in Parliament deserted it, and on March 20, 1782, North resigned. 26. The Rockingham Ministry. 1782. — Much to his annoy- ance, George III. had to place the opposition in office, with Rockingham as Prime Minister, and to allow the new ministers to open negotiations on the basis of the acknowledgment of American independence. The two most important members of Rockingham’s second administration were Fox and Lord Shelburne, the latter being the leader of that section of the Whigs which had fol- lowed Chatham. The king, who hated the Rockingham section as an aristocratic faction, intrigued with Shelburne against the other members of the ministry. As Shelburne disliked Fox personally, the prospect of a united ministry was not encouraging. For the moment, however, the new ministers did plenty of good work. They opened negotiations for peace, and were likely to obtain the better terms, as on April 12 Admiral Rodney gained a decisive victory in the West Indies over De Grasse’s fleet. At home, the ministers set themselves to purify Parliament. They carried measures, in the first place, disqualifying revenue officers, who were liable to dismissal by the Government, from voting at elections, and, in the second place, disqualifying contractors from sitting in the House of Commons on the ground that it was their interest not to offend the ministers. Burke’s Economical Reform Bill, which had been thrown out in 1781, was also passed, in a modified form, in 1782. Though the king still retained sufficient patronage to make him formidable, he would now have less corrupting influence than before. 27. Irish Religion and Commerce. 1778. — The Irish Parlia- ment had, for some time, been growing discontented with its subordinate position. It is true that it represented the Protestants only, but its desire to make itself independent had the result of rendering it unusually inclined to conciliate the Catholics. In 1778 it passed a Relief Bill, repealing the worst of the persecuting acts (see p. 686). The leader in this movement was Grattan, who pro- nounced that ‘ the Irish Protestant could never be free till the Irish Catholic had ceased to be a slave.’ In the same yenr <;r>me slight diminution was effected in the restrictions which had been 796 STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 1778-1782 imposed on Irish commerce, but the outcry raised by English manu- facturers was too loud to allow North to concede to Ireland as much as he would willingly have done. 28. The Irish Volunteers. 1778 — 1781. — Irish Protestants were, for every reason, warm supporters of the connection with England, but they were hostile to the existing system, because it impoverished them by stopping their trade. They asked for liberty to export what they pleased and to import what they pleased. To gain this they needed legislative independence, their own Parliament being not only prohibited, by Poynings’ law (see p. 350), from passing any act which had not been first approved by the English Privy Council, but being bound by a further act of George I. which declared Ireland to be subject to laws made in the British Parliament. The war with France gave to the Irish Protestants the opportunity which they sought. England, bent upon the reconquest of America, had no troops to spare for the defence of Ireland, and the Irish Protestants came forward as volunteers in defence of their own country. At the end of 1781 they had 80,000 men in arms, and ^vith this force behind their backs they now asked for legislative independence. 29. Irish Legislative Independence. 1782. — In 1782, with recent experience gained in America, Rockingham’s Government shrank from opposing a movement so formidably supported. At Fox’s motion the British Parliament passed an act, by which the act of George I. binding Ireland to obey laws made in Great Britain was repealed, and Poynings’ law was so modified as to put an end to the control of the British Privy Council over the making of laws in Ireland. However, the independent Parliament at Dublin — Grattan’s Parliament, as it is sometimes called — had two sources of weakness. In the first place the House of Commons was chosen by Protestants alone ; in the second place it had no control over the executive government, which was ex- ercised not, as in England, by ministers responsible to Parliament, but by the Lord Lieutenant, who was appointed by, and was re- sponsible to, the Government in England. Nor were there any constitutional means by which either the two Parliaments in con- junction, or any third body with powers either derived from them or superior to them, could decide upon questions in which both peoples were interested. 30. The Shelburne Ministry and the Peace of Paris. 1782 — 1783. — On July I, 1782, Rockingham died, and the king at once appointed Shelburne Prime Minister, who, as he thought, would 17^1 GIBRALTAR 797 The Siege of Gibraltar, 1781 : from a contemporary print. 798 STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN' INDEPENDENCE 1782-1783 be more likely than any of the other ministers to help him to keep down the Whig aristocracy. Fox, who detested Shelburne, and had for some time been engaged in a bitter dispute with him on the subject of the negotiations for peace, resigned together with others of Rockingham’s followers. When Shelburne became Prime Minister the negotiations were far advanced. France and Spain were, however, anxious, before they signed a peace, to regain Gibraltar, which their fleets and armies had been besieging for more than three years. On September 13 a tremendous attack was made on the fortress with floating batteries which were thought to be indestructible. The British, on the other side, fired red-hot shot at the batteries till they were all burnt. After this failure, F ranee and Spain were ready to come to terms with Great Britain. The preliminaries of peace with the United States of America were signed at Paris, on November 30, 1782, and with France and Spain on January 20, 1783. The preliminaries were converted into de- finitive treaties on September 3, 1783. The Dutch held out longer, but were obliged to yield to a peace a few months later. 31. Terms of the Treaty of Paris. 1783 The treaties with France and Spain restored to France the right of fortifying Dunkirk, which had been taken from her by the Treaty of Utrecht (see p. 699), and to Spain the possession of Minorca, whilst certain exchanges were effected in the West Indies, Africa, and India. In America, Florida went back to Spain. By the treaty with the United States their independence was acknowledged, and their western border was fixed on the Mississippi, beyond which was Louisiana, ceded by France to Spain at the end of the Seven Years’ War. (See p. 766.) 799 CHAPTER L PITT AND FOX. 1 782- 1 789 LEADING DATES Reign of George III., 1760—1820 Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1782 The Coalition Ministry ...... April 2, 1783 Pitt Prime Minister Dec. 23, 1783 Pitt’s India Bill 1784 Bills for Parliamentary Reform and for a Commercial Union with Ireland 1785 Commercial Treaty with France 1786 Insanity of the King 1788 The Regency Bill 1789 1. The Younger Pitt. 1782—1783. — Chatham’s second son, William Pitt, had entered Parliament in 1780, at the age of twenty- one. He had supported Burke’s Economical Reform and denounced the American War. “ Pitt,” said some one to Fox, “ will be one of the first men in the House of Commons.” “ He is so already,” re- plied Fox. “ He is not a chip of the old block,” said Burke, “ he is the old block itself.” Burke’s saying was not strictly accurate. The qualities of the younger Pitt were different from those of his father. He had none of the fire of the impetuous Chatham, but he had what Chatham did not possess, unerring tact in the management of men and high sagacity in discriminating between things possible to be done and things which were not possible. When the second Rockingham Ministry was formed, he was offered a post which did not carry with it a seat in the Cabinet, but which brought a salary of 5,000/. a year. Pitt, who was a young barrister making a bare 300/. a year, refused the offer, and astonished the House by assert- ing that he ‘ never would accept a subordinate situation.’ He soon asked for a committee to inquire into the need for Parliamentary reform, adopting the views of his father on this subject, in opposi- tion to those of the Rockingham Whigs. When Shelburne became Prime Minister, he made Pitt Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the leadership of the House of Commons. 2. Resignation of Shelburne. 1783 Shelburne’s Ministry did not last long. Shelburne never continued for any length of time 8oo PITT AND FOX 1783 on good terms with other men. He was unreasonably suspicious, and his profuse employment of complimentary expressions gave rise to doubts of his sincerity. In the beginning of 1783 most of ' his colleagues had ceased to attend his Cabinet meetings. It was obvious that Shelburne, with all his ability, was not a ruler of men, and it is almost certain that if F ox had had a little patience, Shel- burne must have re- signed, and the way have been opened for a strong and reforming Ministry, in which Fox and Pitt would have played the leading part. Unfortunately, Fox had neither patience nor tact. He formed a coalition with North, and as the two toge- ther had a large ma- jority in the House of Commons at their dis- posal, Shelburne re- signed on February 24. 3. The Coalition Ministry. 1783. — The king was furious, but for the time, helpless. He regarded North as an ungrateful deserter, and he had more than one reason for disliking Fox. Not only was F ox the most brilliant supporter of the system of Parliamentary connection, which George HI. had set himself to break do^\Tl, but he was personally intimate with the Prince of Wales, afterwards King George IV. The Prince was now living a dissipated life, and the king attributed the mischief to the evil influence of Fox, though the low character of the Prince himself, and the repulsiv'e- ness of the very moral, but exceedingly dull, domestic life of the royal family, had, no doubt, some part in the unfortunate result. The people at large were scandalised at a coalition formed appa- 1757-1772 CLIVERS RETURN TO BENGAL 8oi rently for the mere purpose of securing power for Fox and North, who had been abusing one another for many years, and who did not come into office to support any policy which Shelburne had op- posed, or to frustrate any policy which Shelburne had supported. Nevertheless, sufficient indignation had not yet been shown to enable the king to dissolve Parliament with a fair hope of suc- cess. He was, therefore, after various attempts to avoid yielding, obliged on April 2 to admit the Coalition to office. Fox and North became secretaries of state, and the Duke of Portland, a man of no great capacity, became nominally Prime Minister. During the remainder of the session, Pitt again brought forward a motion for Parliamentary reform, attacking the secret influence of the Crown as strongly as the venality of the electors in the petty boroughs. Fox supported and North opposed him; after which his motion was lost by a majority of nearly two to one. When the House of Commons met again. Fox laid before it a bill for the government of India. 4. The English in Bengal. 1757 — 1772. — Clive returned to England in 1760. Before he left India he had obtained from the Great Mogul the grant of the quit-rent with which the Company had to pay for its zemindary (see p. 764), and thus became himself the landlord of the Company. Whatever might be the nominal position of the Company’s servants, in reality they were masters of Bengal. They used their power to fill their own pockets at the expense of the natives. After a career of plunder and extortion many of them returned home with enormous fortunes. In 1765 Clive was sent out again to correct the evil. This he endeavoured to do by increasing the scanty pay of the officials, and by forbidding them to engage in trade or to receive gifts from the natives. On the other hand, he obtained for the Company from the Great Mogul, the weak Shah Alum, who nominally ruled at Delhi, the Dewanni, or financial administration of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, though the criminal jurisdiction was left in the hands of the Nawab a descendant of Meer Jaffier. Constitutionally this grant of the Dewanni first placed the Company in a legal position in Bengal as administrators under the Great Mogul. In 1767 Clive finally left India. For the next five years everything in Bengal was in confu- sion. The Company’s agents collected the revenue and paid the army ; but they had no authority to punish crime, and the Nawab, who had, was too weak to enforce order. In 1772, Warren Hastings was appointed governor of Bengal, with orders to put an end to the confusion. PITT AND PON 1772-1773 S02 5. Warren Hastings, Governor of Bengal. 1772 — 1774. — Hastings was a man of the highest ability, and it would have been well if the Company had given him supreme power to take the whole of the government of Bengal into his own hands, and to set aside the pretence of leaving any part of it to the Nawab. The Company, however, too scrupulous to upset even an evil system which it found in existence, did not authorise him to do this ; and though he did immense service in organising the administration on English principles, he could not prevent considerable confusion arising from the technical uncertainty of his position. Beyond the British frontier there was imminent danger. Central India was in the hands of the Mahratta chiefs. The descendants of Sivaji (see p. 759) were reduced to obscurity by the Peishwah or hereditary prime minister at Poonah, whose authority was in turn resisted by other hereditary officers, by Sindhia and Holkar in Malwa, by the Bhonsla in Berar, and by the Guicowar in Guzerat. Divided amongst themselves, these chiefs were always ready to join for plunder or conquest, and it was their military strength that was the greatest danger to the Company’s government, and, it must in fairness be added, to the native populations which the Company was bound to protect. To combat the Mahrattas, Hastings carried out a policy — originally sketched out by Clive — of strengthening the Nawab of Oude, in order that he might act as a breakwater against them in defence of Bengal. The Nawab gladly welcomed the proffered alliance, and sought to turn it to account by asking Hastings to support him in annexing Rohilcund, which was governed by the Rohillas, a military body of Afghan descent. In 1774 Hastings lent the Nawab English troops, by whose valour the Rohillas were defeated, whilst the Nawab’s own army followed up the victory by plunder and outrage. Politically, Hastings had done much, as he had bound the Nawab to his cause, but he had done this at the expense of soiling the English name by lending English troops to an Eastern potentate who was certain to abuse a victory won by their arms. 6. The Regulating Act and its Results. 1773 — 1774. — In 1773 was passed, at the instance of Lord North, the Regulating Act, which was intended to introduce order into the possessions of the Company in India. What was needed was to strengthen the hands of the governor of its principal possession, Bengal, and to give him control over the governments of Bombay and Madras. The English Parliament, however, had no experience in dealing with Eastern peoples, and tried to introduce constitutional checks. 1774-J779 WARREN HASTINGS S03 which were better suited for Westminster than for Calcutta. The governor of Bengal was to be called governor-general of Bengal, but there was to be a council of four members besides himself, and if he was outvoted in the council, he was to be obliged to con- form his conduct to the decisions of his opponents. There was also set up a supreme court, which might easily come into conflict with the governor, as no rules were laid down to define their separate powers. The governor-general had authority over the governors of Madras and Bombay, but it was insufficient to enable him to dictate their policy. In 1774, the new Council held its first sittings. Its leading spirit was Philip Francis, the reputed author of ^Junius’s Letters’ (see p. 782), a man actuated by a suspicious- ness which amounted to a disease, and who landed with the belief, which no evidence could shake, that Hastings was an incapable and corrupt despot. As two of the other councillors constantly voted with Francis he commanded a majority. This majority thwarted Hastings in everything, cancelled his measures, and set on foot an inquiry into his supposed peculations. 7. Hastings and Nuncomar. 1775. — To support Francis, Nun- comar, a Hindoo, came forward with evidence that Hastings had taken enormous bribes. This evidence was forged, but the ma- jority of the council supported Nuncomar, hoping to drive Hastings from his post. Suddenly Nuncomar was charged with forgery, and hanged by a sentence of the Supreme Court, over which Sir Elijah Impey presided as chief justice. Forgery was too common a crime in Bengal to be regarded by the natives as highly punish- able, and Impey was probably too ready to think that everything sanctioned by the English law was entirely admirable. The sen- tence, however, was so opportune for Hastings, that it has often been supposed that he had suggested the charge against Nun- comar. Not only, however, did he subsequently deny this upon oath, but modern inquirers have generally come to the conclusion that his denial was true. He may, however, have let fall some chance word which induced the accuser of Nuncomar to think that his action would please the governor-general ; and, in any case, it was not difficult for a native who wished to stand well with Hastings, to imagine that the destruction of Nuncomar would be an agreeable service. At all events, Hastings’s adversaries were frightened, and no more forged accusations were brought against him. 8. War with the Mahrattas and Hyder Ali. i 777 — 1779 * Gradually, by the death or removal of the hostile councillors. PITT AND FOX f777-i7S« S04 Hastings regained power. Then came the most critical time in the history of British rule in India. Far more important than all other conflicts in which Englishmen in India were engaged was the struggle renewed from time to time between the Company and the Mahratta confederacy. Important as it was to the Company, it was far more important to the natives of India ; as the victory of the Mahrattas would bring with it outrage and misery, whereas the victory of the Company would bring with it the establishment of peace and settled government. Nevertheless, it would have been well if the conflict could have been deferred till the Company was stronger than it then was. Unluckily the Bombay Government entered upon an unnecessary war with the Mahrattas, and, finding itself in danger, called on Hastings for help. In 1777, at the time when the French were preparing to oppose England in America, they sent an emissary to Poonah to prepare the way for an alliance between themselves and the Mahrattas. In 1778 came the news of Burgoyne’s capitulation at Saratoga. “ If it be really true,” said Hastings, “ that the British arms and influence have suffered so severe a check in the Western world, it is more incumbent on those who are charged with the interest of Great Britain in the East to exert themselves for the retrieval of the national loss.” Into the struggle with the Mahrattas, now likely to pass into a struggle with France, Hastings threw himself with unbounded energy. His position was made almost desperate by the folly of the Madras Government, which unnecessarily provoked the two Mahomedan rulers of the south, the Nizam and an adventurer named Hyder Ali who had made himself master of Mysore. Hyder Ali, the ablest warrior in India, threw himself on the lands over which the British held sway in the Carnatic. “ A storm of universal fire,” in Burke’s language, “blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple.” The miserable inhabitants, flying from their burning villages, were slaughtered or swept into captivity- All English eyes turned to Hastings. 9. Cheyt Singh and the Begums of Oude. 1781 — 1782. — Money was the first thing needed, and of money Hastings had but little. He had to send large sums home every year to pay dividends to the Company, and his treasury was almost empty. In his straits, Hastings demanded from Cheyt Singh, the Rajah of Benares, a large payment as a contribution to the war, on the ground that he was a dependent on the Company and therefore bound to support it in times of difficulty. On Cheyt Singh’s refusal to pay, Hastings imposed on him an enormous fine, equal to about 500,000/. In order 1781-1783 TRIUMPH OF HASTINGS 805 to ensure payment Hastings went in person to Benares to arrest the Rajah ; but the population rose on his behalf, and Hastings had to fly for his life, though he skilfully made preparations to regain his authority, and before long suppressed the revolters and deposed the Rajah. He then made treaties with some of the Mahratta chiefs, and thus lessened the number of his enemies. The Madras Government, however, continued to cry for support. “ We know not,” they wrote, “ in what words to describe our distress for money.” Hastings pressed the Nawab of Oude to furnish him with some, but the Nawab was not rich, because his mother and grandmother, the Begums of Oude as they were called, had retained possession of his father’s accumulated treasure, and had enlisted armed men to defend it against him. In 1782 the Nawab laid claim to the money to which he appears to have been rightfully entitled, and in 1782 Hastings lent him the Company’s troops to take it from the ladies. They were forced to yield, and Hastings, as his reward, got payment of a large debt which the Nawab owed to the Company. 10. Restoration of Peace. 1781 — 1782. — In 1781, Hyder Ali was joined by some French troops, but the combined force was defeated at Porto Novo by old Sir Eyre Coote, the victor of Wandewash (see p. 764). In 1782 peace was concluded with the Mahrattas, after which Hyder Ali died, and when the French, in consequence of the end of the war in Europe and America, withdrew their assistance, Hyder Ali’s son and successor, Tippoo, also made peace with the English. 11. Hastings as a Statesman. 1783. — Hastings, by his perti- nacity, had saved the British hold on India and had laid the foundations of a system on which the future peace and prosperity of the country depended. Yet that system would have been severely shaken if future governors-general had continued to levy fines limited only by their own discretion, as had been done in the case of Cheyt Singh, or to supply forces to Eastern potentates to enable them to recover their dues as in the cases of the Rohillas and the Begums of Oude. Much as may be said on Hastings’s behalf in all these affairs, it can hardly be denied that it would have been better if he could have supported his government upon the revenues of the Company’s own provinces, and could have acted beyond the Company’s frontier only by agents responsible to himself. That he did not do so was mainly the fault of the weakness of his own official position. Extraordinary expenditure was in most instances forced on him by the folly of the Council 8o6 PITT AND FOX 1783 which he was compelled to obey or of the governors of Madras and Bombay who disobeyed his orders. What was urgently needed was the reform of a system which left the governor-general hampered in his authority by those who should have been his subordinates, whilst at the same time it was desirable that he should be made directly responsible, not to a trading company interested in making money, but to the British Government itself. 12. The India Bill of the Coalition. 1783. — In 1783 the Coali- tion Ministry brought in a bill for the better government of India, which was intended to meet only the latter of these two require- ments. Though the Bill was introduced by Fox into the House of Commons, it was the work of Burke. Burke felt deeply and passionately the wrongs done to the natives of India, and he pro- posed to take the government entirely away from the East India Company, giving it to a board of seven commissioners, appointed in the bill itself, that is to say, practically by the ministers who drew up the bill. No member of this board could be dismissed by the King for four years, except at the request of both Houses of Parliament, though at the end of four years the king was to name the commissioners. As the whole patronage of India was placed in the hands of the board, and as the possessor of patronage could always sell it for votes in the British Parliament, the bill made for the increase of the power of the Crown in the long run, though it weakened it for four years. The opponents of the Coalition, how- ever, shutting their eyes to the former fact and fixing them on the latter, bitterly attacked the bill as directed against the power of the Crown. It was an attempt, said Thurlow, who had been Lord Chancellor in Lord Shelburne’s ministry, to take the diadem from the king’s head and to put it on that of Mr. Fox. 13. The Fall of the Coalition. 1783. — Though the bill was strongly opposed by Pitt and others, it passed the Commons by a large majority. When it reached the Lords, the king sent a private message through Pitt’s cousin. Lord Temple, to each peer, to the effect that whoever voted for the India Bill was not only not the king’s friend, but would be considered as his enemy. As many of the lords were conscientiously opposed to the Coalition, and others needed the king’s patronage, the bill was thrown out, on which the king contemptuously dismissed the ministry. Con- stitutional \\Titers have blamed his interference, on the ground that a king ought not to intrigue against ministers supported by the House of Commons. On the other hand, it may be said that on this occasion the ministers had gained their posts by an intrigue, 1783 THE FALL OF THE COALITION 807 and that it was difficult to respect the House of Commons at a time when large numbers of its members were swayed backwards and forwards by hopes of patronage from one side or the other. The only hope of a better state of things lay in the intervention of the nation itself. 14. Pitt’s Struggle with the Coalition. 1783 — 1784. — George III., burning to free himself from the Coalition, made Pitt prime minister at the early age of twenty-five. Pitt accepted the position from the king, and so far adopted what was now the estab- lished Tory doctrine, that ministers were to be named by the king, and not by the House of Commons; but he also reintro- duced what had long been forgotten, the principle that the constituencies must be appealed to be- fore any final deci- sion could be taken. For weeks he strug- gled in the House of Commons, refusing to resign or to dis- solve Parliament un- til he could place his opponents at a disadvantage. Fox, with his usual want of tact, gave him the advantage which he required, by oppos- ing a dissolution and the consequent appeal to the constituencies, and by insisting that it was Pitt’s duty to resign at once, because he was outvoted in the existing House of Commons. Under these cir- cumstances, Pitt was beaten again and again by large majorities. The nation at large had for some time disliked the Coalition as un- principled, and it now rallied to Pitt in admiration of his undaunted Costumes of gentlefolk, about 1784. 8o8 PITT AND FOX 1784-1785 resolution. Members of the House, who had supported the Coalition merely for the sake of the loaves and fishes, began to suspect that it might be Pitt after all who would have the loaves and fishes to dis- pense. These men began to change sides, and Pitt’s minority grew larger from day to day. At last, on March 8, 1784, the opposition had only a majority of one. On this Parliament was dissolved. The constituencies rallied to Pitt, and 160 of Fox’s supporters lost their seats. They were popularly known as Fox’s martyrs. 15. Pitt’s Budget and India Bill. 1784. — George III., delighted as he was with Pitt’s victory, found it impossible to make a tool of him, as he had made a tool of Lord North. Pitt owed his success even more to the nation than to the king, and, with the nation and the House of Commons at his back, he was resolved to have his own way. He soon showed himself to be a first-rate financier, and in his first budget introduced the principle, afterwards largely followed, of reducing customs-duties in order to make smuggling unprofitable. He then passed an India Bill of his own. The Company was to retain all the patronage except the appointment of the governor-general and of one or two high functionaries, so that neither the king nor any other political body would have the disposal of places in India, to serve as an instrument of corruption. As far as the government of India was concerned, it was nominally left in the hands of the directors of the East India Company ; but the despatches in which were conveyed the orders to its servants in India were now liable to be amended by a board of control composed of the king’s ministers, power being given to this new board to give orders, in cases requiring secrecy, even without the consent of the directors. This dual government, as it was called, lasted till 1858. Whilst Pitt avoided Fox’s mistake in the matter of patronage, he deprived the Company of its government without the appearance of doing so. He also strengthened the authority of the governor-general over the governors of Madras and Bombay. Without Burke’s animosity against Hastings, he saw that Hastings’s system was not one of which he could approve, whilst he had little real knowledge of the difficulties by which Hastings had been embarrassed, and therefore failed to make allowances for them. Hastings discovered that he would not be supported by the new minister, and in F ebruary, 1785, he resigned his office and sailed for England. 16. Pitt’s Reform Bill. 1785. — For the third time (see pp. 799, 801) Pitt attempted to carry Parliamentary reform. He now pro- posed to lay by a sum of 1,000,000/. to be employed in buying up ni. G Society at Vauxhall : from an aquatint after T. Rowlandson, 1785. PITT AND FOX Sio 1785-173$ seventy-two seats, which were practically in private hands. If any of the owners refused to sell, the share of the purchase-money which would have fallen to him was to be laid out at compound interest till it became valuable enough to tempt him to close with the increased offer. The bill was thrown out, and Pitt never again appeared as a parliamentary reformer. There can be no doubt that he was in earnest in desiring parliamentary reform, as it would have strengthened him against the unpopular Whigs. His proposal of buying up seats, which appears so extraordinary in our own day, was doubtless the result of his perception that he could not otherwise pass the bill, and, when once this offer had been rejected, he must have seen that he could not pass any Reform Bill at all. Pitt was not one of those statesmen who bring forward particular measures on which they have set their hearts, and who carry them ultimately by their self-abnegation in refusing to take further part in the government of the country till right has been done. He clung to power, partly for its own sake, but partly also because he believed the Coalition which he resisted to be so un- principled that his own retention of office was, in itself, a benefit to the country. No statesman of equal eminence ever failed so often to persuade Parliament to adopt his schemes ; but this was chiefly because his schemes were usually too much in advance of the public opinion of the time. 17. Failure of Pitt’s Scheme for a Commercial Union with Ireland. 1785. — A proposal made by Pitt for a commercial union with Ireland failed as completely as his Reform Bill. There was to be complete free-trade between the two countries, and Ireland in return was to grant a fixed revenue for the maintenance of the navy, by which both countries were protected. The Parliament at Dublin assented to the scheme, but in England the manufac- turers raised such an outcry that Pitt was forced to change it, restricting freedom of trade in many directions, and making the Irish Parliament dependent, in some respects, on the British for the regulation of commerce. The scheme thus altered was rejected at Dublin as giving Ireland less than complete freedom of trade and infringing on the independence of her Parliament. 18. French Commercial Treaty. 1786. — Pitt was more success- ful in 1786 with a treaty of commerce with France. The doctrine, that freedom of trade was good for all countries concerned in it, had been promulgated by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations published in 1776. Shelburne was the first minister who adopted his views, but his ofiflcial career was too short to enable him to give 786-1795 THE KINGS INSANITY 8ii effect to them, and Pitt was, therefore, the first minister to reduce them to practice. Duties were lowered in each country on the productions of the other, and both countries were the better for the change. 19. Trial of Warren Hastings. 1786 — 1795. — In 1786 Pitt appointed Lord Cornwallis Governor- General of India, and took a wise step in obtaining from Parliament an act empowering him to over-rule his council. Cornwallis was a man of strong common sense, and as he had fewer difficulties to contend with than Hastings had had, he was under no temptation to resort to acts such as those which had disfigured the administration of Hastings. In Parlia- ment, Burke, backed by the whole of the Opposition, called for Hastings’s impeachment. Pitt gave way, and in 1788 Hastings’s trial began before the Lords in Westminster Hall. Burke and Sheridan, in impassioned harangues, laboured to prove him to Regulation musket, 1786, popularly known as Brown Bess. have been a tyrant and a villain. The trial dragged on, and it was not till 1795 that the Lords in accordance with the evidence pro- nounced sentence of acquittal. 20. The Regency Bill. 1788 — 1789. — In 1765 George HI. had been for a short time mentally deranged. In the autumn of 1788 there was a more violent recurrence of the malady. Dr. Willis, the first physician who treated lunatics with kindness, asserted a re- covery to be probable, though it might be delayed for some time. Both Pitt and Fox were agreed that there must be a regency during the king’s illness, and that the Prince of Wales must be the regent. Fox, however, argued that the Prince had a right to the post, and therefore ought not to be subjected to any restrictions. “ I’ll unwhig the gentleman for the rest of his life,” said Pitt, and argued that it was for Parliament to provide a regent. Pitt carried the day, and a bill was passed through both houses conferring the regency on the prince, but limiting his powers by withholding from him the right of making peers, or of appointing to offices, unless the appointments were revocable by the king if he recovered. By 8 i 2 PITT AND FOX 1789 this arrangement, however, the prince would not be prevented from dismissing the existing ministry and calling a new one to office ; and everyone knew that his first act would be to change the ministry, placing Fox in office instead of Pitt. Nowadays, if a minister had, like Pitt, a large majority in the Commons, it would be impossible for either a king or a regent to make so sudden a change. In those days it was easy enough, because many of Pitt’s supporters would certainly go over to F ox as soon as he had the patronage of the kingdom in his hands. Pitt himself knew that it would be so, and as he had amassed no fortune, declared his readiness to ‘ take his blue bag again ’ and practise as a barrister. The expected change, however, never took place, as, under the wise care of Dr. Willis, the king recovered in the spring of 1789, and the Regency Bill became un- necessary. 21. The Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s. 1789. — When George III. returned thanks for his recovery at St. Paul’s, the enthusiasm of the whole population was unbounded. Some- thing of this popularity was undoubtedly owing to the disgust which had been caused by the recent misconduct of the Prince of Wales, who had heart- lessly jeered at the un- happy condition of his father — speaking, for instance, of the king in a pack of cards as a lunatic — but much of it was the result of genuine delight at the king’s recovery. The mass of people could appreciate his domestic virtues, and had no reason to be dissatis- fied with his policy. Even if he had gone wrong in the matter of the American War, he went wrong in company with the large majority of his subjects, and for the last five years he had reaped the benefit of the firm and enlightened government of Pitt. 17 oo - i 8 oi population AND PROSPERITY 813 22. Growth of Population. 1700-1801. — The country which gave power to Pitt in 1784, and which sustained him in it in 1789, had changed much since the beginning of the century. Its popu- lation was more numerous, its wealth greater, and its intellectual activity more widely spread. The population of England and Wales was probably about 5,000,000 in 1700 ; about 6,000,000 in 1750 ; and was certainly about 9,000,000 in 1801. Such growing numbers could not have been fed if there had not been improve- ments in farming to give them more food, and improvements in manufacture to give them more employment. 23. Improvements in Agriculture. — Up to the early part of the eighteenth century, husbandry had been poor, and the necessity of leaving corn land fallow once in three years had made the pro- duce of the soil scanty. Lord Townshend, after his quarrel with Walpole, encouraged, by his example, the cultivation of turnips, and as turnips could be planted in the third year in which the ground had hitherto been left fallow, the crops were largely in- creased. By degrees improvements in draining and manuring were also introduced. 24. Cattle-breeding. — In 1755, Bakewell began to improve the breed of sheep and cattle by judicious crossing. The result was that, before long, a sheep or an ox produced twice as many pounds of meat as before, and that the meat was far more tasty. Im- provements in agriculture and cattle-breeding were possible, because landowners were wealthy enough to enclose waste lands and to make poor lands fit for culture. In one way, however, the changes effected were not for good. The small proprietor, who had hitherto to a great extent kept himself free from debt by the domestic manufactures of his wife and daughters, could not afford to lay out the money needed for the cultivation of his land in the new fashion, and was forced to sell it. Thus gradually small holdings were bought by large landowners, and the work of culti- vation fell almost entirely into the hands of hired labourers. 25. The Bridgewater Canal. 1761. — Trade, which had been growing steadily during the first half of the century, received an impulse from the invention of a new means of conveyance. Goods had been conveyed either on slow and lumbering waggons, or, more often, on the backs of pack-horses. Such a means of transport added greatly to the price of the goods, and made it almost impossible for an inland town to compete in foreign markets with one near the sea. It happened that the Duke of Bridgewater owned a coal mine at Worsley, seven miles from Manchester ; but PITT AND FOX 1738-1761 814 hills intervened, and the expense of carting the coal over the seven miles was too great to make it worth his while to send the coals to Manchester. The duke consulted James Brindley, a m.illwright in his service, who, though he was without any scientific education, not only advised him to make a canal, but carried out the work for him. There were indeed already canals in existence, but there were none to the making of which the natural obstacles were so great. Brindley’s canal passed under hills through tunnels, and over valleys on aqueducts. A famous engineer on being shown a valley which the canal had to cross, asked where the water was to flow. When a spot high up on the hill-side was pointed out to Lock on a Canal. him, he said that he had often heard of ‘ castles in the air,’ but he had never before been shown where one was to be built. In 1761 the canal was finished, and many others were before long made in other parts of the country. 26. Cotton-spinning. 1738. — In old days, the spinning of thread was mainly committed to young women, who were conse- quently known as spinsters. In the middle ages and long after- wards the material spun was wool, and Parliament had been so anxious to extend the manufacture of woollen cloth that it even passed an Act directing that all persons should be ‘buried in woollen.’ Gradually, in the eighteenth century, calico came into 1^67-1779 PROGkMSS OF INVENTION- 815 use, and in 1738 the invention of Kay’s flying shuttle enabled the weavers to produce double as much as before, thus creating a demand for cotton thread which all the spinners in England were unable to meet. 27. Hargreaves’ Spinning-Jenny. 1767. — Necessity is the mother of invention, and, in order to provide thread for the weavers, Hargreaves, in 1767, invented the spinning-jenny, which worked several spindles at once, and enabled a single spinner to produce more than a hundred threads at the same time. By this discovery many persons were thrown out of work, as there was not a demand for calico enough to occupy all the spinners who at first had been needed to produce threads with their hands only. Accordingly, Hargreaves’ neighbours broke his machine and obliged him to fly for his life. In the long run, indeed, Hargreaves’ invention, like all labour-saving in- ventions, would, by pro- ducing cheaply, create a demand which would in- crease, instead of dimi- nishing the number of labourers employed in the manufactures ; but it could hardly be ex- pected that uneducated men, threatened with starvation, would look so far ahead. 28. Arkwright and Crompton. 1769 — 1779. — In 1769 Arkwright took out a patent for an improved spinning machine worked by water-power. He, too, became obnoxious to the hand-workers, and his mill was burned down by a mob. He was, however, determined to succeed, and was at last allowed to live in peace. A yet further improvement was made in 1779, when a poor weaver named Samuel Crompton invented a spinning-machine known as ‘ the mule.’ When his machine was finished, hearing that a mob was collecting with the intention of destroying it, he took it to pieces and concealed it. 8i6 PITT AND FOk 1779 - 17^5 When quiet was restored, he put it together, and began to spin. Manufacturers came round his house, and peeped through his windows to discover his secret. Crompton had not enough money to take out a patent so as to secure the profits of his invention. He, therefore, told his secret, on the promise of the manufacturers to raise a subscription for him. They subscribed no more than 67/. 6f. 6^., and made thousands of pounds by the work of his brains. Arkwright. 29. Cartwright’s Power-loom. 1785. — Before Hargreaves invented the spinning-jenny, no more cotton had been spun than was required by the weavers. After Crompton invented the ‘ mule,’ the weavers could not make into calico nearly as much thread as was produced. In 1785, a clergyman named Cartwright patented a power-loom, which, by weaving by machinery, increased the number of looms and thus kept the spinning ‘ mules ’ in full work. 30. Watt’s Steam-Engine. 1785. — There were many other inven- tions in different branches of manufacture ; but the most important of all was Watt’s steam-engine. For some time steam-engines had been employed for pumping water out of collieries (see p. 708), but THE STEAMHNGINE 817 178s they consumed much fuel, and therefore cost too much to come into general use. James Watt, a mathematical instrument maker in Glasgow, discovered a way of lessening the cost of fuel, and of making the engine more serviceable at the same time. He entered into partnership with a capitalist named Boulton, and set up works near Birmingham. At first manufacturers distrusted the new en- gines, and Boulton and Watt only succeeded in inducing them to buy by offering to go without payment if the engines sold did not Crompton : from a portrait by Allingham. save their cost in the course of a year. Before long all manufacturers were anxious to get them. “ I sell here,” said Boulton to George III., when he visited his works, “ what all the world desires — power.” 31. General Results of the Growth of Manufactures. — One great result of the invention of the improved steam-engine was the transference of population from the south to the north. Hitherto the north had been poor and of little weight in the political scale. When the north had taken part in political struggles it had usually chosen the side ultimately rejected by the nation. It fought in the reign of Henry VI. for the Lancastrians ; in the reign of Henry VIII. for the monasteries ; in the reign of Elizabeth for the Papacy ; in the reign of Charles I. for the king ; in the reign of 8i8 PITT AND FOX 1789 George I. for the Pretender. Coal, however, existed in many parts of the north ; the steam-engine followed coal, manufactures followed the steam-engine, and population followed manufactures. In Sussex, for instance, there was in the seventeenth century a considerable population supported by the manufacture of iron, and it was from this Sussex iron that the railings round St. Paul’s were made. By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the weald of Sussex, on which had once stood the forest which had for some time blocked the way of the South Saxon conquest (see p. 27), had been denuded of its wood, in consequence of the large demands made by the furnaces for smelting iron, and now the industry of iron manufacture moved entirely to the north. At first, indeed, the transfer of labourers to the north was not followed by beneficial results. The crowds who gathered for work were for the most part ignorant and always in haste to be rich. There was neglect of sanitary requirements, and those who rose to be masters often wore away the lives of their workmen. As yet, law did not interfere to protect the weak — the women and children — from excessive labour, or to guard against the frequent occurrence of preventable accidents. It was as though a new world had opened in the north, of which Parliament knew so little that it neither desired to regulate it nor even thought of making the attempt. Books recommended for the further study of Part IX. Lecky, W. E. H. History of England in the Eighteenth Century. Vol. iii. p. I — Vol. V. p. 153 ; Vol. vi. pp. 138-455. Stanhope, Earl. History of England since the Peace of Utrecht. Vol. iv. p. 308 — Vol. vii. Macaulay, Lord. Essays on Chatham and Clive. Trevelyan, Sir George. The Early Life of C. J. Fox. Morley, J. Burke : an Historical Study. Russell, Earl. Memorials and Correspondence of C. J. Fox. Wakeman, H. O. Fox. Lewis, Sir George Cornewall. Essays on the Administrations of Great Britain, pp. 1-129. Wilson, Sir Charles. Clive, Lyall, Sir A. Warren Hastings. Trotter, Capt. L. J. Warren Hastings. Leadam, T, S. The Political History of England. Vol. ix. (1702-1760'), Hunt, Rev. W. The Political History of England. Vol. x. (176^1801). 8io PART X THE CONFLICT WITH DEMOCRACY. 1789—1827 CHAPTER LI ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1789— 1795 LEADING DATES Reign of George III., 1760—1820 Meeting of the States-General at Versailles . May 5, 1789 Declaration of War between France and the King of Hungary and his Allies .... April 20, 1792 Louis XVI. driven from the Tuileries . Aug. 10, 1792 Proclamation of the French Republic . . . Sept. 22, 1792 Execution of Louis XVI. Jan. 21, 1793 Declaration of War between France and Eng- land Feb. I, 1793 Battle of the First of June June i, 1794 End of the Reign of Terror July 28, 1794 Treaty of Basel, between France and Prussia . April 5, 1795 Establishment of the Directory .... Oct. 27, 1795 I. Prospects of Pitt’s Ministry. 1789. — The spread of manu- facturing industry did much to strengthen Pitt’s government, because the wealthy manufacturers were jealous of the landed aristocracy, and, therefore, supported him against the great Whig families. In the beginning of 1789 there seemed to be ever}'- pro- spect that Pitt’s tenure of office would continue to be distinguished by a long series of gradual reforms, carried out just so far as Pitt could induce the nation to follow him. Before long, however, events took place in France which shocked the English nation, and produced a temper hostile to reform. 820 ENGLAND 6" THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 1772-1789 2. Material Antecedents of the French Revolution. — The form of government in France had long been an absolute monarchy ; but, though the kings had deprived the nobles and the clergy of all political power, they had allowed them to retain privileges injurious to the rest of the community. The nobles and the clergy, for instance, who formed the first two estates, paid much lower taxes than the rest of the people, and the Third Estate, which comprised all who were not noblemen or clergymen, bore, in consequence, heavier burdens than ought to have been placed on them. Many noblemen and clergymen, again, were seigneurs, or, as would have been said in England, Lords of Manors, and though the peasants who lived on their estates were often actually proprietors of their own pieces of land, they had nevertheless to pay dues to their seigneurs on all sorts of occasions, as for instance when they sold land or brought their produce to market. The seigneurs, too, often treated the peasants harshly by riding over their crops in pursuit of game, or by keeping flocks of pigeons which devoured their com. People will sometimes bear injuries from those who render some public service, but in France in the eighteenth century the seigneurs did no public service, as the kings had jealously deprived them of the right of taking part — as English country gentlemen took part— in administering justice or in looking after the business of the district in which they lived. The seig 7 teurs and the nobility in general were accordingly hated, in the first place as obnoxious to their neighbours, and in the second place as useless idlers. 3. Intellectual Antecedents of the French Revolution. — Dis- content only results in revolution when there are found thinking men to lead the oppressed masses, and in France there were thinkers and writers who prepared the way for great changes. Voltaire and several other writers proclaimed the supremacy of human reason. They called upon kings and rulers to govern reasonably, attacking not only unreasonable and cruel laws, bear- ing hardly on individuals or injurious to the state and the institu- tions of civil life, but the practices and doctrines of Christianity itself. The professors of Christianity in France were certainly open to attack. Not only were the bishops and higher clergy rolling in wealth and living worldly and sometimes vicious lives, whilst the poor parish priests {cure's) who did the work were in great poverty, but the bishops cried out for the persecution of Protestants and sceptics, although some of them were themselves sceptics. On one occasion Louis XVI., who had reigned since 1774, being asked to name a certain man, who was known to be a sceptic, 1772-1789 LOUIS XVI. AND THE DEVOLUTION 821 as archbishop, replied that an archbishop ought at least to believe in God. Whilst Voltaire and his allies asked that all things should be done by the king and his ministers according to reason, another writer, Rousseau, taught that all had equal rights, and that the people ought to govern themselves, holding that they knew by ex- perience their own needs far better than those who undertook to govern them, and that as the people were always good and just, they would never act tyrannically as kings and priests had too often done. 4. Louis XVI. 1774—1789. — The feeling of the French people in general when Louis XVI. came to the throne was hostile not to monarchy but to the privileged orders, namely, the nobility and the clergy. If, therefore, Louis XVI. had put himself at the head of this movement, he would have become a more powerful king than even Louis XIV. Unfortunately, though he was unselfish and well intentioned, he had neither strength of will nor clearness of head, and he allowed the Government to drift into helplessness. Before long he was rushing into bankruptcy, which could only be averted if the nobles and clergy were compelled to pay taxes like the Third Estate. Louis XVI. had not the nerve to compel them to do it, and in 1789 he summoned the States-General, a body answering in some respects to our Parliament, but which had not met for a hundred and seventy-five years. He did this not because he wished to lead his people, but because he did not know any other way of procuring the money that he needed. 5. The National Assembly. 1789. — When the States-General met, the work of doing justice upon the privileged orders passed out of the king’s hands. Each of the Three Estates had elected its own representatives to the States-General, and those of the Third Estate successfully insisted on all the representatives sitting in one chamber and calling themselves the National Assembly. The National Assembly assumed the right of making a con- stitution, and when the king feebly attempted to take that work into his own hands, and gave signs of an intention to employ force to make good his claim, the mob rose on July 14 and took the Bastille, a great fortress which commanded the poorer quarters of Paris. Then the peasants rose in many parts of F ranee, burning and sacking the country houses of the seigneurs., and, on August 4, the National Assembly swept away all the special privileges of the two privileged orders. From henceforth there was to be in France what there had for centuries been in England — equality before the law, 822 ENGLAND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 1789-1791 6. England and France. 1789—1790. — At first the Revolution in France was generally welcomed in England. Englishmen thought that they had before them a mere repetition of the English Revolution of 1688, and that a Parliamentary Government was about to be set up in France, similar to that which existed in England. It was a complete mistake. The English Revolution had been directed to limit the power of the king. The French Revolution was directed to overthrow the privileges of an aris- tocracy. The French king became involved in the quarrel by attempting to check the National Assembly, which he distrusted. On October 5 the mob marched upon Versailles, broke into the palace, slaughtered some of the guards, and on the next morning led the king captive to Paris. On the one hand the Assembly made enemies by meddling with the constitution of the Church ; and on the other hand many who had profited by the overthrow of the privileged orders suspected the nobles and the clergy to be intriguing to regain what they had lost, and treated them with harshness and cruelty. The National Assembly busied itself with drawing up a constitution based on abstract principles, whilst it took no account of the necessity of establishing a firm and strong government. It kept the king on the throne, but distrusted him too much to give him real power, and the natural result of such a state of things was the growth of turbulence and anarchy. 7. Fox, Burke, and Pitt. 1789 — 1790. — In England, each of the great statesmen then living had his own way of regarding the events passing in France. Fox, enthusiastic and impulsive, gave to the Revolution unstinted praise. “ How much,” he wrote, on hearing of the capture of the Bastille, “ the greatest event it is that ever happened in the world ; and how much the best ! ” Burke, on the other hand, regarded with disfavour, soon passing into hatred, the destruction of old institutions and the foundation of new ones on general principles. Being unable to perceive how impossible it was, in the existing circumstances of F ranee, to found a government on those old institutions which had so completely broken down, he reviled the National Assembly, with all the wealth of argument and rhetoric at his command. Towards the end of 1790, he published his Reflections on the French Revolution^ in which he pointed out, with great sagacity, the danger of all attempts to alter suddenly the habits and institutions of nations, though he failed entirely to suggest any practicable remedy for the evils which existed in France. On May 6, 1791, there was a complete breach between him and Fox. His dying words, he said, 1783-1792 THE SLAVE TRADE 823 would be, “ Fly from the F rench Revolution ! ” Pitt agreed with Burke rather than with F ox ; but he held that his business was to govern England rather than to denounce F ranee, and he contented himself with hoping that the disorders in France, by weakening that country for a long time, would make the preservation of peace easier. 8. Clarkson and the Slave Trade. 1783 — 1788. — Cautious as Pitt was, he shared in some of the generous hopes which filled the mind of Fox. In 1772 Lord Mansfield laid down the law that a slave imported into England becomes free ; but the merchants of Bristol and Liverpool were at this time carrying some fifty thousand negroes a year to slavery in the West Indies. On their way across the Atlantic the poor wretches suffered horrible torments, being packed almost as closely as the sufferers in the Black Hole of Calcutta, in nearly as stifling an atmosphere, so that large numbers died on the way. In 1783 a young man named Clarkson gained a prize at Cambridge for an essay on the question whether it was right to make slaves of others, and on his journey home sat down by the wayside to meditate whether the arguments which he used were to be more to him than mere words. He resolved to devote his life to the abolition of the slave trade, and for some years went about the quays at Liverpool, picking up facts from sailors. In 1788 he won to his side some members of the Society of Friends, and published the evidence which he had gathered. Wilberforce, the member for Yorkshire, one of the most pious and disinterested of men^ took up the cause, and Wilberforce influenced Pitt. 9. Pitt and the Slave Trade. 1788—1792. — In 1788 a Bill was brought in by Sir William Dolben, by which means were to be taken for improving the sanitary condition of the vessels carrying slaves. The slave-traders resisted it and argued that the negroes liked being taken from their own barbarous country, and danced and made merry on deck. On enquiry, it turned out that they were from time to time flogged on deck, in order to keep up the circulation of the blood in their numbed limbs, and that what their tyrants called dancing was merely their shrinking from the lash. The Bill passed the Commons, but the Lords so changed it as to make it useless. In 1789 and 1790 Wilberforce urged the Commons to abolish the wicked slave trade entirely, and in 1792 Pitt spoke vehemently in support of the proposal, but the House of Commons refused to accept it. The men of property of whom it was com- posed thought that the first duty of legislators was to protect 824 ENGLAND ^ THE EE ENCH EE VOLUTION 1791-1792 property, whether it was property in human beings or in houses and goods. 10. Rise of a Warlike Feeling in France. 1791 — 1792 In September, 1791, the National Assembly finished its work on the constitution, and the Legislative Assembly, which, according to the constitution, was to be the first of a series of Assemblies each lasting for two years, met on October i. The most influential party in the new Assembly was that of the Girondists, of which the leaders were young and enthusiastic, but utterly without political experience. Many causes contributed to create a warlike feeling. Crowds of emigrants, French nobles who had left the country either in anger at the revolutionary laws, or in fear lest they should them- selves be harshly treated, gathered at Coblentz and held out threats of invasion and vengeance. It was, moreover, believed in France that the Emperor Leopold II., the brother of the Queen, Marie Antoinette, had combined with the king of Prussia, Frederick William IL, to collect troops with the intention of marching on Paris in support of the emigrants. The Girondists, not doubting that Louis XVI. desired the overthrow of the consti- tution even with foreign aid, fanned the warlike feeling in the Assembly, in the hope that when war had once been declared the king would lose the confidence of the nation and that the fall of his throne might be effected without a struggle. They also expected that the war would be short and easy, because they imagined that the subjects of the rulers opposed to them would gladly accept aid from the French armies to ^vin for themselves the equality and popular sovereignty which had been established in France. ‘ Let us tell Europe,’ said one of their orators, ‘ that if Cabinets engage kings in a war against peoples, we will engage peoples in a war against kings.’ As a matter of fact, neither the Emperor nor the King of Prussia was at this time eager to enter on hostilities with France. Leopold IL, however, died on March i, and his son F rancis, who succeeded him as King of Hungary and Archduke of Austria by hereditary right, and who, some months later, was chosen Emperor as Francis 1 1 ., resenting the strong language used in Paris, threatened to interfere in France, and on April 20, 1792, the Assembly retaliated by declaring war against him and his allies, amongst whom the King of Prussia was included. 11. The French Republic. 1792. — Burke would have gladly seen England allying itself to Austria and Prussia in the work of crushing French revolutionary principles. Pitt refused to depart 1792-1793 EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI. 825 from his policy of peace. The allies invaded France, and, on August 10, the Paris mob rose in insurrection against the king, who could hardly help wishing well to the invaders who had come to liberate him from bondage. Louis thereupon took refuge with the Legislative Assembly, which suspended him from the ex- ercise of all authority, but, declaring itself incompetent to give a final solution to the question of government, ordered the election of a National Convention to settle it. The Paris mob, hounded on by bloodthirsty and unscrupulous leaders, seized the opportunity when there was no real authority in France, to burst into the prisons and massacre the prisoners suspected of desiring to help the enemy. On September 20 the French army checked the invaders by the cannonade of Valmy, and on the 21st the Con- vention met and decreed the abolition of the monarchy, thus declaring France to be a republic. On November 6 the French won a victory over the Austrians at Jemmapes, and soon after- wards occupied the Austrian Netherlands, Savoy, and Nice, ad- vanced into Germany, and took possession of Mainz. 12. Breakdown of Pitt’s Policy of Peace. 1792 — 1793. — The September massacres made Pitt’s policy of peace almost hopeless, by the shock which they gave to English public opinion. The subsequent proceedings of the French Revolutionists drove Pitt himself into a policy of war. On November 19, 1792, the Convention offered its assistance to all peoples desirous of obtain- ing their freedom, and, on December 15, ordered its generals wherever they were to proclaim the sovereignty of the people and the abolition of feudal rights and privileges. The war was a war not between one nation and another, but between social classes. France, enthusiastic for her new principles, did not neglect her interests. She supported her armies at the expense of the wealthy inhabitants of the countries they overran. She treated the territory of the Austrian Netherlands as if it were her own. In all this Pitt did not find a cause of war, as Austria was at war with France. He remonstrated when France threw open the Scheldt to commerce, which, ever since the 17th century, had been closed by European treaties to please the Dutch who occupied both banks of its estuary ; but he took his stand in resisting a threatened French invasion of the Dutch Netherlands. Whilst the feelings on both sides were growing in hostility, the French Convention condemned Louis XVI. to death, and, on January 21, 1793, sent him to the scaffold. A thrill of horror ran through England, and on February i, the Convention, knowing that 3 H 826 ENGLAND ^ THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 1793 peace could not be maintained, and being resolved to pursue its attack on the Dutch Republic, took the initiative in declaring war against England and the Dutch. 13. French Defeats and the Reign of Terror. 1793 . — When the campaign of 1793 opened, a combined army of Austrians and Prussians advancing in overwhelming numbers drove the French out of the Austrian Netherlands. A force of 10,000 British soldiers, under the king’s second son, the Duke of York, joined the victorious allies. At Paris the leading Girondists were expelled from the Con- vention, and a party known as that of the Jacobins rose to power. The Girondists were so alarmed lest a strong government should develop a despotism that they resisted the establishment of that firm authority which could alone save France from disaster. The Jacobins had no such scruples. In July France was in desperate case. Mainz, Conde, and Valenciennes surrendered, and the Duke of York laid siege to Dunkirk. The Jacobins had to deal with insurrection at home as well as with invasion from abroad. Lyons and Toulon rose against them in the south. La Vendee in the west. They met foreign and domestic enemies on the one hand by calling to arms all the patriotic youth of the country, and on the other hand by a savage system of executions by the guillotine. A Committee of Public Safety directed the government. A revolu- tionary tribunal judged swiftly on imperfect evidence and with the most violent passion all who were even suspected to be guilty of showing favour to the invaders or to the dispossessed nobility. The Reign of Terror, as it is called, began with the execution of the queen, on October 16. Twenty- two Girondists were executed on October 22, and for months afterwards blood — for the most part innocent blood — was mercilessly shed on the scaffold. 14 . French Successes. 1793 . — It was not the Reign of Terror, but the devotion of her sons, which saved France. On September 8 a French victory at Hondschoote forced the Duke of York to raise the siege of Dunkirk. On October 7 Lyons surrendered. On the i6th, by the victory of Wattignies, the French overpowered the Austrians in the Netherlands, and before the end of the year they drove back both Austrians and Prussians m the country between the Moselle and the Rhine. The army of the Vendeans was destroyed at Le Mans on December 12, and Toulon, which had admitted an English fleet into its harbour, was captured by the skill of young General Bonaparte on the 19th. These successes were due as much to the divisions of the allies as to French valour and conduct. Austria and Prussia had long been riyals, and there 1792-1794 THE REIGN OF TERROR 827 was little real confidence between them even now. In 1772 these two powers, together with Russia, had stripped anarchical Poland of some of her provinces. In 1793 Russia and Prussia were proceed- ing to a second partition of her territory ; whilst Austria was seeking compensation for being left without a share in this new partition of Poland by the acquisition of territory in France. Now that her armies had been driven back, her chance of getting such a compensation was at an end, and her rulers, throwing the blame on Prussia for her lukewarmness in the war with France, began to detest Prussia even more than they detested the French Republic. 1 5. Progress of the Reign of Terror. 1793—1794. — Pitt’s mistake had been in thinking that he could take part in a great struggle of principles as though it were merely a struggle for the proper delimitation of States. The French had on their side enthusiasm, not only for their country, but for their own conception of the welfare of humanity. The Governments of Prussia and Austria had no enthusiasm for the old order of things which they pro- fessed to support. Even Pitt himself was an example of the impossibility of treating the danger from France as merely terri- torial. Seeing clearly the evil of the French aggression and the cruelty of the Reign of Terror, he grew to hate the French re- volutionary spirit almost as strongly as Burke. It is hardly to be wondered at that it was so. The tyranny of the Reign of Terror became worse and worse. The Convention was dominated by a few bloodthirsty men who sent hundreds to the guillotine, not because they were even suspected of being traitors, but often merely because they did not sympathise with the revolution, or because their condemnation would be followed by the confiscation of their goods. The dominant parties turned upon one another. One party led by Hebert announced itself Atheist, and dressing up women to represent the Goddess of Reason, placed them on the altars of desecrated churches, and danced round them in honour of the principle which they represented. Another party, led by Robespierre, declared itself Deist, and early in 1794 Robespierre sent Hebert and his followers to the guillotine. 16. Reaction in England. 1792—1793. — In his growing detestation of these horrors, Pitt was supported by the great mass of English- men. In 1792 he refused to accept a proposal for Parliamentary reform, urged in the House of Commons by a young member, Mr. Grey, on the ground that it was not a fitting time to alter the Con- stitution. In 1793 he was frightened lest the French revolutionary spirit should find its way into England, because a certain number 828 ENGLAND ^ THE FRENCH REVOLUTION i793-i794 of persons, regretting their exclusion from all part in parliamentary elections, joined clubs which loudly expressed their sympathy with the F rench innovations. The danger from such clubs was excessively small, but Pitt and well nigh the whole of the propertied classes dreaded the establishment of a reign of violence in England. In the beginning of 1793, an Act was passed authorising the Govern- ment to remove suspected foreigners, and late in the year a Treasonable Correspondence Act was passed to throw obstacles in the way of persons seeking to give assistance to the French, with whom England was by that time at war. No exception can be taken to these measures. It was, however, unjustifiable that the Government, fully supported by judges and juries, should authorise not only the prosecution, but the harshest punishment of persons guilty merely of using strong language against the king or the institutions of the realm. Amongst the sufferers was a bill- sticker who was imprisoned for six months for posting up an address asking for Parliamentary reform, and a man named Hudson who was sentenced to a fine of 200/. and two years’ im- prisonment for proposing a toast to ‘The French Republic.’ In Scotland Thomas Muir was sent to transportation for fourteen years for exciting to sedition and joining an association for obtaining universal suffrage and annual parliaments. “ The landed interest,” said the judge who tried the case, “ alone has a right to be represented ; the rabble has nothing but personal property ; and what hold has the nation on them ? ” 17. End of the Reign of Terror. 1794. — On July 28 the Reign of Terror in France came suddenly to an end by the execution of Robespierre. The course of the war in the spring of 1794 had been wholly in favour of France on land, and on June 26 a great French victory over the Austrians at Fleurus was followed by the complete evacuation of the Austrian Netherlands by the allies. It was little to counterbalance this that Lord Howe gained a victory, usually known as the Battle of the First of June, over a French fleet near the mouth of the Channel. France was no longer in danger, and France being safe, it was impossible for the Terrorists again to acquire control over the Government. 18. Coalition between Pitt and the majority of the Whigs. 1794. — In England one effect of the Reign of Terror had been to sweep away the differences between Pitt and the majority of the Whigs. F ollowing Burke, the latter had for some time been voting with Pitt, and in 1794 their leaders, the Duke of Portland, Lord Fitzwilliam, and Mr. Windham entered Pitt’s Cabinet. Fox and Grey with a 829 *794-1795 OF THE REIGH OF TMRROR scanty following continued in opposition, partly because, though they loathed the bloody scenes in France, they thought that England ought to remain at peace ; partly because they held that the best way to meet French revolutionary ideas in England was to push on internal reforms. Before the end of the year the violent proceedings in the English law-couns received a check by the refusal of juries to convict Horne Tooke, Hardy, and Thelwall, who were accused of seditious practices. They were no doubt acquitted because Uniform of Sailors about 1790 . ordinary Englishmen resumed their usual habit of distrusting government interference, as soon as the irritation caused by the Reign of Terror was at an end. 19. The Treaties of Basel. 1795. — French conquests did not come to an end with the Reign of Terror. In January 1795 a French army under Pichegru overran the Dutch Netherlands and established a Batavian republic on a democratic basis. About the same time there was a third and final .partition of Poland, in which Austria, Prussia, and Russia all shared. Prussia had no more to gain in Poland, and on April 5, being unwilling to help Austria to make conquests in France, she concluded peace at Basel with the French Convention. On July 12 Spain, following the example of Prussia, also signed a treaty of peace at Basel. 20. The Establishment of the Directory in France. 1795. — Pitt 830 ENGLAND ^ THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 795 failed to appreciate the real difficulties of the war on which he had embarked. In spite of all the atrocities of the Terror, the feeling in France was so strong against any reaction in favour of the old nobility, that there was not the slightest chance of overthrowing the Republican government by giving aid to the F rench emigrants. The Count of Puisaye, an emigrant royalist, persuaded Pitt to disem- bark him and a number of other emigrants in Quiberon Bay, in the belief that the country round would take up the royalist cause. The expedition ended in entire failure. In October a new consti- tution was established by the Convention. The legislature con- sisted of two councils, and the executive of a body of five Directors. The violent stage of the F rench Revolution had come to an end, and there were many in England who thought that it would be desirable to make peace with a government which gave some hopes of moderation and stability, especially as the burden of the war had given rise to grave discontent in England. When George III. drove through the streets on October 29 to open Par- liament, he was surrounded by a hooting mob. A bullet pierced one of his carriage windows. 21. The Treason Act and the Sedition Act. 1795. — Pitt could see nothing but revolutionary violence in this outburst. He carried through Parliament two Bills, one declaring the mere writing, preaching, or speaking words against the king’s authority to be treason, and the stirring up hatred against the king’s person or the established government and constitution to be a punishable misdemeanour ; the other forbidding all political meetings unless advertised beforehand, and permitting any two justices to disperse them if they thought them dangerous. Against these Bills Fox spoke with extreme vehemence ; but Pitt’s supporters did him more harm than his opponents. “The people,” said Bishop Horsley, “ had nothing to do with the laws but to obey them.” The two Bills became law, but public feeling was so set against them that they were never put into operation. CHAPTER LII THE UNION WITH IRELAND AND THE PEACE OF AMIENS 1795—1804 LEADING DATES Reign of George III., 1760-18*0 Lord Pitzwilliam in Ireland 1795 Bonaparte Invades Italy 1796 Pitt’s First Negotiation with the Directory 1796 Battles of St. Vincent and Camperdown .... 1797 Pitt’s Second Negotiation with the Directory 1797 Irish Rebellion 1798 The Battle of the Nile 1798 The Irish Union 1800 Pitt succeeded by Addington 1801 Peace of Amiens March a8, 1802 Rupture of the Treaty of Amiens 1803 Resignation of Addington April 30, 1804 I. The Irish Government and Parliament. 1785 — 1791. — In 1785, when Pitt was aiming at a commercial union with Ireland, he had expressed a desire to make ‘ England and Ireland one country in effect, though for local concerns under distinct legislatures.’ The difficulty, however, lay in the unfitness of the Parliament at Dublin to play the part of a legislature ‘for local concerns.’ It was in no true sense representative. Three-fourths of the population were excluded as Catholics from sitting in Parliament and from voting at elections. Nor was the Irish House of Commons in any sense representative of the remaining Pro- testant fourth. The number of its members was three hundred, and of these, two hundred were chosen by less than one hundred persons, who controlled the elections of petty boroughs. More- over, as the ministers in Ireland were responsible, not to Parliament, but to the Lord Lieutenant, the Lord Lieutenant could, except in times of great excitement, govern without reference to the wishes of the House of Commons, and whenever it seemed desirable to him to have the House of Commons on his side he could, by a lavish distribution of places and pensions, buy up the votes of the members or of their patrons, as neither had any con- stituents to fear. Usually, however, the Lord Lieutenant who wished 832 THE IRISH UNION PEACE OF AMIENS 1791-94 to lead an easy life preferred to govern in accordance with the wishes of the corrupt faction which formed the Parliamentary majority. 2. The United Irishmen and Parliamentary Reform. 1791 — 1794. — Nowhere were the objections to this state of things felt more strongly than amongst the Presbyterians, who formed a great part of the population of Ulster, and especially of the flourishing town of Belfast, and were excluded as completely as the Catholics from office and from Parliament. Amongst the upper and middle classes in Ulster, religious bigotry had almost died out, and they had, for some time past, been ready to admit Catholics to the franchise and to put them on political equality with themselves. Then came the influence of the French Revolu- tion, and, in October 1791, the Society of United Irishmen was founded at Belfast by Wolfe Tone, himself a Presbyterian. Its object was to unite Catholics and Protestants by widening the franchise and by opening office and Parliament to all without dis- tinction of creed. Pitt took alarm, but in 1793, in order to baffle this extreme demand, he obtained from the Irish Parliament two Acts, the one freeing the Catholics from some of the worst penalties under which they suffered, and the other allowing them to vote for members of Parliament. As, however, they were still disqualified from sitting in Parliament, the concession was almost illusoiy, and, moreover, only a minority of seats depended on election in any real sense. In 1794 a very moderate Reform Bill, proposing the increase of independent constituencies, was rejected in the Irish House of Commons by a decisive majority. 3. The Mission of Lord Fitzwilliam. 1794 — 1795. — The seceders from the Whig party who joined Pitt in 1794 urged him to strengthen the Irish Government by granting Catholic emanci- pation and moderate reform, so as to keep in check the revolutionists on the one hand and the coiTupt officials on the other. Pitt con- sented to send Lord Fitzwilliam, one of the vMiig seceders, to Ireland, as Lord Lieutenant, rather because he wished to gratify his new allies than because he personally approved of the change. Fitzwilliam himself understood that there was to be a complete change of system and that justice was to be done to the Catholics ; but he had held only verbal communications with Pitt, and there was probably a misunderstanding between the two statesmen. At all events, Pitt told Fitzwilliam that not one of the existing officials was to be dismissed except for actual misconduct. With Pitt as, at the best, a hesitating ally, Fitzwilliam’s mission was doomed to failure. Fitzwilliam himself hastened that failure. He 1795 ^^ITZWILLIAM m I/iMLAND 833 landed in Dublin on January 4, 1795, and, almost at once, in defiance of his instructions, dismissed two of the worst of the officials, one of whom, John Beresford, was popularly known as the king of Ireland from the unbounded influence which he had gained by jobbery. He and the Irish Chancellor, Fitz- gibbon, complained to the king that his ministers, in favouring Catholic emancipation, were leading him to a breach of the oath which he had taken at his coronation to defend the Protestant religion, and the king gave Piit to understand that he would never consent to such a measure. Pitt was, moreover, subjected to pres* sure from English opinion, where the Catholics were anything but popular, and where any proposal to reform Parliament savoured of the principles of the French Revolution. In these views Pitt to some extent shared, and began to look for the best remedy for Irish difficulties in the constitution of a common Parliament for the two countries, as there had been a common Parliament for England and Scotland since 1707 (see p. 685). Fitzwilliam, whose arrival in Dublin had been welcomed as a message of peace from England, was promptly recalled, and Ireland was once more handed over to a Parliament dominated by place-hunters who, under the pretence of maintaining Protestantism, banded themselves together with the object of gaining wealth and position. “ Did I ever give an honest vote in my life ? ” is a sentence which is said to have escaped from the lips of a member of this faction. 4. Impending Revolution. 1795 — 1796. — Such an evil system was too provocative to remain long unassailed. In the Irish Parliament, Grattan spoke vehemently in favour of a Bill for Catholic emanci* pation, but the Bill was rejected. Lord Fitzwilliam’s recall was followed by an outburst of violence. The Catholic gentry and middle classes were at that time quite ready to make common cause with the Protestants of their own standing in resistance to any popular movement ; but the mass of Irish peasants had grievances of their own so bitter that it was difficult for a Parlia- ment hostile to their race and creed to govern them. The payment of tithes, especially, weighed heavily on an impoverished popula- tion, and was the more deeply felt as the money went to the support of a clergy of a creed hostile to that of those from whom it was exacted. If the Catholic gentry had been allowed to sit in Parliament, they would at least have brought their influence to bear in favour of an amelioration of the lot of the Catholic peasant in this respect. With respect to another grievance, it is doubtful whether the introduction of Catholic landlords into Parliament 834 IRISH VUlON PEACE OP AMiPNS 1 795-96 v/ould have had any salutary effect. The landlords themselves for the most part let their land at a low rent, but their tenants usually let it out again at a higher rent, and the sub-tenants again let it at a rent higher still, till in some places 6/. was charged as the rent of an acre of potato ground. In the lower classes the bitterness of religious animosity had never been extinguished and blazed up into fierce hatred. In the summer of 1795, when hope of obtaining fair treat- ment from Parliament was extinguished, outrages committed by Catholics upon Protestants became frequent. Angry Protestants, calling themselves Orangemen in memory of William III., retaliated, with all the strength of the Government behind them. Violence and illegality appeared on both sides. The United Irishmen took up the cause of the Catholics, and, early in 1796, sent Wolfe Tone to France, to urge the Directory to invade Ireland and to establish a republic. 5. Bonaparte in Italy. 1796 — 1797. — Before the end of 1796 France had reached a position of overwhelming strength on the Continent. At the beginning of that year her only serious enemies were England, Austria and Sardinia. In the spring, Bonaparte was sent to attack the Austrian and Sardinian armies in Italy. “ You,” he told his soldiers, “ are ill-fed and naked. I will lead you into the most fertile places of the world, where you will find glory and riches.” He defeated both Austrians and Sardinians, compelled the king of Sardinia to make peace, drove the Austrians out of Milan, and laid siege to Mantua their strongest fortress iii Italy. Again and again Bonaparte, with marvellous skill, defeated Austrian armies attempting to save Mantua. It was not, indeed, till February 3, 1797, that Mantua, and with it the mastery of Italy, passed into his hands ; but for some time before that its surrender had been a mere matter of time. 6. Pitt’s First Negotiation with the Directory. 1796. — On October 22, 1796, a British ambassador. Lord Malmesbury, reached Paris to negotiate a peace. He a§ked that France should abandon the Austrian Netherlands, and should withdraw from Italy. As Pitt ought to have foreseen, if he did not actually foresee, the Directory repelled such overtures with scorn. Believing that they had England at their mercy, they struck at Ireland. On December 17, a great fleet carrying an army of 20,000 men sailed from Brest under the command of Hoche, one of the ablest of the French generals, who had set his heart on winning Ireland from the English. It was, however, dispersed at sea, and only some of its vessels reached Bantry Bay, out of which they were driven by a violent 1797 A NAVAL VICTORY 835 storm before a landing could be effected. The most satisfactory thing about this expedition, fram the British point of view, was, that the Irish themselves had shown no signs of welcoming the invaders. 7. Suspension of Cash Payments. 1797. — Pitt was too exclusively an English minister to appreciate the real state of things either in Ireland or on the Continent. His treatment of Ireland was not such as to secure the internal peace of that country, and his treatment of France gave him neither peace nor victory. His main support lay in the extraordinary financial resources supplied by the rapidly in- creasing manufactures of England (seep. 814). Yet even on this ground he did not escape difficulties. In addition to the military and naval expenses incurred by his own country, he spent large sums upon its allies, and in the year 1796 sent no less than 4,000,000/. to Austria. Early in 1797 the Bank of England ran short of gold, and was authorised by the Government, and subsequently by Par- liament, to suspend cash payments. For twenty-four years bank- notes passed from hand to hand, though those who took them knew that it would be a long time before the Bank would be again able to exchange them for gold. 8. Battle of St. Vincent. 1797. — Success in Italy emboldened France in 1797 to attempt a great naval attack on Great Britain. The Batavian Republic — by which title the Dutch Netherlands were now known— had since 1795 been a dependent ally of France, and since October 6, 1796, France had been allied with Spain, which, as soon as the excitement caused by the horrors of the Revolution came to an end, was brought back to the F rench side, by alarm at the preponderance of England at sea. If the French and Spanish fleets could effect a junction, they would be able to bring an overwhelming force into the English Channel, whilst the Dutch fleet was to be employed to convey to Ireland an army of 14,000 men. To prevent this. Admiral Sir John Jervis, on February 16, attacked the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent. His ships were fewer and smaller than those of the Spaniards, but they were better equipped and better manned. Commodore' Nelson, disobeying orders, dashed with his own and one other ship into the midst of the enemy’s fleet. Two other ships followed him after a while, but still the chances of war seemed to be against him. Yet he boarded and captured, first the ‘ San Nicolas ' of 80 guns, and then the ‘ San Josef,’ the flag-ship of the Spanish Admiral, of 112. As the swords of the Spanish officers who surrendered were too many for 1 i.e. A captain having command of other ships besides his own. 836 THE IRISH UNION cr» PEACE OF AMIENS 1797 him to hold, he gave them to one of his bargemen, who coolly tucked them in a bundle under his arm. Jervis was made Earl St. Vincent for the victory ; but he was so nettled at Nelson’s disobedience, that he did not even mention his name in the despatch which was published in the ‘Gazette.’ Nearer home the main business of the British fleet was to prevent a junction between the French and the Dutch. Admiral Duncan was sent to blockade the Dutch in the Texel, whilst Lord Bridport, at the head of the fleet at Spithead, was expected to look after the French. 9. Mutiny at Spithead. 1797. — The plans of the Government were nearly upset by an unexpected mutiny in the fleet. The sailors were paid at a rate settled in the reign of Charles II., though the price of clothes and provisions had risen considerably. They were badly fed, and when they were sick or even w^ounded, their pay was stopped. Order was kept by constant flogging, often administered for slight offences. The sailors at Spithead finding, after petitioning the Admiralty for redress of grievances, that no notice was taken of their petition, refused to go to sea. On this the Lords of the Admiralty instructed Lord Howe to assure them that justice should be done. Howe was a favourite amongst them, and they agreed to return to their duty. A short while afterwards, suspecting the Admiralty of a design to break the promise given to them, they again broke out into mutiny ; but subsequently abandoned their hostile attitude on discovering that the Admiralty had no intention of dealing unfairly with them. 10. Mutiny at the Nore. 1797. — A more serious mutiny broke out in the fleet stationed at the Nore to guard the mouth of the Thames, where the sailors asked not merely to have actual grievances redressed, but to vote on the movements of their own ships even in the presence of an enemy, and blockaded the mouth of the Thames to enforce their demands. The mutiny spread to Duncan’s ships off the Texel, the greater number of which sailed to join the fleet at the Nore. At one time Duncan was left to blockade the Dutch with only one ship besides his own. With this one ship he kept the Dutch in port, by constantly running up flags to make them think that he was signalling to the rest of his fleet, which they imagined to be just out of sight. In the meanwhile, the Government at home got the better of the mutineers. Parker, the chief leader of the revolt, was hanged, with seventeen others, and the crews submitted to their officers and did good service afterwards. 11. Pitt’s second Negotiation with the Directory. i797.~Soon 1797-1798 the rEACE OF CAMPO-FORMIO 837 after the submission of the fleet at the Nore, Pitt made one more effort to obtain peace. Negotiations were held at Lille, but they broke down as completely as the negotiations in the preceding year. Austria had already signed preliminaries of peace with France at Leoben, and as Austria then engaged to abandon its possessions in the Netherlands, Pitt agreed to leave them under French dominion. He was also prepared to surrender some West Indian islands which British fleets had conquered from France, but he would not give up Trinidad, which they had taken from Spain, or the Cape of Good Hope, which they had taken from the Dutch. On his refusal the negotiations were broken off by the Directory. England had the mastery by sea, and France by land. On October 1 1 Duncan defeated the Dutch fleet off Camperdown, on the coast of Holland, thus putting an end to the projected invasion of Ireland (see p. 835) ; and bn October 18 Bonaparte signed peace with Austria at Campo-Formio. The Austrian Netherlands were abandoned to France, whilst the Austrian territories in North Italy were made part of a republic called the Cisalpine Republic, and practically dependent on France. To compensate Austria — as the phrase went — the old Venetian Republic was suppressed, and the greater part of its territory given over to Austria, whilst the remainder went to the Cisalpine Republic. In the partition of Poland, the old governments had set the example of despoiling the weak, and Bonaparte did but carry out their principles. 12. Bonaparte’s Expedition to Egypt. 1798. — When Bonaparte returned to France the Directory urged him to conquer England, but he preferred to go to Egypt. His vast abilities seldom failed him when he was called on to do what was possible to be done, but there was in him a romantic vein which constantly beguiled him into attempting impossible achievements. He hoped by the con- quest of Egypt to found an empire in the East, from which he could hold out a hand to the native rulers of India who were struggling against British authority. Foremost amongst these rulers was Tippoo, the son of Hyder Ali (see p. 805), who had inherited his father’s throne without his father’s militaiy abilities. Tippoo had in 1792 been defeated by Cornwallis and stripped of half his territory, but he was now burning to revenge the disaster, and hoped that Bonaparte would assist him to do so. On May 19 Bonaparte with a large fleet and army sailed from Toulon, seizing Malta on his way from the Knights of St. John. On his arrival in Egypt he marched against the Mamelukes— a splendid body of cavalry, the Beys or chiefs of which ruled the country under 838 THE IRISH UNION ^ PEACE OF AMIENS 1798-99 the nominal supremacy of the Sultan — defeated them at the Battle of the Pyramids, and made himself master of the land. 13. The Battle of the Nile. 1798. —On August i, Nelson— now an admiral — found the French fleet which had conveyed Bonaparte anchored in Aboukir Bay. Instead of following the old fashion of fighting in which the hostile fleets engaged one another in parallel lines; he improved upon the example of breaking the line set by Rodney in 1782. Sending half his fleet through the middle of the enemy’s line, he made it take up a position between half of the French ships and the shore, whilst the other half of his own ships placed themselves outside the same part of the enemy’s line. He thus crushed part of the enemy’s fleet by placing it between two fires before the other part had time to weigh anchor and to come up. The battle raged far into the night. Nelson himself was wounded, and carried below. A surgeon ran up to attend on him. “ No,” he said, “ I will take my turn with my brave fellows.” Before long he heard a cry that the French Admiral’s ship was on fire. Hurrying on deck, he gave orders to send boats to help the French who threw themselves into the sea to escape the flames. The Battle of the Nile ended in a complete British victory, which, by cutting off Bonaparte’s army from France, threw insuperable difficulties in the way of his scheme for the establish- ment of a French empire in the East. 14. Bonaparte in Syria. 1799. — Bonaparte, however, refused to abandon the hopes which he had formed. On January 26 he wrote to Tippoo announcing his preparations to relieve him. In the spring of 1799, Lord Momington, the Governor- General of India, sent an army under Harris against Tippoo, and on May 4 Tippoo’s capital, Seringapatam, was stormed and himself slain. Bonaparte was too far off to attempt a rescue. In February, learning that a Turkish army was coming against him through Syria, he set out to meet it. For a while he was victorious, but he was baffled by the desperate resistance of the Turkish garrison of Acre, which had been encouraged in its defence by an English Commodore, Sir Sidney Smith. On April ii, Bonaparte abandoned the siege of Acre and withdrew to Egypt. There he held his own, but Sir Sidney Smith sent him a file of newspapers to inform him of the events which had been passing in Europe during his absence. So startling was the news, that on August 22 Bonaparte sailed for France, leaving his army in Egypt to its fate. 15. Foundation of the Consulate. 1799 — 1800. — What Bonaparte learned from the newspapers was that a new coalition had been formed against France, this time between England, Austria and 1799 BEGINNING OF THE CONSULATE 839 Russia. The French armies in Germany had been driven across the Rhine, and those in Italy had been beaten in two great battles, one on the Trebbia and the other at Novi, and had been driven across the Alps. When Bonaparte landed in France, he was prepared to turn the disasters of his country to his own advantage. Though a French General, Massena, had defeated the Austrians Head-dress of a lady (Mrs. Abington), about 1778 : from the European Magazine. at Zurich in September, Bonaparte represented the policy of the Directory in the worst colours, accused them of ruining France, and in November made himself master of the country by military violence, on the plea that it was necessary to revise the Consti- tution. In 1800 he was named First Consul, under which title he exercised absolute authority, though he was still nominally only the first magistrate of the Republic. $40 THE IRISH UNION ^ PEACE OF AMIENS 1798-1801 16. An Overture for Peace. 1799. — One of Bonaparte’s first acts after thrusting the Directory from power was to offer peace to England, but his offer was repelled with scorn. Lord Grenville, the Foreign Secretary, in his reply, even went so far as to suggest that the best security which the French could give for peace was the recalling of the Bourbons to the throne. Yet, whatever the Government might say, the country longed for peace. In 1798 Pitt had added to its burdens an income-tax of 10 per cent., and if the war was to go on till the Bourbons were recalled, the prospect before the nation was indeed dreary. 17. The Campaign of Marengo and the Peace of Lundville. 1800— 1801. — At the end of 1799 Pitt cherished the hope that the recent successes of the coalition against France would be continued. In 1800 this hope was dashed to the ground. The Coalition itself broke up. The Tzar Paul, who was half mad, was an enthusiastic admirer of Bonaparte, and when he learnt that Bonaparte was in power withdrew from his alliance with Austria. Bonaparte crossed the Alps, crushed an Austrian army at Marengo in Piedmont, and later in the same year another French General, Moreau, crushed another Austrian army at Hohenlinden in Bavaria. On February 9, 1801, a peace in which the Rhine was formally acknowledged to be the boundary of France was signed at Luneville. The cry for peace increased in England. The harvest of 1800 was a bad one, and in that year and in the following spring the price of corn rose till it reached 1 56^. a quarter. If peace was to be had, Pitt was hardly the man to negotiate it, as he was regarded in France as the most violent enemy of that country, where every evil from which it suffered was popularly attributed to ‘the gold of Pitt.’ It happened, however, that before any fresh negotiation was opened, Pitt resigned office from causes entirely disconnected with the affairs of the Continent. 18. The Irish Rebellion. 1798.— Hoche’s failure in 1797 (see p. 834) had not been followed by any abatement of violence in Ire- land. The so-called Protestant militia and yeomanry, under pre- tence of repressing insurrection and outrage, themselves committed outrages with impunity, and the regular soldiers even learnt to follow their evil example. In order to procure the delivery of coricealed arms, suspected persons were flogged and their houses burnt to the ground. Amongst those who were concerned in these savage actions, Fitzgerald, the Sheriff of Tipperary — ‘Flogging Fitzgerald,’ as he was usually called — obtained an unenviable noto- riety. He indeed suppressed by his energy the organisation of 1798-1799 LORD CORNWALLIS IN IRELAND 841 those who were preparing to welcome a fresh invasion by the French, but his energy often showed itself in the form of brutal outrage. On one occasion, for instance, he almost flogged to death a teacher of languages because he found in his possession a note in the French language which he was himself unable to read, but which he took as evidence of complicity with the French Government. Sir Ralph Abercromby, the commander-in-chief in Ireland, was in 1798 driven by the clamour of the officials to resign his office because he re- monstrated against this rule of license as injurious to the discipline of the army. The Catholics subject to outrage joined the society of United Irishmen in thousands, and the United Irishmen at once made preparations for an insurrection. The secret was betrayed to the Government and the leaders arrested. Nevertheless on May 21 bands of peasants armed with pikes rose in insurrection, principally in Wexford, and in many places committed horrible atrocities. These atrocities, being usually committed against Protestants, alienated the Presbyterians of the North, who from that time began to take part with the Government. At one time it was feared that even Dublin would fall into the hands of the insurgents, but they were defeated at Vinegar Hill near Wexford by the regular troops under General Lake. In August, a French force of 1100 landed in Killala Bay. The first troops sent against them met them at Castlebar, but ran away so fast that the affair is known as the race of Castlebar. The French were, however, too few to make a long resistance, and on September 9 they surrendered, thus bringing to an end all chance of successful resistance to English authority in Ireland. 19. An Irish Reign of Terror. 1798 — 1799. — Before the defeat of the French, Lord Cornwallis arrived as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was a just man, and was deeply moved by the violence of those who styled themselves loyalists. Magistrates and soldiers vied with one another in acts of cruelty. The practice of torturing prisoners to extort confessions was common, and Lord Corn- wallis, who did his best to stop these atrocious proceedings, was exasperated by the light way in which they were regarded in his own presence. “ The conversation of the principal persons of the country,” he wrote, “ all tends to encourage this system of blood, and the conversation, even at my table, where you may suppose I do all I can to prevent it, always turns on hanging, shooting, burning, &c., and if a priest has been put to death, the greatest joy is expressed by the whole company.” In 1799 the Irish Parliament passed an Act of ind^nity securing against punishment all persons in. 3 I 842 THE IRISH UNION ^ PEACE OF AMIENS 1800-01 who had used illegal violence which could in any way be connected with the suppression of the rebellion. 20. The Irish Union. 1800. — The Irish Parliament could hardly be left as it was. In 1795 it might have been possible to reform it ; in 1799, when the country was torn asunder by bitter hatred, when Protestants had used Parliamentary forms to wreak vengeance on Catholics, and when Catholics, if they were allowed to form the majority in it, would use them to wreak vengeance on Protestants, it was no longer possible. The easy way of putting an end to the difficulty by uniting the British and Irish Parliaments more and more commended itself to Pitt. The majority in the Irish Parliament was venal, and Pitt, through the medium of a young Irish official. Lord Castlereagh, secured a majority in it, not indeed by paying money directly for votes, but by agreeing to compensate the owners of boroughs at the rate of 15,000/. a seat,' and by granting peerages and lavishly dispensing patron- age as a reward for Parliamentary support. Grattan came forth from the retirement in which he had remained during the late times of trouble, and denounced the Union ; but the Act of Union received the assent of the Parliament at Dublin as well as of the Parliament at Westminster, and after January i, 1801, there was but one Parliament for the two countries. 21. Pitt’s Resignation. 1801. — Pitt no doubt had the most generous intentions. He imagined that the United Parliament would judge fairly and justly between the two hostile Irish parties, and he wished it to win over the sympathies of Irish Catholics, by offering a State maintenance to their priests, by improving the existing system of the payment of tithes, and, above all, by admitting Catholics to office and to seats in Parliament. Having little doubt that he would be able to accomplish this, he had allowed it to be under- stood in Ireland that he would support a measure of Catholic emancipation. He soon, however, found that the king would not hear of this proposal, and behind the king was the British nation. On this, he resigned office, and indeed he could hardly do less. Pitt, however, though he was himself out of office, offered his 1 This was, however, paid whether the owner’s nominee yotod for the government or not. The Union Jack, in use since 1801. i8oi PITT AND ADDINGTON 843 assistance in the formation of a ministry hostile to the Catholic claims, over which his influence might be felt, and he probably expected at the time that this arrangement would be of long con- tinuance. 22. The Addington Ministry. 1801. — At the head of the new ministry was Addington, who had been Speaker of the House of Commons, a well-meaning, inefficient man, strongly hostile to Catholic emancipation, and warmly attached to Pitt. Before Addington could settle himself in office, the king’s mind, shaken William Pitt : from the bust by Nollekens in the National Portrait Gallery. by the excitement of recent events, once more gave way. This time, however, the attack was of short duration, and, as soon as recovery was complete, Pitt assured him that he would never again propose Catholic emancipation during his reign. There are reasons for supposing that Pitt would at this time willingly have returned to office, but the king had already engaged himself to the new Ministers, and Addington had to try his hand at governing the country. 23. Malta and Egypt. 1800. — As far as the war was concerned 844 the IRISH UNION PEACE OF AMIENS 1800-01 the arrangements made by Pitt before his resignation were crowned with success. After a long siege, Malta surrendered in 1800, and on March 8, 1801, an expedition under Sir Ralph Abercromby landed in Egypt to drive out the French army which had been left there by Bonaparte. Abercromby was killed, but his troops, after a series of successful operations, finally reduced Alexandria to sur- render on August 30, when it was agreed that the whole of the F rench army should evacuate Egypt. The Egyptian campaign was memorable, as showing, for the first time since the French Revolution, that British soldiers were still capable of defeating the F rench. 24. The Northern Confederacy and the Battle of Copenhagen. 1801. — In the North the British Government was no less success- ful. A Northern Confederacy had been formed between Russia, Sweden and Denmark which, though it did not declare itself directly hostile to England, was intended to resist, as in the days of Royal Arms as borne from 1714 to 1801. Royal arms as borne from 1801 to 1816 : the Hanoverian scutcheon sur- mounted by an electoral bonnet. Royal arms from i8i6 to 1837 : the Hanoverian scutcheon surmounted by a royal crown. the American War, the pretensions of British ships to search neutral vessels in order to take out of them French goods (see p. 792). The Government sent a fleet to break up the confederacy, but i8oi NELSON IN THE BALTIC 845 appointed Nelson only second in command under Sir Hyde Parker, who was of no note as a sailor. Parker sent Nelson to attack Copenhagen. On April 2, Nelson opened fire upon the heavy batteries which defended the city. After the battle had raged for some time, Parker, believing Nelson to be in danger of defeat, hoisted a signal ordering him to draw off. Nelson, who some years before had lost the sight of an eye in action, put his telescope to his blind eye, and, declaring that he could not see the signal of recall, kept his own signal for close action flying. In the end the Danish batteries were silenced. Nelson sent ashore the wounded Greathead’s lifeboat, 1803 : from the European Magazine. Danes, and when he landed was received with shouts by the people in appreciation of his kindness to the sufferers. Nelson assured the Crown Prince, who acted as Regent in his father’s place, that he wished to treat the Danes as the brothers of the English, and an armistice was concluded. Not long afterwards, the war in the North came to an end through the murder of the Tzar Paul. His son and successor, Alexander I., made on June 17 a treaty with England, in which he and his allies abandoned their claim that the neutral flag should protect enemies’ goods, thus admitting the right of search claimed by the British Government. 846 THE IRISH UNION PEACE OF AMIENS 1801-02 25. The Treaty of Amiens. 1802. — Negotiations with France were in the meanwhile pushed rapidly forward. Preliminaries of peace were signed in London on October i, 1801, and a definitive treaty at Amiens on March 28, 1802. Great Britain abandoned all her conquests beyond the seas except Ceylon and Trinidad, and agreed to restore Malta to the Knights, if its possession by them were guaranteed by the great powers. ‘ It was a peace which,’ as Sheridan, the wit of the Opposition, declared, ‘ everybody would be glad of, but which nobody would be proud of.’ The broad fact of the situation was that France was strong enough to retain her conquests in Europe ; and that the enthusiasm which would alone enable those who had suffered from her aggression to wrest The old East India House in 1803. her gains from her was entirely lacking both in England and on the Continent. Pitt may have been right in holding that England ought not to allow France to possess herself of the Netherlands ; but he had totally failed in preventing her from doing it, and in 1802 there did not appear to be the remotest chance that he or any other minister would succeed better in the future. In Parliament and out of Parliament the peace was welcomed with joy. George III., when the preliminaries of peace were signed in 1801, had taken the opportunity to abandon the empty title of king of France, which had been borne by his predecessors since the time of Edward III., and to omit the French lilies from the royal arms (see p. 844). 26. Rupture of the Treaty of Amiens. 1803.— The Treaty of Amiens had scarcely been signed before the English Ministers began WESTMINSTER ABBEY 84? The old Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, 1803. 848 THE IRISH UNION 6- PEACE OF AMIENS 1803-04 to fear that Bonaparte was about to employ the time of peace merely to strengthen himself for further attacks upon their own and other countries. He annexed Piedmont and occupied Switzerland. It is probable, however, that these things would have been passed over in England, if the Ministry had not conceived suspicions that he intended to re-occupy Egypt. They therefore refused to give up Malta to the Knights as they were bound by the treaty to do, first on the ground that no guarantee of its indepen- dence could be obtained from the great Powers (see p. 846), and then on the ground that, whatever they might be bound to by treaty, they needed Malta as a security against the danger of a French conquest of Egypt. Bonaparte claimed the execution of the treaty, and on one occasion used most violent language to Lord Whitworth, the English ambassador. He was himself irritated, not merely on the subject of Malta, but because the English Ministers refused to suppress without trial the virulent attacks on himself which were published by the French refugees in England. One of these, named Peltier, was indeed convicted of libel by a jury, but he escaped punishment because France and England were again at v/ar before judgment was pronounced against him. As no com- promise about Malta acceptable to both sides could be found, war was recommenced before the end of May 1803. 27. The last Months of the Addington Ministry. 1803 — 1804, On the outbreak of hostilities, Bonaparte gave reasonable offence to the British nation by throwing into prison about 10,000 British travellers, though it had always been the custom to give time to such persons to leave the country after a declaration of war. As he had no other war on his hands than that with Great Britain, he seized Hanover and assembled a large army at Boulogne to invade England. At once a volunteer army stepped forward to aid the regular army in the defence of the country. From one end of the country to the other some 300,000 volunteers of all classes were busily drilling. Public opinion soon demanded a stronger ministry than the existing one. On May 10, 1804, Addington resigned. General opinion called for Pitt as Prime Minister at the head of a ministry taken from both parties, so that all disposable talent might be employed in the defence of the nation. The King insisted that Pitt should promise never to support Catholic Emanci- pation, and should exclude F ox from the new ministry. F ox at once consented to be passed over, but Lord Grenville refused to join if F ox was excluded. “ I will teach that proud man,” said Pitt, “ that I can do without him,” and on May 18 Pitt again became Prime Minister, though with but a poor staff of ministers to support him. 849 CHAPTER LIII THE ASCENDENCY OF NAPOLEON. 1804 — 1807 LEADING DATES Reign of George III., 1760—1820 Pitt’s Second Prime Ministership . . 1 Napoleon declared Emperor of the French j Battle of Trafalgar Battle of Austerlitz Death of Pitt Death of Fox Battle of Jena The Berlin Decree Treaty of Tilsit Orders in Council The Milan Decree I. The Napoleonic Empire. 1804. — There was scarcely an Englishman living in 1804 who did not regard Napoleon as a wicked and unprincipled villain whom it was the duty of every honest man to resist to the death. This conception of his character was certainly not without foundation. He had no notion of allowing moral scruples to interfere with his designs, and whenever his personal interests were concerned he knew no rule except that of his own will. Having nearly been the victim of an attempt at assassination by a party of Royalists, he avenged himself by kidnapping the Duke of Enghien on the neutral territory of Baden and having him shot, simply because he was a kinsman of the Bourbon Princes, the brothers of the late King. In his dealings with foreign states he took whatever seemed good to him to take, and his seizure of Piedmont was but the forerunner of other annexations. Yet, regardless of morality as he was, Napoleon was not more regardless of it than the statesmen who had partitioned Poland, and he had at least an intellectual preference for good government. He gave to France an excellent administration, and also gave his sanction to the code of law drawn up by the jurists of the Republic, which was now to be known as the Code Napoleon. He also took care that there should be good justice in his courts between man and man. Hence, exasperating as his annexations were to the great sove- reigns of Europe, they were not popular grievances. A country annexed to France, or even merely brought, as most of the German May 18, 1804 Oct. 21, 1805 Dec. 2, 1805 Jan, 23, 1806 Sept. 13, 1806 Oct. 14, 1806 Nov. 21, 1806 July 7, 1807 Nov. II, 1807 Dec. 17, 1807 S$o THE ascendency of napoleon 1804 states now were, under the influence of France, found its gain in being better governed. On May 18 Napoleon was declared here- ditary Emperor of the French. His power was neither more nor less absolute than it had been before. 1804-1805 THE ARMY AT BOULOGNE 85 2. A Threatened Invasion. 1804 — ^805. — Neither the French Revolution nor the French Empire was to be resisted by govern- ments acting without a popular force behind them ; and in 1804 it was only in England that the government had a popular force behind it, and could therefore oppose to Napoleon a national resistance. Every day that saw a French army encamped at Boulogne strengthened that resistance. Napoleon was, indeed, so certain of success that he ordered the preparation of a medal falsely stating itself to have been struck in London, as if the conquest of England had been already effected. Strong as Pitt became in the country, he was weak in Parliament. Before the end of 1804 he was reconciled to Addington, who entered the ministry as Viscount Sidmouth. On April 6 a vote was carried which led to the impeachment, on a charge of peculation, of his old friend Napoleon’s medal struck to commemorate the invasion of England : from a cast in the British Museum, Henry Dundas, now Lord Melville and First Lord of the Admiralty. Ultimately Melville was acquitted, and there is no reason to think that he was guilty of more than neglect of the forms needed for guarding against embezzlement ; but Melville’s necessary resignation was a sad blow to Pitt. 3. The Trafalgar Campaign. 1805. — Napoleon’s plan for the invasion of England was most skilful. He was aware that boats laden with troops could not cross the Channel unless their passage could be guarded against British ships of war, but as the king of Spain was now on his side against England, he had three fleets at his disposal, two French ones at Toulon and Brest, and a Spanish one at Cadiz. He thought that, though not one of these was separately a match for a British fleet, yet that the three combined would at least be strong enough to hold the Channel 852 THE ASCENDENCY OF NAPOLEON 1804 1 805 THE DEATH OF NELSON 853 long enough to enable him to get his army across. Consequently, the Toulon fleet, escaping by his orders from that port, made its way to Cadiz, and picking up the Spanish fleet there, sailed along with it to the West Indies. As Napoleon expected. Nelson, who commanded the British Mediterranean fleet, sailed to the West Indies in pursuit of the French and Spanish fleets. Whilst Nelson was searching for them, they, in accordance with Napoleon’s Lord Nelson ; from the picture by Abbott in the National Portrait Gallery. instructions, were already on their way back to Europe, where they were to drive off the British squadron blockading Brest, and then, combining with the F rench fleet which had been shut up there, to make their way up the Channel and hold the Straits of Dover in irresistible force in Nelson’s absence. Part of Napo- leon’s expectation was fulfilled. Nelson indeed sailed to the West Indies with thirteen ships after tb^ enemy’s fleet, which numbered 854 THE ASCENDENCY OF NAPOLEON 1805 thirty. Not finding them there, he sailed back in pursuit. They, however, reached the Bay of Biscay before him, and were there attacked by Sir Robert Calder, who happened to meet them with fifteen British ships. Two Spanish ships were taken, and the rest of the fleet was so terrified that it betook itself to Cadiz. 4. The Battle of Trafalgar. 1805. — England was saved from invasion, but it was Napoleon’s pride which completed her triumph. Though the French sailors had been too long blockaded in various ports to be efficient seamen, he insisted on his admiral’s putting again to sea. With a heavy heart the admiral obeyed orders, and on October 21 Nelson fell in with him off Cape Trafalgar. Nelson gave the signal of “ England expects every man to do his duty.” In the battle which followed, the F rench and Spanish fleets were almost entirely destroyed, but Nelson fell mortally wounded by a shot from a F rench ship. N ever again during the war did a F rench or Spanish fleet venture to put out from harbour, or had a British navy to contend for the mastery over the sea. Yet, so deeply was Nelson honoured in England, that when the news of the triumph arrived, it was doubtful whether joy for the victory or sorrow for the loss was the greater. 5. The Campaign of Austerlitz. 1805. — In 1805 there was strife on land as well as at sea. In April the foundations of a third coali- tion against F ranee were laid by an alliance between England and Russia. Napoleon defied it by annexing Genoa to France, and by converting the old Cisalpine Republic, which had been named the Italian Republic in 1802, into a kingdom of Italy of which he was himself the king. Austria joined the coalition, and in August Napoleon, knowing that by Calder’s victory his scheme for the inva- sion of England had failed, marched his army off from Boulogne to attack Austria and Russia. His enemies had no time to combine against him. An advanced force of Austrians about 40,000 strong was at Ulm on the Upper Danube. The main Austrian army was still around Vienna, whilst the Russian army was slowly advancing to its aid. On October 14 Napoleon compelled the Austrians at Ulm to capitulate. On November 11 he entered Vienna, the Aus- trian army having retreated to join the Russian. On December 2 he signally defeated the two armies at Austerlitz. The Russians fell back on their own country. On December 6 the Emperor Francis signed the Treaty of Pressburg, abandoning Venetia to the new kingdom of Italy, and Tyrol to Bavaria. 6. Pitt’s Death. 180^. — Pitt, worn out with work and anxiety. i8o6 DEATH OF PITT 855 did not recover the blow. “ How I leave my country ! ” were the last words spoken by him. On January 23, 1806, he died. In modern times he is chiefly respected as the enlightened financier and states- man of the years of peace. His resistance to France, it is thought, was weakly planned, and his management of the war disastrous. In his own time he was regarded as ‘ The Pilot that weathered the storm.’ If he failed in his military efforts against France on the Continent, where he had but governments to oppose to a nation, he made England safe by the impulse which he gave to her power at sea. “ England,” he once said in replying to a toast at the Guild- hall, “ has saved herself by her exertions, and will save Europe by her example.” Such words forms Pitt’s best epitaph. He showed what could be done by a nation conscious of its strength, and resolute not to bow to the dictates of a despotic conqueror. 7. The Ministry of All the Talents. 1806. — Pitt’s death left the king no choice but to take Fox as a minister. A ministry known as the Ministry of All the Talents was formed out of various parties. Lord Grenville, who had been Foreign Secretary at the end of Pitt’s first ministry, became Prime Minister, bringing with him an air of respectability of which the Whigs were in want, whilst Fox was Foreign Secretary, and a place was even found for Sidmouth, the leader of the stiffest Tories. Fox did his best to bring the war to an end by opening a negotiation with France, taking advantage of the confession of a man, in all probability an agent of Napoleon himself, that he intended to murder the Emperor of the French. Fox, however, soon discovered that Napoleon was too slippery to be bound by treaties. At one time the French Emperor offered to re- store Hanover to the King of England, and at another time he drew back and offered it to Prussia. Even Fox became convinced that a continuance of the war was unavoidable. He was himself suffering from dropsy, and had not many weeks to live ; but, though unable to give peace to his country, he had time to signalise the close of his career by moving a resolution for the abolition of the slave trade (see p. 823), as far as British ships and colonies were concerned. Fox died on September 13 ; and though the slave trade was not abolished by law till after his death, he lived to know that all real difficulties had been surmounted. Whether, if he had held office for a longer term, he would have been distinguished amongst practical states- men, it is difficult to say. It is true that he was not an originator of new schemes of policy ; but a minister may be none the worse for that, if he has the tact and skill to secure the acceptance of the schemes of others. Fox’s main defect was his want of power 8s6 THE ASCENDENCY OF NAPOLEON 1806 to forecast the temper with which his words and acts would be re- ceived, and he thus frequently, as in the cases of the coalition with Lord North (see p. 800) and of the Regency Bill (see p. 811), made himself unpopular, much to his own surprise. The generous warmth of his disposition, and his hopeful sympathy with all good and great causes, give him a high place amongst British statesmen. 8. The Overthrow of Prussia. 1806. — The spring and summer of 1806 had been spent by Napoleon in remodelling Germany. He united the middle-sized states of the south into a confederation of Fox ; from his bust by Nollekens in the National Portrait Gallery. the Rhine, practically under his own authority, to support France against Austria and Prussia. On August 6 Francis II. abandoned for ever the futile title of Roman Emperor which had come down to him from the Caesars, and was thenceforward known by the new title of Emperor of Austria w’hich he had given himself in 1804. Napoleon placed his brother Joseph on the throne of Naples, and though a British force landed in the Neapolitan dominions and defeated the French invaders at Maida, it could not save the mainland, and the English Government had to content itself with keeping Sicily i8o6-i8o7 OVERTHROW OF PRUSSIA S57 for the Spanish Bourbon, Ferdinand L, who still called himself King of the Two Sicilies. Somewhat later Napoleon made another of his brothers — Louis — king of Holland. Neither in Italy nor in the smaller states of Germany was there any feeling of offended nationality goading on the populations to resist changes which brought with them more active government and better adminis- tration. Prussia, however, still maintained her independence, and when, after offering to her Hanover, Napoleon, in the course of his negotiation with Fox, turned round and offered to restore it to the King of England, the long patience of the King of Prussia, Frederick William III., was exhausted. War between Prussia and France was declared ; but the Prussian State and army were both completely inefficient, and on October 14 two Prus- sian armies were not merely beaten, but absolutely destroyed as military organisations, at Jena and Auerstadt. The Prussian State crumbled away, and before the end of November Napoleon was in military possession of the greater part of Prussia. 9. The End of the Ministry of All the Talents. 1807. — Russia came to the aid of the now diminished Prussia. On February 8, 1807, a drawn battle was fought at Eylau. The Tzar Alexander I. anxiously looked to England for aid, thinking that if an English army were landed on the coast of the Baltic, Napoleon would be obliged to detach part of his forces to watch it, and would thereby be weakened in his struggle with Russia. The Ministry of All the Talents, however, had no capacity for war. They frittered away their strength by sending useless expeditions to the Dardanelles, to Egypt, and to Buenos Ayres, leaving themselves no troops for the decisive struggle nearer home. On March 24 they were expelled from office by the king, because, though they agreed to relinquish a project which they had formed for allowing Catholics to serve as officers in the army and navy, they refused to promise that they would never under any circumstances propose any measure of concession to the Catholics. On March 25, the day after their resignation, the royal assent was given to a bill for the abolition of the slave trade. The new Prime Minister was the inefficient Duke of Portland, who had been the nominal head of the Coalition Ministry in 1783 (see p. 801). The ablest members of the new Cabi- net were Lord Castlereagh, who had managed the Irish Parliament at the time of the Union, and the brilliant George Canning, who had been one of the staunchest of the followers of Pitt. The remainder of Portland’s colleagues were narrow in their views, and all were pledged to resist Catholic emancipation, A dissolution of Parlia- III, 3 K 858 THE ASCENDENCY OF NAPOLEON 1807 ment took place before long, and it was found that the constituencies supported the king and the new ministry. The reaction against the principles of the French revolutionists was still so strong that it was difficult to obtain a hearing even for the most necessary plan of reform. 10. The Treaty of Tilsit. 1807. — Canning, who was Foreign Secretary, would readily have sent to the Baltic the forces which his predecessor had refused to the Tzar. Before, however, they could be got ready, Napoleon defeated the Russians at Friedland on June 14, and on the 25th he held an interview with the Tzar on a raft on the Niemen. Alexander was vexed at the delay of the English, and the first words he uttered to Napoleon were, “ I hate the English as much as you do.” The Treaty of Tilsit, signed between France and Russia on July 7, was the result of the conference. By a secret understanding, Russia was allowed to conquer Finland from Sweden, and as much of the Turkish dominions as she could get, whilst all Europe west of the Russian border was delivered over to Napoleon. He erected a new kingdom of Westphalia for his youngest brother, Jerome, and gave a great part of Poland, under the name of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, to the Elector of Saxony, whom he had recently converted into a king. The confederation of the Rhine was extended to include all the German states except Austria and Prussia. The weight of Napoleon’s vengeance fell heavily on Prussia. Not only was her territory much reduced, but she was forced to support French garrisons in her fortresses, and was com- pelled to pay enormous sums of money to France, and to limit her army to 42,000 men. Hitherto the people of defeated states had been, on the whole, better off in consequence of their defeat. The Prussians were far worse off, and, therefore, the treatment of Prussia by Napoleon for the first time brought against him popular ill-will. 11. The Colonies. 1804 — 1807. — Whilst Napoleon was establish- ing a dominion over the western and central part of the European Continent, Great Britain made use of her dominion of the sea to enlarge her colonial possessions. No one at that time thought much of the establishment in 1788 of a settlement of convicts in Botany Bay, or what afterwards came to be known as New South Wales. The two points at which British ambition aimed were the security of the sea route to India and the extension of the production of sugar in the West Indies. The first design was satisfied in 1806, by a second and permanent occupation of the Dutch territory at the Cape of Good Hope ; the second, in 1804, by the taking from the Dutch of the territory on the mainland of South America, iKo2-i8o6 WELLESLEY LN INDLA 859 afterwards known as British Guiana, and by the capture of West India Islands which had hitherto been held by the French and Dutch. 12. The Overthrow of the Mahrattas. 1802—1806. — Since the destruction of Tippoo Sahib in 1799, Lord Mornington (see p. 838), recently created Marquis Wellesley, had discovered that Sindhia, one of the Mahratta chiefs, had a large force organised by a Frenchman, Perron. He therefore attempted to introduce a subsi- diary system, compelling native rulers to pay the expenses of troops under British officers which could be used against them if they were not submissive. In 1802, the Peishwah having been driven from Poonah by Holkar (see p. 802), Wellesley entered into a compact to restore him on condition of his agreeing to a subsidiary treaty. Two other great Mahratta chiefs, Sindhia and the Bhonsla, who was Rajah of Berar, joined Holkar against the English, and in 1803 Wellesley sent against the confederacy his brother Arthur Wellesley. On September 23, 1803, Arthur Wellesley at the head of 4,500 men defeated Sindhia’s 30,000 at Assaye, whilst Lake defeated Perron’s force on August 29 at Alighur, and after various successes crushed Sindhia himself on November i, in a hard-contested battle at Laswaree. On November 29 Wellesley again defeated the united forces of Sindhia and the Bhonsla at Argaum. On this, both chiefs made their submission, ceding territory to the English, and to the allies of the English, the Nizam, and Shah Alum, who held nominal rule at Delhi as the Great Mogul. Holkar, who was again joined by Sindhia, held out till January 1806, at one time gaining no inconsiderable successes, though all three, Sindhia, Holkar, and the Bhonsla, were in the end compelled to submit. 13. Wellesley’s Recall. 1805. — In 1805, before Holkar had submitted. Lord Wellesley was recalled. His wars had been expensive, and the East India Company never liked expense. No one now doubts that Wellesley was right. The Mahratta chiefs were freebooters on a large scale, and freebooting was incompati- ble with the peace and civilisation which it was the glory of British statesmen to introduce into India. Wellesley, when he landed in 1798, found the British occupying certain portions of India. When he left the country in 1805, almost the whole of the South had passed under British administration, what are now the North- Western Provinces had been annexed, and the military predomi- nance of the Mahrattas had been brought to an end. 14. The Continental System. 1806—1807. — In the meanwhile Napoleon, hopeless of overpowering Britain at sea, attempted to 86o THE ASCENDENCY OF NAPOLEON 1806-1807 subjugate her in another way. On November 21, 1806, soon after his victory at Jena, he issued the Berlin Decree, closing all European ports under his influence — that is to say, almost all the ports from the Vistula to the Adriatic — against British com- merce. All British ports were declared in a state of blockade, though Napoleon could not watch any one of them with a single vessel, and all goods coming from Great Britain or her colonies were to be destroyed. On November ii, 1807, Great Britain re- taliated by Orders in Council declaring all ports of France and her allies to be in a state of blockade, and all vessels good prize which attempted to enter them unless they had previously touched at a British harbour. To this, on December 17, 1807, Napoleon replied by the Milan Decree, declaring all neutral vessels liable to seizure if they touched at any British ports before attempting to land their cargoes in any part of Europe under the control of France. The Berlin and Milan Decrees together established what is known as Napoleon’s Continental System. 1 5. Effects of the Continental System. 1807. — Ultimately the effects of the Continental System were most injurious to Napoleon. As the British fleet controlled the sea, no colonial goods could be obtained except through British vessels. A gigantic system of smuggling sprang up, and the seizure and destruction of British goods only served to raise the price of those which escaped. Sugar, coffee, and calico grew dear, and the labourer soon dis- covered that, in consequence of the Continental System, he had to pay more for the coffee which he drank and for the shirt which he wore. A strong feeling opposed to Napoleon manifested itself for the first time amongst the conquered populations. 16. The Bombardment of Copenhagen. 1807. — At sea Eng- lishmen were almost as high-handed as Napoleon by land. They searched neutral vessels for goods destined for France, confiscating them in accordance with decisions of their own admiralty court in a fashion which would not be tolerated now. Shortly after the Treaty of Tilsit Canning learnt that Napoleon meant to seize the fleet of Denmark, which was at that time neutral, and to employ it against Great Britain. A British fleet and army were sent to Copenhagen, and the Crown Prince of Denmark (see p. 845) was asked to deliver up the Danish fleet on a promise that it should be restored at the end of the war. On his refusal, Copenhagen was bombarded till at last the Danes gave way. The fleet was surrendered, and the British Government, on the plea that it had been driven to use force, refused to be bound by its offer to restore the ships ultimately The taking of Curac^ao, 1807. 862 THE ASCENDENCY OF NAPOLEON [807 to their owners. There were many in England who found fault with the whole proceeding, and even George III. seems to have been very much of their opinion. Speaking to the gentleman who had carried to the Crown Prince the message asking him to give up the fleet, the old king asked whether he found the prince upstairs or downstairs. “ He was on the ground floor, please your Majesty,” was the reply. “ I am glad of it for your sake,” said the king ; “ for if he had half my spirit, he would have kicked you downstairs.” CHAPTER LIV THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON. 1807— 1814 LEADING DATES Reign of George III., 1760—1820 The Establishment of Joseph Bonaparte in Spain . 1808 Battle of Vimeiro ■ Aug. 21, 1808 Battle of Corunna Jan. 16, i8og Napoleon’s War with Austria i8og Battle of Talavera July 27- 28, i8og Defence of Torres Vedras • July 22, 1812 Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia 1812 Battle of Salamanca • July 22, 1812 Battle of Vittoria June 21, 1813 Napoleon driven out of Germany . 1813 First Restoration of Louis XVIII. . 1814 War with America . 1812- -1814 Battle of Waterloo June 18, 1815 Second Restoration of Louis XVIII. 1815 I. Napoleon and Spain. 1807 — 1808. — Napoleon had been gradu- ally maturing designs against Spain. The king, Charles IV., was too witless to govern, and the queen was living in adultery with Godoy, an unprincipled favourite who ruled the kingdom. The heir to the throne, Ferdinand, despised his father and hated Godoy. Spain, indeed, had been most subservient to Napoleon, and had sacrificed her fleets to him at St. Vincent and Trafalgar, but even Godoy discovered that Spain received all the loss and none of the advan- tages of the alliance, and began to show signs of independence. Napoleon resolved to bring Spain entirely under his control, and in October 1807, in order to procure the entry of his troops into the country, signed a treaty with Spain, by which France and Spain i8o8 THE SPANISH TROUBLES 863 were to make a joint attack on Portugal, and to cut it up into three parts, one of which was to be given to Godoy. Napoleon then stirred up Ferdinand against his parents, and on this Godoy, not knowing that Napoleon had a hand in the matter, obtained from the king a proclamation announcing that he intended to bring his son to justice. Napoleon, partly on the pretence of attacking Portugal, and partly on the pretence of protecting Ferdinand, sent 80,000 men into Spain, and in February 1808 placed Murat, his brother-in-law and his best cavalry officer, at their head. 2. The Dethronement of Charles IV. 1808. — On March 17 a Spanish mob rose against Godoy, and the old king, Charles IV., abdicated in favour of his son. Before long, however, he repented and declared his abdication invalid, whilst Ferdinand insisted that it was in full force. Napoleon, to whom both father and son appealed for support, invited them to Bayonne, where he forced them both to abdicate. In the meanwhile Murat had entered Madrid. On May 2 Madrid rose against him, but the insurrection was put down with great cruelty. Napoleon fancied that all resist- ance was at an end, but before the end of May the Spanish people, town by town and village by village, rose in a national insur- rection against the French, without any one part of the country having previous communication with another. Except in his relations with England, Napoleon had hitherto had to deal with the resistance of governments and armies. He had now to deal with a people inspired with hatred of a foreign conquest. It is true that the Spaniards were ignorant and backward, and that they had no trustworthy military organisation ; but for all that, they had what neither the Germans nor the Italians as yet had, the spirit of national resistance. 3. The Capitulation at Baylen. 1808. — In June Napoleon got together a certain number of Spaniards at Bayonne who, by his directions, chose his brother Joseph, hitherto king of Naples, to be king of Spain, after which Napoleon sent Murat to replace Joseph at Naples. Napoleon also urged his generals to put down the re- sistance of the peasants. They pressed forwards victoriously, but one of them, Dupont, pushing on too far, was obliged, on July 19, to capitulate at Baylen in the Sierra Morena. Joseph had to fly from Madrid, and the whole French army retreated behind the Ebro. 4. Battle of Vimeiro and Convention of Cintra. 1808. — In the preceding winter a French army under Junot had invaded Portugal, and had occupied Lisbon, though the whole of the royal family escaped capture by sailing away to the great Portuguese colony of 864 THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON 1808-1809 Brazil. Portugal and England were old allies, and partly in order to deliver Portugal, partly in order to support the resistance of Spain, the British ministry, urged on by Canning, sent an army to resist Junot, The British Government gave the charge of it to Sir Arthur Wellesley, the best soldier in their service, the victor of Assaye and Argaum (see p. 859). Indian service, however, was in those days little regarded, and two old officers of no distinction. Sir Henry Dalrymple and Sir Harry Burrard, were sent after Wellesley to take the command over him as soon as they could arrive in Portugal. Meanwhile, on August i, Wellesley landed in Mondego Bay. On August 21 he completely defeated Junot at Vimeiro. Burrard, who arrived just as the battle was beginning, was enough of a gentleman to let Wellesley remain in command till it was fought out, but he superseded him as soon as it was over, and in spite of Wellesley’s pleadings, refused to follow up the enemy. Junot got safely into Lisbon, and on August 30 was allowed by a convention signed at Cintra to return with all his army to F ranee. 5. Sir John Moore’s Expedition and the Battle of Corunna. 1808 — 1809. In November 1808 Napoleon entered Spain in person to stem the tide of disaster. The Spanish troops were patriotic, but they were ill-commanded and undisciplined. Napoleon drove them like sheep before him, and, on December 4, entered Madrid. The British army in Portugal was now commanded by Sir John Moore. The Convention of Cintra had been received with indignation in England as improperly lenient to the French, and Wellesley and his two official superiors had been recalled to give an account of their conduct in relation to it. Moore, who was an excellent general, had been ordered to advance to the assistance of the Spaniards, when Napoleon burst into the country. Deceived by false intelligence, and believing that the Spaniards would fight better than they did, Moore pushed on, reaching Sahagun on December 23. He there learnt that Napoleon was already hurrying back from Madrid to crush him. Moore was therefore forced to retreat, but he so skilfully availed himself of the obstacles on the route as to give Napoleon no opportunity of drawing him to a battle. On January i, 1809, Napoleon, thinking Moore’s destruc- tion to be a mere matter of time, turned back, leaving the French army under the command of Soult. On January 16 Moore had to fight a battle at Corunna to secure the embarkation of his men. He was himself killed, but his army was completely victorious, and was brought away in safety to England. i8o9 OVERTHROW OF AUSTRIA 865 6. Aspern and Wagram. 1809. — Napoleon had been recalled from Spain by news that Austria was arming against him. A war between France and Austria was the result, and after the indecisive battle of Aspern, fought on May 21 and 22, 1809, the French gained a victory at Wagram on July 6. On October 14 the Treaty of Vienna was signed, by which vast territories were cut off from the Austrian Empire. The treaty was followed by a marriage between Napoleon and the daughter of the Emperor Francis, Napoleon having divorced his wife Josephine on a flimsy pretext, his real motive being that she had borne him no children. The English Government were not idle spectators of this war. Canning had taken in hand the war in Spain. 7. Walcheren and Talavera. 1809. — Whilst the result of the campaign in Austria was still uncertain, Castlereagh sent out an expedition to seize Antwerp, in the hope that, if it succeeded, it would compel Napoleon, who was still struggling on the Danube, to send part of his army back. Unfortunately, the command of the land forces sent out was given to Lord Chatham, the eldest son of the great Chatham, who had nothing but his birth to recom- mend him, and the command of the fleet to Sir Richard Strachan, an officer of no great distinction. Though the expedition did not sail till July 28, three weeks after the defeat of the Austrians at Wagram, there was still a chance that a successful blow at Antwerp might encourage the Emperor of Austria to prolong the struggle. The commanders, however, took Flushing and did no more. Time was frittered away in senseless disputes between the general and the admiral, and Antwerp was put in a good state of defence before they could resolve how to attack it. According to a popular epigram. The Earl of Chatham, with his sword drawn Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strachan ; Sir Richard, longing to be at ’em. Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham, Whilst admiral and general were hesitating, the troops were left in the low isle of Walcheren, where a fever broke out which swept away thousands, and so weakened the constitutions of those who recovered that few were fit for active service again. When the news of failure reached England, Canning threw all the blame on Castlereagh. The two ministers both resigned office and then fought a duel. The Duke of Portland, the Prime Minister, broken in health, also resigned, and died shortly afterwards. He was succeeded by Perceval, a conscientious but narrow-minded 866 THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON 1809 man. Wellesley was sent back to Portugal. Marching rapidly northwards from Lisbon, he drove Soult from Oporto. Having thus cleared his left flank, he returned to Lisbon and then pushed up the valley of the Tagus, intending to co-operate with a Spanish The Court of King’s Bench in 1810 : from Pennant’s ‘ Some Account of London.' i8o9-i8ii THE PENINSULAR WAR 867 force in an attack on Madrid. At Talavera Wellesley met a French army under Marshal Victor, and though the Spanish general gave him no assistance, he completely defeated the French on July 27. Other French generals threatened to cut off his retreat, and he was obliged to fall back on Portugal. Wellesley had indeed learnt the lesson that Spanish armies could not be depended on, but otherwise he had gained nothing by his victory. The French forces in the Pen- insula were too overwhelming to be overpowered as yet. Wellesley was rewarded for his skill with the title of Viscount Wellington. 8. Torres Vedras. 1810— 1811. — In 1810 Napoleon made a great effort to drive the English out of Portugal. Though he did not go himself into the Peninsula, he sent his best general. Marshal Massena. Wellington had now under his orders, besides his English troops, a number of well-trained Portuguese commanded by an Irishman, Marshal Beresford. Even with this addition, how- ever, his force was too small to meet Massena in the field, and, in order to have in reserve a defensible position, he threw up three lines of earthworks across the peninsula which lies between the Tagus and the sea. The first was intended to stop Massena for a time ; the second to form the main defence after the first had been abandoned ; the third to protect the British embarkation, if it were found necessary to leave Portugal. Wellington, who, whilst these lines were being constructed, was some dis- tance in front of them, drew back slowly as Massena advanced, so as to prolong the French invasion as much as possible. Massena’s army was accordingly half-starved before the ‘ Lines of Torres Vedras’ were reached, as Wellington had ordered that the crops should be destroyed and the cattle driven off. Yet Massena pressed on, fancying that the English were making for their ships, as the hatred borne to the F rench by the Portuguese was so deep-seated that not a single peasant informed him of the obstacle in front of him. At Busaco, indeed, Wellington turned on the French army and checked it for a time, but his numbers were not sufficient to enable him to continue his resistance in the open field, and hence he continued his retreat to the first line. Massena did not even attempt to storm it. Week after week he looked helplessly at it whilst his own army was gradually wasted by starva- tion and disease. More than 30,000 French soldiers perished, though not a single pitched battle had been fought. At last Massena ordered a reteat. Wellington cautiously followed, and by the spring of 1811 not a Frenchman remained in Portugal. 9. The Regency and the Assassination of Perceval. 1811 — 868 THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON i8ii 1812.— Whilst Wellington was struggling with the French, old George III. ceased to have further knowledge of joy or sorrow. The madness with which he had from time to time been afflicted, settled down on him in 1811. The selfish and unprincipled Prince of Wales took his place as Regent, at first under some restrictions, but after a year had elapsed without any prospect of the king’s recovery, with the full powers of a sovereign. It was expected by some that he would place his old friends the Whigs in office ; but he had no gratitude in his nature, and the current of feeling against reform of any kind was now so strong that he could hardly have maintained the Whigs in power even if he had wished to do so. Perceval was well suited for the Prime Ministership at such a time, being as strongly in favour of maintaining the existing state of things as the dullest member of Parliament could possibly be. His ministry, however, was not a long one. In 1812 he was shot dead by a lunatic as he stepped into the House of Commons. His suc- cessor was Lord Liverpool. 10. Napoleon at the Height of Power. 1811. — In the meantime Napoleon had been proceeding from one annexation to another. In May 1809 he annexed the Papal States ; in July 1810, the kingdom of Holland ; in November 1810, the Valais ; and in December 1810 the coast of Germany as far as Hamburg. The motive which impelled him to these extravagant resolutions was his determination to en- force the Continental System in order to ruin England. England was not ruined, but the rise of prices caused by Napoleon’s ineffectual attempts to ruin her increased the ill-will of the populations of the Continent, and strengthened the popular resistance to which he ultimately fell a victim. IT. Wellington’s Resources. 1811. — It was upon the certainty of a general resistance to what had now become a real tyranny that Wellington mainly calculated. Wellington had, however, on his side other elements of success. His English troops had proved superior to more than equal numbers of Frenchmen, not because they were braver, but because they had more coolness. He had therefore been able to draw his men up in a long line only two deep, and could yet count on them to baffle the heavy columns with which the French were accustomed to charge, by pouring into them a steady fire as they approached. Moreover, as the French generals were in the habit of quarrelling with one another, it was possible to defeat one before another could make up his mind to bring up his forces to the help of his rival. The Spaniards, too, though their i8ii-i8i2 THE PENINSULAR WAR 869 armies were bad, made excellent guerillas shooting down French stragglers and taking every advantage of the ground. So dangerous did they make the roads, that when an important despatch was sent to France it had to be guarded by 1,000 horsemen. The French armies in the field perceptibly decreased, in consequence of the necessity of detaching large bodies against the guerillas. 12. Wellington’s Advance. 1811 — 1812. — In spite of these advantages the difference of numbers against Wellington was still very great. Yet on May 5, 1811, he held his own against Massena at Fuentes d’Onoro. On May 16 Beresford defeated Soult at Albuera, whilst earlier in the year, on March 6, Graham had defeated Victor at Barrosa. For all that, Wellington was unable to retain his advanced position. Massena was indeed recalled from Spain by Napoleon, but two other marshals, Marmont and Soult, joined to resist the English, and Wellington was obliged to retire to Portugal. Before long, however, the two marshals having separated, Wellington resolved to attack the two strong fortresses of Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo which barred his way into Spain. Ciudad Rodrigo fell on January 19, 1812, and Badajoz on April 6. In storming the latter place the slaughter of the British troops was tremendous, as Wellington, knowing that, if he delayed, Soult would be upon him with superior forces, had not been able to wait till all fitting preparations had been made. When at last the soldiers burst in they raged madly through the streets, committing every species of cruelty and outrage. The capture of these two fortresses not only secured Portugal against invasion, but also made it possible for Wellington to conduct offensive operations in Spain. 13. The Battle of Salamanca. 1812. — Wellington’s task after the capture of Badajoz was lightened by the withdrawal of some of the best of the French regiments from the Peninsula. At the end of 1810 the Tzar Alexander had withdrawn from the Conti- nental System, and it was chiefly on this account that, in 1811, Napoleon prepared for a war with Russia. In the spring of 1812 his preparations were approaching completion, and troops were recalled from Spain to take part in the attack on the Tzar. In June Napoleon crossed the Niemen to invade Russia, and, in the same month, Wellington crossed the Coa to invade Spain. On July 22 Wellington completely defeated Marmont at Salamanca, after which he entered Madrid in triumph. He pushed on to besiege Burgos, ^ Guerilla is a Spanish word meaning primarily a little war, and so is applied to peasants or others taking part in a war on a small scale. 870 THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON 1812 but the French armies from the south of Spain gathered thickly round him before he could take it, and he was compelled again to return to Portugal. The campaign, however, had not been in vain, as the French, in order to secure the north against Wellington, had been obliged to abandon the south to the Spaniards. 14. Napoleon in Russia. 1812. — Whilst Wellington was gaming ground in Spain, Napoleon, at the head of 450.000 men, entered Russia. Of this force the main army, consisting of 380.000 under his own command, was to fall upon the Russian army, and after destroying it, to dictate peace to the Tzar. The Russian army, however, being far inferior in munbers, re- treated, whilst Napoleon’s dwindled away from desertion or weariness after each day’s march. It was not till he reached Borodino, almost at the gates of Moscow, that he was able to fight a battle. Of the 380,000 men whom he had led over the Niemen he now had no more than 145,000 at his disposal. He defeated the enemy, indeed, in the bloody battle which ensued, but the Russians steadily retreated without confusion, and when Napoleon entered Moscow, on September 14, he waited in vain for any sign of the Tzar’s submission. He found Moscow almost entirely deserted, and on the second night after his arrival the city was in flames, having been set on fire by the patriotism of its governor, Rostopchin. It was impossible to feed an army in a destroyed tovm in the frosts of >vinter, and on October 19 Napoleon started in retreat with the 100,000 men which were all that were now lefL The country through which he had to pass had been stripped on his outward march, and he had made so sure of victory that he had provided no stores in view of a retreat. On November 6 the frost came Grenadier in the time of the Peninsular War. i8i2-i8i3 FRENCH DEFEATS 87 down on the doomed army. The remainder of the retreat was one long misery. Poor frozen wretches were left behind every morning, and weaklings dropped out to perish every day. Fighting, too, there was ; and in the end a bare 20,000, of whom probably no more than 7,000 belonged to the original army, staggered out of Russia. 15. Napoleon driven out of Germany and Spain. 1813. — In 1813 Prussia, hitherto crushed by French exactions, sprang to arms, and allied herself with Russia. Napoleon put himself at the head of a new army to replace the one which he had lost. So great had been the loss of life in his wars, that he had now to content himself with levying boys, as all those who should now have been the young men had been made soldiers before their time and had for the most part perished. Yet so great was Napoleon’s genius that with this young army he defeated the Russians and Prussians in two battles, at Liitzen and Bautzen. The defeated armies looked to Austria for aid. Metternich, however, who now governed Austria as the Emperor’s minister, feared that if Napoleon were completely beaten, the Tzar would become too powerful, and he therefore, instead of at once joining the allies, asked Napoleon to make peace, by giving up his hold on Germany, but keeping the rest of his dominions. As, however, Napoleon would not yield a jot, Austria joined the allies against him. Napoleon won one battle more at Dresden ; then the commanders of his outlying troops were beaten, and he was himself crushed at Leipzig, at what is known in Germany as the Battle of the Nations. By the end of 1813, so much of his army as still held together was driven across the Rhine. In Spain Wellington was no less successful. On June 21 he overthrew King Joseph at Vittoria, and in the autumn the remains of the French army was forced back out of Spain, and was struggling for its existence round Bayonne. 16. The Restoration of Louis XVIII. 1814. — In the early part of 1814 Russians, Prussians, and Austrians entered France. Napoleon, who opposed them with scanty numbers, was for a time even victorious by dashing first at one part of their army and then at the other. At last, however, his power of resistance came to an end. On March 31 the allies entered Paris. On April 3 Napoleon abdicated and was allowed to retire to Elba. Wellington, who had been made a duke after the battle of Vittoria, had in the meanwhile occupied Bordeaux, and on April 10, not knowing of Napoleon’s abdication, he defeated Soult at Toulouse. Louis XVIII., the brother of Louis XVI. who had been guillotined 872 THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON 1814 (see p. 825), became king of France, granting a constitution, known as the Charter. French people had become so weary of war and despotism, that they welcomed the promise of peace and constitu- tional liberty. 17. Position of England. 1814. — The position of England was now exceedingly strong. Not only had her wealth, acquired by her manufactures, enabled her to supply the continental govern- ments with vast sums of money, without which it would have been impossible for them to carry on the struggle, but her own army in Spain had powerfully contributed to the success of the allies, by keeping no less than 300,000 French soldiers away from the decisive conflict in Germany and the north-east of F ranee. That she was able to accomplish this had been, to a great extent, owing to her supremacy at sea. Wellington’s troops were well supplied, because vessels from all parts of the globe could arrive safely in the Peninsula with provisions for them, whilst the French had to rely on stores conveyed with difficulty across hostile territory. England’s mastery over the sea enabled her to make good her claims to the retention of most of the colonies which she had acquired during the war, though she abandoned Java and the Spice Islands to the Dutch, and some of the West India Islands to the French. This time, however, there was no talk of abandoning the Cape of Good Hope, which was an admirable naval station on the way to India and the East. 18. War with America. 1812 — 1814. — Too much power is never good for man or nation, and just as Napoleon provoked enemies by his Continental System, so did England provoke enemies by her Orders in Council (see p. 860). The United States as a neutral nation was aggrieved by the action of the British Government in stopping American vessels from trading with the Continent, unless they first put into British ports, and also by the search exercised on board them by British cruisers, and by the dragging out of deserters who had forsaken the British for American service. In 1812, indeed, the Orders in Council were repealed, but it was then too late to avert war, which had already been declared by the United States. The American navy was composed of very few ships but these were larger and better armed than British ships, nominally of the same class. British captains were so certain that they could take whatever they tried to take, that they laid their ships alongside of American vessels much more powerful than their own. The result was that one British ship after another was captured. The tide was turned by Captain Broke of the ‘ Shannon,’ who courteously invited the captain of the American I»I2-i8i5 t'FA/? WITH THE UNITED STATES 873 frigate the ‘ Chesapeake ’ to come out to fight in the open sea. This time the two vessels were on an equality, and Broke, boarding the ‘ Chesapeake,’ took her after an action lasting no more than fifteen minutes. The operations on land made no real impression on the vast American continent. There was much fighting on the Canadian frontier, and in 1814 a large number of the soldiers from the late Peninsular army — an army which, according to Wellington, could go anywhere and do anything — were sent out to America. Washington was taken, and the capitol and other public buildings destroyed — contrary to the usual practice of civilised warfare — in revenge for similar burnings on a smaller scale by the Americans in Canada. The Americans were merely stung to more vigorous resistance, and the British troops were com- pelled to retreat. A British flotilla on Lake Champlain was over- powered. An attack on New Orleans was baffled. On December 14, 1814, a peace was signed at Ghent, putting an end to this unhappy war. 19. The Congress of Vienna. 1814 — 1815. — It was a hard matter to settle anew the boundaries of European states after the disturb- ances caused by French annexations. In 1814 a Congress met at Vienna to decide such questions. So far as its decisions were influ- enced by any principle at all, they rested on the ground that a strong barrier must be set up against a renewal of French aggression. Not only was the frontier of France driven back almost to that which had existed in 1792, but the old territories of the Dutch Republic and the Austrian Netherlands were united under the Prince of Orange as king of the Netherlands. Large districts on the Rhine, hence- forth to be known as Rhenish Prussia, were united to Prussia. The King of Sardinia not only received back Savoy and Nice, but acquired the strip of land which had once been under the Genoese Republic. In all else there was a scramble for territory, in which the great Powers were of course the most successful. The Tzar got Poland, though it was kept separate as a constitutional king- dom from the rest of Russia. Prussia got half of Saxony, in addi- tion to her new territory on the Rhine. Austria got Lombardy and Venetia. Italy was again divided into separate states, and was thus really placed under the power of Austria ; whilst the German aspirations after nationality were only nominally satisfied. There was to be a German Confederation, and deputies of the rulers of the states composing it were to meet at F rankfort ; but the powers of this Confederation were extremely restricted, and Austria and in. 3 L 874 downfall OF NAPOLEON 1815 Prussia were too jealous of one another to allow it to work harmoniously to any good end. 20. The Hundred Days. 1815, — In France, the restored Bourbon monarchy soon gave deep offence, by favouring the nobles and clergy, and by showing hostility to the ideas which had become prominent under the Republic and the Empire. Before long Louis XVIII. became widely unpopular. Napoleon watched the movement with pleasure, and, escaping from Elba, landed on the coast of France. The soldiers sent to capture him went over to his side, and on March 21 he reached Paris and was again Emperor of the French. The short reign which followed is known as ‘ The Hundred Days.’ He offered to the allies to remain at peace, but they refused to listen to him, believing that he only wanted to prepare for war, and that the longer they waited the more difficult it would be to suppress him. All four Powers, therefore, England, Prussia, Austria and Russia, prepared for a fresh struggle, but Austria and Russia were far off, and an English army under Wellington and a Prussian army under Bliicher were in the Netherlands before the other two allied armies were ready. The English occupied the right and the Prussians the left of a long line in front of Brussels. 21. The Waterloo Campaign. — On June 15 Napoleon crossed the frontier. His plan was to beat the Prussians first, and then, driving them off towards Germany, to turn upon the English and to overwhelm them with superior numbers. On the i6th, whilst he sent Ney to keep in check the English at Quatre Bras, he defeated the Prussians at Ligny, and detached Grouchy to follow them up, so as to keep them from coming to the help of Wellington. On the 1 8th he attacked Wellington himself at Waterloo. Wellington, knowing that the Prussians intended, in spite of Grouchy’s pursuit, to come to his help, and that his own numbers were inferior to those of Napoleon, had to hold out against all attacks during the early part of the day, without attempting to deliver any in return. He was well served by the tenacity of his mixed army, in which British soldiers fought side by side with Netherlanders, Hanoverians and Bruns wickers. The farm of Hougoumont in advance of Wellington’s right centre was heroically defended. In vain the French columns charged upon the British squares, and the F rench artillery slaughtered the men as they stood. In vain, too, the French cavalry dashed against them. As the men dropped their comrades closed their ranks, fighting on with sadly diminished numbers. At last a black line was seen on the horizon, and that black line was the Prussian army. Napoleon taken in flank by the Prussians made one last WATERLOO 875 1815 desperate charge on the English squares. Then Wellington gave the order to advance. The French army, crushed between two forces, dissolved into a flying mob. 22. The Second Restoration of Louis XVIII.— The allies fol- lowed hard upon the beaten enemy and entered Paris in triumph. Napoleon took refuge in the ‘ Bellerophon,’ an English ship of war. By the decision of the four great Powers he was removed to St. Helena, where he was guarded by the English till his death in 1821. Louis XVIII. was restored to the throne of France, and Europe at last enjoyed the peace which it had longed for. The French terri- tory was restricted to the limits of 1792. A heavy fine was also imposed upon France, troops belonging to each of the four Powers being left in occupation of French fortresses till the money was paid. CHAPTER LV ENGLAND AFTER WATERLOO. 1815— 1827 LEADING DATES Reign of George III., 1760—1820 Reign of George IV., 1820—1830 Abolition of the Income-Tax 1816 Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act 1817 The ‘ Manchester Massacre ’ and the Six Acts . . . 1819 Death of George III. and Accession of George IV. Jan. 29, 1820 Peel Home Secretary 1821 Canning Foreign Secretary 1822 End of Liverpool’s Prime Ministership . . Feb. 17, 1827 I. The Corn-Law and the Abolition of the Property Tax. 1815 — 1816. — When the war came to an end there was a general expectation in England that peace and plenty would flourish together. Contrary to expectation, the first years of peace were marked by deep agricultural and manufacturing distress. In 1815 Parliament, at that time almost entirely filled with landowners, passed a corn-law forbidding the importation of foreign corn, unless the price of wheat reached Soj. a quarter. The law was, however, inoperative, because the price of wheat, instead of reaching 80s., fell steadily. The cessation of expenditure upon war had thrown large numbers of men out of employment, and there was, consequently, less money spent in the purchase of food. The fall in the price of 876 ENGLAND AFTER WATERLOO 1815-1816 corn injured landowners the more because it had been excessively high in the last years of the war, and they had consequently spent money in reclaiming from the waste a great extent of land just good enough to produce sufficient corn to pay expenses when corn was very dear, but not good enough to produce sufficient corn to pay expenses when corn was cheap. In 1816 a bad harvest came, which added to the losses of the agricul- turists. In such a time of distress the burden of the war-taxes was sorely felt, and in 1816 the House of Commons insisted on the abolition of the income-tax (see p. 840), which had been imposed by Pitt only for the duration of the war, and the Government was obliged, much against its will, to abandon it. 2. Manufacturing Distress. 1816. — In 1816 a bad harvest sent up the price of corn, but did not improve the condition of agri- culturists, as they had but little corn to sell. The return of high prices for food seriously affected the condition of the artisans in the manufactories, who were at this time suffering from other causes as well. In the war-time England had had almost a monopoly on the Continent for its wares, because few men cared to build factories for the production of wares, when they might at any time be burnt or destroyed by a hostile army. This danger was now at an end, and as foreign nations began to increase their own produce, the demand for English goods diminished. The want of employment for labour which had diminished the demand at home for food also diminished the demand at home for manufactures. In 1816, accordingly, there was widely spread manufacturing distress in England. Bankruptcies were frequent, and thousands of workmen lost their employment. 3. The Factory-System. 1815 — 1816. — There was no public system of education for the poor, and the artisans had no means of learning what were the real causes of their misery. The factory- system, which had grown up since the introduction of improved machinery, had spread discontent amongst the workers. Manu- facturers, anxious only to make money, were careless of the lives and health of their workers, and there was no law intervening to secure more humane action. London parishes often sent off waggon- loads of pauper children to the cotton mills in Yorkshire and Lancashire in order that they might be relieved of the expense of maintaining them, and the unfortunate children were frequently compelled to work, even at the age of six, fifteen or sixteen hours a day. Grown-up men and women found much of their work taken from them by the labour of the children, who were practically i8i6-i8i7 DISTJ^ESS AND DISTURBANCE 877 slaves, and they themselves, if they got work at all, had to labour for exceedingly long hours for exceedingly small wages. When, as in 1816, large numbers failed to get any work what- ever, the starving multitude threw all the blame on the em- ployers. 4. The Radicals. 1816—1817. — Towards the end of 1816 riots broke out in many places, which were only put down by soldiers. In many places the rioters directed their violence against machinery, to the existence of which they attributed their misery. Some men of better education laid all the blame upon the existing political system which placed power entirely in the hands of the rich, and called for complete and ‘ radical ’ reform, sometimes asking that it should be effected by violence. These men were, in conse- quence, styled ‘ Radicals,’ and were looked upon as inspired — as indeed they were — with the ideas of the French Revolutionists. In December, 1816, there was in London a riot, known as the ‘Spa- fields riot,’ which was, however, repressed without difficulty. In the beginning of 1817 a number of secret committees were formed, and the most extensive changes demanded. 5. Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. 1817 — 1818. — The Government was frightened. Its leading members were Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, Lord Castlereagh, the Foreign Secretary, and Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, who had been formerly Prime Minister as Mr. Addington (see p. 843). They had all been engaged in combating the F rench Revolutionary ideas, and, when they saw these ideas making head in England, they could not think of any way to deal with them other than forcible repression. They had sufficient influence to carry through Parliament Bills for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act till the following year, and for the prevention of seditious meetings, the penalty of death being imposed on those who being engaged in such a meeting refused to disperse. The Government ignored the part which physical distress played in promoting disturbances. In Manchester, indeed, the dissatisfied workmen contented them- selves with the simple expedient of marching in a body on foot to present a petition to the Regent, and as each petitioner took with him a blanket to keep himself warm, the expedition has been known as the ‘ March of the Blanketeers.’ The Blanketeers were, how- ever, stopped on the way, and never even approached the Regent. There was a talk afterwards of a rising in arms, but such designs, whatever they may really have been, were frustrated by the arrest of the ringleaders. Only in Nottinghamshire did they actually ENGLAND AFTER WATERLOO 676 1817 Waterloo Bridge : opened June 18, 1817, built by Rennie. i8i7-i8i9 prosperity AND DISTRESS 879 lead to violence. There a certain Brandreth, at the head of a party, seized arms, and shot dead a man who opposed him. Happily in 1817 there was a better harvest. The price of corn fell, and trade revived. Work was again to be had, and the spirit of insubordination was quieted for a time. On March i, 1818, the Habeas Corpus Act again came into force, and has never since been suspended in England. 6. A Time of Prosperity. 1818 — 1819. — The return of pros- perity was not confined to England. So marked were the peaceful tendencies of France that in 1818 a congress of the four Powers whose soldiers occupied French fortresses was held at Aix-la- Chapelle, and it was resolved to withdraw the garrisons. In England, in 1819, Mr. Peel, a rising member of Parliament on the Tory side, recommended the resumption of cash payments by the Bank of England (see p. 835), and, so much improved was the financial position of the Government, that a Bill embodying his suggestions was carried, and in 1821 the Bank of England ceased to refuse to change its notes for gold. 7. Renewal of Distress. 1819. — The prosperity of 1818 had given rise to speculative over-production of manufactures, with the result that more goods were produced than were needed by consumers. Production was therefore limited in 1819, and there was again great distress amongst the artisans. Large numbers of those who suffered had come to the conclusion that their condition would never be improved till power was placed in the hands of the masses by a sweeping measure of Parliamentary reform. Their cause had been advocated in the press by Cobbett, the author of hard-hitting, plain-spoken pamphlets, calling for a complete transference of political power from the landowners to the masses. This remedy for the evils of the time was supported on the platform by Hunt, usually known as ‘Orator’ Hunt, who, whilst stirring up his audiences to violence, took care to keep his own person out of danger, and in Parliament by Sir Francis Burdett, whose advocacy of a universal suffrage met with few supporters in the House of Commons. 8. The ‘Manchester Massacre.’ 1819. — To support these views a vast meeting of at least 50,000 gathered on August 16, 1819, in St. Peter’s Field in Manchester, where an address was to be delivered by Hunt. The magistrates ordered the arrest of Hunt in the midst of the vast crowd of his supporters. A party of mounted Yeomanry, attempting to effect his capture, was soon broken up, and the isolated soldiers were subjected to jeers and 88o ENGLAND AFTER WATERLOO 1819-1820 insults. The magistrates .then sent Hussars to support the Yeomanry. The Hussars charged, and the weight of disciplined soldiery drove the crowd into a huddled mass of shrieking fugitives, pressed together by their efforts to escape. When at last the ground was cleared many of the victims were piled up on one another. Five or six deaths was the result, and the number of wounded was considerable. The ‘ Manchester Massacre,’ as it was called, opened the eyes of many whose hearts had hitherto been callous to the sufferings of the discontented artisans. Men hitherto content to argue that social and economical difficulties could not be solved by giving power to the ignorant masses began to criticise the ineptitude of the magistrates, who might have avoided all violence by arresting Hunt either before or after the meeting, and to ask themselves whether a system could be justified which led to the dispersal of meetings of peaceable citizens by armed soldiers. 9. The Six Acts. 1819. — The Government, on the other hand, took a harsh view of the conduct, not of the magistrates, but of the crowd. Every meeting for Radical reform,” wrote a dis- tinguished lawyer, “ was not merely a seditious attempt to under- mine the existing constitution and Government by bringing it into contempt, but it was an overt act of treasonable conspiracy against that constitution of Government, including the king as its head and bound by his coronation oath to maintain it.” Lord Eldon, the Lord Chancellor, and Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, warmly supported this view of the case, and, as soon as Parliament met, six measures, usually known as ‘ The Six Acts,’ were rapidly passed. Of these some were harmless or even beneficial. The harshest was the one directed against public meetings. With the exception of such as were summoned by official persons, ‘ all meetings for the consideration of grievances in Church and State, or for the purpose of preparing petitions . . . except in the parishes . . . where the individuals usually reside,’ were forbidden. To prevent any attempt to introduce inflammatory appeals from cele- brated persons brought from a distance the presence of strangers at these local meetings was prohibited. 10. Death of George III. and the Cato-Street Conspiracy. 1820. — On January 29, 1820, George III. died. As the new king, his son George IV., had for many years been acting as regent, the change was merely nominal. The same ministers remained in office, and the same policy was pursued. The attempt to make difficult the free expression of opinion gave rise to secret con- 1 820 ACCESSION OF GEORGE IV. 8Si spiracies, and there were undoubtedly many discontented persons in the country ready to use violence to gain their ends. A certain Thistlewood, with about thirty other persons, proposed to murder the whole Cabinet when assembled at dinner on February 23. The conspiracy was betrayed, and the conspirators, who met in a loft in Cato Street, were seized, and their leaders executed. For a time the ‘ Manchester Massacre ’ was forgotten, and many who had felt George III. in old age : from Turner’s mezzotint. for the victims of the soldiery now execrated all reformers as supporters of assassins. II. Queen Caroline. 1820 — 1821. — In 1795 George IV. had married Caroline of Brunswick. F rom the beginning he had treated her shamefully, and the pair were separated after the birth of an only child, the Princess Charlotte. In 1816 this Princess, the heiress to the throne, was married to Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, and in 1817 she died in child-bed. She had been very popular, and hopes had been entertained that when she came to 882 ENGLAND AFTER WATERLOO 1820-1^2^ reign she would establish at Court a purer life. Her death accord- ingly caused a general gloom. When George IV. came to the throne attention was publicly called to his degrading vices. To his wife, who had been leading an indiscreet and probably a discredit- able life on the Continent, he refused to allow the position or even the title of a queen. In 1820, when she returned to meet any charges that might be brought against her, she received a most enthusiastic greeting from the populace, the general feeling being that, even if her conduct had been as bad as her husband said, his own had been so base that he had no right to call her in question. The ministers, indeed, introduced into the House of Lords a Bill to dissolve her marriage and to deprive her of the title of queen, but the majority in its favour was so small that they had to abandon it. The queen’s popularity, however, deserted her when she accepted a grant of money from the ministers who had attacked her, and in 1821 she died. 12. The Southern Revolutions. 1820 — 1823. — In Spain Ferdi- nand VII., and in Naples Ferdinand I., had been ruling despotically and harshly. In 1820 the armies in both countries rose against the kings and established the same democratic constitution in both. Metternich, the Austrian minister, called on the great Powers of Europe to put down what he held to be a pernicious example to all other countries. Russia and Prussia supported him, and, meeting in congress at Troppau, called on England and France to join them against the Neapolitans. Louis XVI 1 1., on the part of France, attempted to mediate, and though Castlereagh, the English Foreign Secretary, warmly disapproved of revolutions, he protested against Metternich’s view that the great Powers had a right to interfere to suppress changes of government in smaller states. In 1821 the congress removed to Laibach, and an Austrian army marched upon Naples. The Neapolitan army ran away, and the Austrians restored Ferdinand I. A military revolution which took place in the kingdom of Sardinia was crushed at the same time. In 1823 a French army entered Spain and restored Ferdinand VII. Both at Naples and in Spain the restored kings were vindictively cruel to those who had driven them from power. 13. Castlereagh and Canning. 1822 — 1826. — Castlereagh did not live to work out the policy which he had announced in the protest laid by him before the congress of Troppau. In 1822, in a moment of insanity, he committed suicide. His successor was George Canning. There was no great difference in the substance of the policy of the two men. Both had supported the doctrine of 1822-1823 CASTLEREAGH AND CANNING 883 national independence against Napoleon, and both were ready to support it against the allied Powers whose union was popularly, though incorrectly, known as the Holy Alliance. Castlereagh, however, was anxious to conciliate the great Powers as much as possible, and confined his protests to written despatches, which were kept secret ; whereas Canning took pleasure in defying Metternich and openly turned him into ridicule in the eyes of the George IV. : from an unfinished portrait by Lawrence m the National Portrait Gallery. world. Castlereagh was accordingly detested in England as the supporter of the Holy Alliance, whereas Canning soon became popular as its opponent. He allowed, indeed, the French army to enter Spain in 1823, and had no thought of dragging England into a war; but in 1824 he acknowledged the independence of the Spanish colonies in America, after it had practically been accom- plished by the exertions of the colonists. “ I have called,” he said S84 ENGLAND AFTER WATERLOO 1824-1827 boastfully, “ a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old.” Such claptrap revealed the lower side of his character ; but in 1826 he showed that he could act promptly as well as speak foolishly. A constitutional government having been established in Portugal, Spain, backed by France, threatened to invade Portugal. Canning at once sent British troops to secure Portugal, and the danger was averted. 14. National Uprising in Greece. 1821 — 1826. — The object of the revolutionists in Spain and Italy had been constitutional change. An almost simultaneous rising in Greece aimed at national independence. The Turkish government was a cruel despotism, and in 1821 there was a rising in the Peloponnesus or Morea. Turks and Greeks were merciless to one another. The Turks massacred Greeks, and the Greeks gave no quarter to Turks. The Greeks had the advantage of a well-equipped ship- ping, and could hold their own at sea. In 1822 two great Turkish armies were sent to conquer the insurgents in the land, but one was driven back by the defenders of Missolonghi in ^Etolia, the other was starved out and perished in the mountains of Argolis. The Sultan Mahmoud appealed for help to Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, who had practically made himself almost in- dependent of the Sultan, and Mehemet Ali sent to his help an Egyptian army under his own adopted son Ibrahim Pasha. In 1824 Ibrahim conquered Crete, and in 1825 landed in Peloponnesus, where he did his best absolutely to exterminate the population by slaughtering the men and sending off the women to be sold into slavery. In 1826, whilst Ibrahim was wasting Peloponnesus, the Turks captured Missolonghi, and in 1827 they reduced the Acropolis of Athens. Canning had all along sympathised with the Greeks, but Metternich opposed him in all directions. Canning ac- cordingly turned to Russia, where Nicholas had succeeded his brother Alexander I. in 1825, and in 1826 he and the new Tzar came to an agreement that Greece should be freed from the direct government of the sultan, but should be required to pay him a tribute. 15. Peel as Home Secretary. 1821 — 1827. — Whilst Canning won credit for the ministry by a popular direction of foreign affairs, Peel — who had succeeded Sidmouth as Home Secretary in 1821 — won credit for it by his mode of dealing with domestic difficulties. When he came into office a deep feeling of distrust existed between the rich and the poor. The rich were in a state of panic, fearing every political movement amongst the mass of 1821-1825 PEEL AND HUSKISSON 885 their fellow-countrymen as likely to produce a renewal in England of the horrors of the French Revolution. The poor, on the other hand, attributed the misery resulting from economical causes, or even from the badness of the weather, to the deliberate machina- tions of the rich. What was wanted at that time was, not to bring classes into more violent collision by attempting to reform Parliament in a democratic direction, but to soften down the irri- tation between them by a series of administrative and economic reforms, which should present Parliament as a helper rather than as a contriver of fresh methods of repression. Peel was, of all men, the best fitted to take the lead in such a work. He had no sympathy with hasty and sweeping change, but he had an open mind for all practical improvements. Sooner or later the force of reasoning made an impression on him, and he was never above avowing — what with some people is the most terrible of confessions — that he had changed his mind. 16. Criminal Law Reform. 1823. — The reform of the criminal law had long been advocated in vain by two large-minded members of the House of Commons, Sir Samuel Romilly and Sir James Mackintosh. As the law stood at the beginning of the century no less than two hundred crimes were punishable by death. Anyone, for instance, who stole fish out of a pond, who hunted in the king’s forests, or who injured Westminster Bridge, was to be hanged. Sometimes these harsh laws were put in force, but more often juries refused to convict even the guilty, preferring rather to perjure themselves by delivering a verdict which they knew to be untrue than send to death a person who had merely committed a trivial offence. Again and again the House of Commons had voted for an alteration of the law, but the House of Lords had ob- stinately refused to pass the Bills sent up to them with this object. In 1823 Peel brought in Bills for the abolition of the death penalty for about a hundred crimes, and the House of Lords at last gave way, now that the abolition was recommended by a minister. 17. Huskisson and the Combination Laws. 1824 — 1825. — Reforms were the more easily made because the distress which had prevailed earlier was now at an end. In 1821 a revival of commerce began, and in 1824 and 1825 there was great prosperity. In the struggle which had long continued between master- manufacturers and their workmen, the workmen had frequently combined together in trades-unions to impose terms upon the masters, and had attempted to enforce their demands by striking work. Combinations between workmen were, however, illegal till 886 ENGLAND AFTER WATERLOO 1823-182$ in 1824, at the instance of Joseph Hume, a rising economical reformer, and with the warm support of Huskisson, the President of the Board of Trade, the laws against combina- tions were repealed, though in 1825, in consequence of acts of violence done by the workmen against unpopular masters, a further act was passed making legal all combinations both of Lord Byron : from an engraving in the British Museum from a painting by Sanders. masters and men, if entered on for the purpose of fixing wages, but illegal if entered on for any other purpose. 18. Robinson’s Budgets. 1823 — 1825. — This attempt to give freedom to labour was accompanied by steps in the direction of freedom of trade. Robinson, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by Huskisson, employed the surplus given him by the 1823-1827 POLITICS AND LITERATURE 887 prosperity of the country to reduce the duties on some imports. It was but little that was done, but it was the first time since Pitt’s commercial treaty with France that a government showed any signs of perceiving that Englishmen would be better off by the removal of artificial difficulties in the way of their trade with other nations. 19. The End of the Liverpool Ministry. 1826—1827. — Though the ministry was in name a Tory ministry, it was far fi&om being united on any subject. Some of its members, like the Chancellor, Lord Eldon, continued to detest all reforms, thinking that they must ultimately lead to a catastrophe ; whilst other ministers, like Canning, Peel, and Huskisson, were in favour of gradual reforms, though there were some particular questions on which even the reformers were not in agreement. So discordant a ministry could hardly have been kept together but for the tact and easy nature of its head, the Earl of Liverpool, who allowed the ministers to argue against one another in Parliament even on important subjects. On February 17, 1827, Liverpool was incapacitated from public service by an attack of apoplexy, and it was by that time evident that the two sections of the Cabinet would not be able to serve together under any other leader. Whatever differences there might be about details, the main difference between the two sections can be easily described. On the one hand, the unprogressive section not only disliked the idea of changing institutions which had proved themselves useful in past times, but also shrank from giving way to increased popular control over Parliament, or to any violent popular demand for legislation. On the other hand, the progres- sive section, though hardly prepared to allow the decisions of Parliament to be influenced by popular pressure, was yet in some sympathy with the popular feeling on subjects ripe for legislation. 20. Burns, Byron, and Shelley. — As usually happens, the strong opinions which prevailed amongst politicians were reflected in the literature of the time. Burns, the Ayrshire ploughman, whose first verses were written in 1775, was in full accordance with the precursors of the French Revolution in his love of nature and his revolt against traditional custom, and too often in his revolt against traditional morality. The often-quoted lines The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, The man ’s the gowd for a’ that, show the same contempt for class distinctions as inspired the writings of Rousseau. Whilst, however, Rousseau looked to the 888 ENGLAND AFTER WATERLOO good sense of the masses to remedy the evils of the time, Bums turned hopefully to the work and sturdiness of individual men to heal the evils caused by the inordinate value placed on social rank. The honour paid to the free development of individual character was, in fact, the characteristic of the English and Scottish Sir Walter Scott : from a painting by Colvin Smith. revolt against existing order, as opposed to the honour paid by the French Revolutionists to the opinion of the community. Byron, whose first poems were printed in 1806, but whose first great work — the first two cantos of Childe Harold — appeared in 1812, embodied this form of revolt in his works as well as in his life in a very different fashion from that of Burns. Breaking loose himself from moral restraints, he loved to glorify the characters of those who set at defiance the order of civilised life. In 1824 he died of fever at Missolonghi, fighting for Greek independence. Shelley, whose 1793-1814 POETRY AND POLITICS 889 poems range from 1808 to his early death by drowning in 1822, had a gentler spirit. All human law and discipline seemed to him to be the mere invention of tyrants, by which the instinctive craving of the soul for beauty of form and nobility of life was repressed. 21. Scott and Wordsworth. — On the other hand two great poets, Scott and Wordsworth, upheld the traditions of the ancient order of society. Scott’s first great poem. The Lay of the Last Minstrel^ appeared in 1805. In 1814 he deserted poetry for the writing of the Waverley Novels. His mind was filled with reverence for the past life of his country, and this he set forth in verse and prose as no other writer has done. Yet Scott’s works may be quoted in sup- port of the doctrine that no considerable move- ment of thought can leave its greatest op- ponents unaffected, and the better side of the revolutionary upturning, its preference of the natural to the artificial, and of the humble to the exalted, inspired the best work of Scott. His imaginative love for the heath-clad mountains of his country, and his skill in depicting the pathos and the humour of the lowly, stood him in better stead than his skill in bringing before his readers the chivalry and the pageantry of the past. As it was with Scott so it was with Wordsworth whose first poetry was published in 1793. The early promise of the French Revolution filled him with enthusiasm, but its excesses disgusted him, and he soon became an attached admirer of the institutions of his country. It was not this admiration, however, which put the stamp of greatness on his work, but his open eye fixed, even more clearly than Scott’s, upon the influences of nature III. 3 M 890 THE DOCTRINE OF UTILITY 1776-1832 upon the human mind, and a loving sympathy with the lives of the poor. 22. Bentham, — In politics and in law the same influences were felt as in literature. As the horror caused by the F rench Revolu- tion cleared away, there arose a general dissatisfaction with the existing tendency to uphold what exists merely because it exists. The dissatisfaction thus caused found support in the writings of Jeremy Bentham, who busied himself from 1776 to his death in 1832 with suggestions of legal and political reform. Like Voltaire and the French encyclopedists, he asked that legislation might be rational, and he sought a basis for rational legislation in the doc- trine of utility. Utility he defined to be ‘ that property in any object whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness, or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or un- happiness to the party whose interest is considered.’ The object which Bentham desired, therefore, has been summed up in the phrase ‘ the greatest happiness of the greatest number,’ and though in pursuit of this Bentham and his disciples often left out of sight the satisfaction of the spiritual and emotional parts of man’s complex nature, they undoubtedly did much to clear away an enormous quantity of mischievous legislation. It was in a kindred spirit that Romilly, Mackintosh and Peel urged on the modification of the criminal law, and it was hardly likely that a movement of this kind, when once begun, would be soon arrested. Books recommended for the further study of Part X. Lecky, W. E. H. History of England in the Eighteenth Century. Vol. v. p. 154-V0I. vi. p. 137 ; Vol. vi. p. 4 s6-Vo 1. viii. Massey, W. A History of England in the Reign of George III. Vol. iv. Martineau, Harriet (Miss). History of England, a.d. 1800-1815. A History of the Thirty Years’ Peace. Vol. i.- Vol. ii. p. 125. Walpole, Spencer. A History of England from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815. Vol. i.-Vol. ii. p. 158. Lewis, Sir George Cornewall. Essays on the Administrations of Great Britain. Pp. 129-432. Napier, Sir W. F. P. History of the Peninsular War. Brialmont, a. Life of Arthur, Duke of Wellington, translated from the French, with emendations and additions by the Rev, G. R. Gleig. Hunt. Rev. W. The Political History of England, Vol. x, (1760-1801). Brodrick, Hon. G. C. The Political History of England. Vol. xi, (1801- 1837). 891 PART XI THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY CHAPTER LVI CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION AND PARLIAMENTARY REFORM 1827-1832 LEADING DATES Reign of George IV., 1820—1830 Reign of William IV., 1830—1837 Canning Prime Minister April 10, 1827 Goderich Prime Minister Aug. 8, 1827 Battle of Navarino Oct. 20, 1827 Wellington Prime Minister Jan. 9, 1828 Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts .... 1828 Catholic Emancipation Act 1829 Death of George IV. and Accession of William IV. . . 1830 Lord Grey’s Ministry 1830 Introduction of the Reform Bill .... March i, 1831 The Reform Act becomes Law .... Jan. 7, 1832 I. Questions at Issue. 1827. — During the latter years of Liverpool’s Prime Ministership two questions had been coming into prominence : the one that of Catholic emancipation by the ad- mission of Catholics to Parliament and to offices of state ; the other that of Parliamentary reform, with a view to diminish the power of the landowners over elections to the House of Commons, and to transfer at least part of their power to enlarged constituencies. Of the leading statesmen Wellington and Peel were opposed to both the proposed changes ; Canning was in favour of Catholic emancipation, but opposed to Parliamentary reform ; whilst the Whigs, the most noteworthy of whom were Earl Grey in the House of Lords, and Lord Althorp and Lord John Russell in the House of Commons, were favourable to both. 892 CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 1827 2. Canning Prime Minister. 1827. — Before Liverpool left ofifice a resolution in favour of Catholic emancipation was defeated in the House of Commons by the slight majority of four, and almost imme^ diately afterwards Canning, who had spoken and voted for it, was appointed Prime Minister. Seven of the former ministers, including Wellington and Peel, refused to serve under him. On the other hand he obtained the support of the Whigs, to a few of whom office was shortly afterwards given. The Whigs had been long unpopular, on account of the opposition which they had offered to the war with France even whilst Wellington was conducting his great campaigns in the Peninsula ; but they had now a chance of recovering public favour by as- sociating themselves with domestic re- forms. There can hardly be a doubt that Canning’s min- istry, if it had lasted, could only have main- tained itself by a more extended ad- mission of the Whigs to power. Canning’s health was, however, failing, and on August 8 he died, having been Prime Minister for less than four months. 3. The Battle of Navarino and the Goderich Ministry. 1827. — Canning was succeeded by Goderich, who had formerly, as Mr. Robinson (see p. 886), been Chancellor of the Exchequer. His colleagues quarrelled with one another, and Goderich was too weak a man to settle their disputes. Before the end of the year news arrived which increased their differences. On July 6, whilst Canning still lived, a treaty had been signed in London between England, France, and Russia, binding the three powers to offer 1827-1828 NA VARINO 893 mediation between the Turks and the Greeks, and, in the event of either party rejecting their mediation, to put an end by force to the struggle which was going on. Instructions were sent to Codrington, the admiral commanding the Mediterranean fleet, to stop supplies coming into Greece from Turkey or Egypt, but to avoid hostilities. On September 9 a fleet composed of Turkish and Egyptian ships, laden with men and supplies, reached Navarino, close to the ancient Pylos, in the south-west of Peloponnesus. Codrington arrived two days later, and was afterwards joined by French and Russian squadrons. The combined fleet compelled the Turkish and Egyptian fleet to remain inactive. On land, however, Ibrahim (see p. 884), who commanded the army transported in it from Egypt, proceeded deliberately to turn the soil of Peloponnesus into a desert, slaying and wasting as he moved. On October 20, the allied admirals, unwilling to tolerate the commission of such brutalities, entered the Bay of Navarino, in which twenty-two centuries before Athenians and Lace- daemonians had contended for the mastery. A gun was fired from a Turkish ship, and a battle began in which half of the Egyptian fleet was destroyed, and the remainder submitted. The victory made Greek independence possible. There can be little doubt that Can- ning, if he had lived, would have been overjoyed at the result. Goderich and his colleagues in the ministry could not agree whether Codrington deserved praise or blame. There were fresh quarrels amongst them, and, on December 21, ‘ Goody Goderich,’ as the wits called him, went to the king to complain of his opponents. George IV. told him to go home and take care of himself. It is said that on this the Prime Minister burst into tears, and that the king offered him his pocket handkerchief to dry them. On January 9, 1828, Goderich formally resigned. 4. Formation of the Wellington Ministry. 1828. — The Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister, and Peel again became Home Secretary and the leading minister in the House of Commons. The new ministry, from which the Whigs were rigorously excluded, was to be like Lord Liverpool’s one, in which Catholic emancipation was to be an open question, each minister being at liberty to speak and vote on it as he thought fit. Those who supported it, of whom Huskisson was one, were now known as Canningites, from their attachment to the principles of that minister. It was, however, unlikely that the two sections of the ministry would long hold together, especially as the question of Parliamentary reform was now rising into importance, and the Canningites showed a disposition to break away on this point 894 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM 1819-1828 from Wellington and Peel, who were strongly opposed to any change in the constitution of Parliament. 5. Lord John Russell and Parliamentary Reform. 1819 — 1828. — The cause of Parliamentary reform had suffered much from the sweeping nature of the proposals made after the great war by Hunt and Sir Francis Burdett (see p. 879). In 1819 the question was taken up by a young Whig member, Lord John Russell, who perceived that the only chance of prevailing with the House of Commons was to ask it to accept much smaller changes than those for which Burdett asked, and thought that, whilst it would not listen to declarations about the right of the people to man- hood suffrage, it might listen to a proposal to remedy admitted grievances in detail. In 1819 he drew attention to the subject, and in 1820 asked for the disfranchisement, at the next election, of four places in Devon and Cornwall : Grampound, Penryn, Barnstaple and Camelford, which returned two members apiece, and in which corruption notoriously prevailed. His proposal, accepted by the Commons, was rejected by the Lords. In a new Parliament which met later in the same year Lord John proposed to disfranchise Grampound only, and to transfer its members to Leeds, thus touching one of the great political grievances of the day, the possession of the right of returning members by small villages, whilst it was refused to large communities like Birming- ham and Leeds. The House was, however, frightened at the idea of giving power to populous towns, and in 1821, when the Bill for disfranchising Grampound was actually passed, its members were transferred, not to Leeds but to Yorkshire, which thus came to return four members instead of two. A first step had thus been taken in the direction of reform, and Lord John Russell from time to time attempted to obtain the assent of the House of Commons to a proposal to take into consideration the whole subject. Time after time, however, his motions were rejected, and in 1827 Lord John fell back on his former plan of separately attacking corrupt boroughs. In 1827 Penryn and East Retford having been found guilty of corruption, he obtained a vote in the Commons for the disfranchisement of Penryn, whilst the disfranchisement of East Retford was favourably considered. As this vote was not followed by the passing of any act of Parliament to give effect to it, it was understood that Lord John would make fresh proposals in the following year. 6. Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. 1828. — In 1828, after the formation of the Wellington Ministry, before the question of the corrupt boroughs was discussed, Russell was successful in 1828 LOkD JOHN RUSSELUS SUCCESS 895 removing another grievance. He proposed to repeal the Corpora- tion Act (see p. 585), and the Test Act (see p. 607), so far as it com- pelled all applicants for office and for seats in Parliament to receive the Communion in the Church of England. By this means relief would be given to Dissenters, whilst Roman Catholics would still be excluded by the clause which required a declaration against transub- stantiation and which Russell did not propose to repeal. Russell’s scheme was resisted by the ministers but accepted by the House, and it finally became law, passing the House of Lords upon the addition of a clause suggested by Peel requiring a declaration from Dissenters claiming to hold office or to sit in Parliament or in municipal corporations that they would not use their power ‘ to injure or subvert the Established Church.’ It was thus made evident that Peel could not be counted on to resist change as absolutely as Sidmouth could have been calculated on when the reaction against the French Revolution was at its height. He was practical and cautious, not easily caught by new ideas, but prompt to discover when resistance became more dangerous than con- cession, and resolutely determined to follow honestly his intellectual convictions. 7. Resignation of the Canningites. 1828. — The ministry had been distracted by constant squabbles, and at last, in May, 1828, Huskisson and the other Canningites resigned, the ministry being reconstructed as a purely Tory ministry. The Tories were in ecstasies, forgetting that their leaders, Wellington and Peel, were too sensible to pursue a policy of mere resistance. 8. The Catholic Association. 1823 — 1828. — The main question, on which the Tories took one side and the Whigs and Canningites the other, was that of Catholic emancipation; That question now assumed a new prominence. In Ireland Catholic emancipation was advocated by Daniel O’Connell, who was himself a Roman Catholic, and was not only an eloquent speaker whose words went home to the hearts of his countrymen, but also the leader of a great society, the Catholic Association, which had been formed in 1823 to support Catholic emancipation. In 1824 the Catholic Association became thoroughly organised, and commanded a respect amongst the majority of Irishmen which was not given to the Parliament at Westminster. O’Connell’s words sometimes pointed to the pos- sibility of resistance if Parliament rejected the Catholic claims. In 1825 Parliament passed an act to dissolve the Association. The Irish were, however, too quick-witted to allow it to be suppressed by British legislation. They dissolved the Association, but started 896 CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 1828-1S29 a new one in which the question of Catholic emancipation was not to be discussed, though the members naturally thought the more about it. In Parliament itself many who had voted for the dissolu- tion of the Association voted for Catholic emancipation, and, in 1825, a Bill granting it passed the Commons, though it was rejected by the Lords. 9. O’ConneH’s Election. 1828. — In 1828 Vesey Fitzgerald, member for the county of Clare, was promoted to an office pre viously held by one of the Canningites, and had, consequently, to present himself for re-election (see p. 674). O’Connell stood in opposition to him for the vacant seat. All the influence of the priests was thrown on his side, and he was triumphantly returned, though it was known that he would refuse to declare against tran- substantiation, and would thus be prevented by the unrepealed clause of the Test Act (see p. 890) from taking his seat in the House of Commons. 10. Catholic Emancipation. 1829. — When Parliament met in 1829 it was discovered that the Government intended to grant Catholic emancipation, to which it had hitherto been bitterly opposed. Wellington looked at the matter with a soldier’s eye. He did not like to admit the Catholics, and had held the position against them as long as it was tenable. It was now, in his opinion, untenable, because to reject the Catholic claims would bring about a civil war, and a civil war was worse than the proposed legisla- tion. He felt it, therefore, to be his duty to retreat to another position, from which civil order could be better defended. Peel’s mind moved slowly, but it moved certainly, and he now appeared as a defender of Catholic relief on principle. To show his sincerity. Peel resigned his seat for the University of Oxford, and presented himself for re-election in order to allow his constituents to express an opinion on his change of front ; and, being defeated at Oxford, was chosen by the small borough of Westbury. A Bill, giving effect to the intentions of the Government, was brought in. The anger of the Tories was exceedingly great, and even Wellington had, after the fashion of those days, to prove his sincerity by fight- ing a duel with the Earl of Winchilsea. The king resisted, but the resistance of George IV., now a weak old voluptuary, was easily beaten down. The Commons passed the Bill, throwing open Parliament, and all offices except a few of special importance, to the Roman Catholics, after which the House of Lords, under Wellington’s influence, accepted it. The Bill therefore became law, accompanied by another for disfranchising forty-shilling freeholders 1829 APSLEY HOUSE 897 898 CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 1829-1830 in Ireland. These freeholders had been allowed to vote as long as their votes were given to the landlords ; their votes were taken from them now that they were given to the candidates supported by the priests. 1 1. Death of George IV. 1830. — Catholic emancipation was the result of the spread of one of the principles which had actuated the French Revolutionists in 1789, the principle that religious opinions ought not to be a bar to the exercise of civil or political rights. It was — as far, at least, as Great Britain was concerned — not the result of any democratic movement. The mass of English- men and Scotchmen still entertained a strong dislike of the Roman Catholics, and it has often been said, perhaps with truth, that if Parliament had been reformed in 1829, the Emancipation Bill would have been rejected. The position of the ministers in the House of Commons was weakened in consequence of the enmity of many of their old supporters, whilst the opposition, composed of Whigs and Canningites, was not likely to give them constant sup- port. In the course of 1830 the Whigs chose Lord Althorp as their leader, who, though he had no commanding genius, inspired con- fidence by his thorough honesty. Before the effect of this change appeared George IV. died unregretted on June 26. 12. William IV. and the Second French Revolution. 1830. — The eldest surviving brother of the late king succeeded as William IV. He was eccentric, and courted popularity by walking about the streets, and allowed himself to be treated with the utmost familiarity by his subjects. Some people thought that, like his father, he would be a lunatic before he died. A new Parliament was elected in which the Tories, though they lost many seats, still had a majority ; but it was a majority divided against itself. Events occurred on the Continent which tended to weaken still further the Wellington ministry. In France Charles X., having succeeded his brother Louis XVI I L, became rapidly unpopular. Defying the Chambers, which answered in France to the Parliament in England, he was overthrown in July 1830 by a revolution which placed his distant cousin, the Duke of Orleans, on the throne. Louis Philippe, however, instead of taking the title of King of France, which had been borne by the preceding kings, assumed that of King of the French, as a sign of his adoption of a merely constitu- tional authority. He was, in fact, to be to France what William III. had been to England. Such a movement in a neighbouring nation could not fail to influence Englishmen, especially as there was a feeling now spreading in England in some respects analogous to 1830 WILLIAM IV, 899 that which existed in France. Charles X. had been deposed not merely because he claimed absolute power, but because he did so in the interests of the aristocracy as opposed to those of the middle William ly. class, and in England too the middle class was striving to assert itself against the landowners who almost exclusively filled the two Houses. The lead was taken by the Birmingham Political Union, and nil over the country demands were made for Parliamentary reform. 900 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM 1830 13. The End of the Wellington Ministry. 1830. — In the House of Lords, when a new Parliament was opened in November, Lord Grey— who as Mr. Grey had urged the necessity of reforming Parliament in the early days of the great French Revolution (see p. 827)— suggested to Wellington that it would be well to bring in such a measure now. Wellington not only refused, but added that if he had to form for the first time a legislature for the country ‘ he did not mean to assert that he could form such a legislature as they possessed now, for the nature of man was incapable of reaching such The Duke of Wellington : from a bust by Francis in the National Portrait Gallery. excellence at once ; but his great endeavour would be to form some description of legislature which would produce the same results.’ After this his ministry was doomed. On November 15 it was defeated in the House of Commons by a combination between the opposition and dissatisfied Tories, and Wellington at once resigned. He had done good service to the state, having practised economy and maintained efficiency. In London his ministry made its mark by the introduction, in 1829, of a new police, in the place of the old useless constables who allowed thieves to escape instead 1830 THE REFORM MINISTRY 901 of catching them. The nicknames of ‘ Bobby ’ and ‘ Peeler ’ which long attached themselves to policemen had their origin in the names of Robert Peel, by whom the force was organised. 14. Lord Grey’s Ministry. 1830. — Lord Grey became the head of a ministry composed of Whigs and Canningites. Amongst the former were Lord John Russell, Lord Althorp who led the House of Commons, and Viscount Melbourne, a man of great abilities and great indolence of temperament, of whom it was said Earl Grey : from a figure in Hayter’s Reformed Parliament in the National Portrait Gallery. that his usual answer to proposals of reform was, ‘ Can’t you let it alone?’ Amongst the latter was Lord Palmerston, another Canningite, who had long been knov/n as a painstaking official of considerable powers, but who now for the first time found a posi- tion worthy of them by becoming Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Brougham, a stirring but eccentric orator, was made Lord Chan- cellor to keep him from being troublesome in the House of Com- mons. To Lord John Russell an inferior office was assigned, and he was not made a member of the Cabinet, but, in consequence 902 PARLIAMENTAR Y REFORM 1831 of the services which he had rendered to the cause of Parliamentary reform, he was entrusted with the task of bringing before the House of Commons the Bill which the new Government proposed to in- troduce on that subject. 15. The Reform Bill. 1831. — The Reform Bill was brought in by Russell on March i, 1831. He had an easy task in exposing the faults of the old system. Old Sarum, which returned two members, was only a green mound, without a habitation upon it. Gatton, which also returned two members, was only a ruined wall, whilst vast communities like Birmingham and Man- chester were totally un- represented. The pro- posal of the ministry was to sweep away sixty small boroughs returning 119 mem- bers, and to give only one member apiece in- stead of two to forty- six other boroughs nearly as small. Most of the seats thus placed at the disposal of the ministry were to be given, in almost equal proportions, to the counties and the great towns of England ; a few being reserved for , Scotland and Ireland. Viscount Melbourne : from a figure m Hayters Reformed t., ..-l Parliament in the National Portrait Gallery. COUnties, the franchise or right of voting which had hitherto been confined to the possessors of a freehold worth 405’. a year, was conferred also on persons holding land worth 10/. a year by copyhold, or 50/. a year by lease.' In the boroughs a uniform franchise was given to all householders paying rent of 10/. a year. 16. The Bill Withdrawn. 1831. — The Tories were numerous 1 The copyhold is so called because it is a tenure of which the only evidence is a copy of the Court Roll of a Manor. It is a perpetual holding subject to certain payments. Leasehold is a tenure for a term of years by lease. 1831 POPULAR EXCITEMENT 903 in the House of Commons, and opposed the Bill as revolutionary. Many of them shared the opinion of Wellington, who believed that if it passed the poor would seize the property of the rich and divide it amongst themselves. In reality, the character of the voters in the counties would be much the same as it had been before, whilst the majority of the voters in the boroughs would be the smaller shop- keepers who were not in the least likely to attack property. The second reading of the Bill,^ however, only passed by a majority of one, and a hostile amendment to one of its clauses having been carried, the Government withdrew the Bill and dissolved Parlia- ment in order that the question might be referred to the electors. 17. The Reform Bill Re-introduced. 1831.— In times of ex- citement the electors contrived to impress their feelings on Parlia- ment, even under the old system of voting. From one end of the country to the other a ciy was heard of ‘ The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill.’ The new House of Commons had an enormous Whig majority. The Reform Bill, slightly amended, was again brought in by Russell, to whom a seat in the Cabinet had been at last given. In the course of discussion in the Commons a clause, known as the Chandos clause from the name of its proposer, was introduced, extending the franchise in counties to 50/. tenants at will. As these new voters would be afraid to vote against their landlords for fear of being turned out of their farms, the change was satisfactory to the Tories. Yet, after the Bill thus altered had passed the House of Commons, it was, on October 8, rejected by the House of Lords. 18. Public Agitation. 1831. — The news of the rejection of the Bill was received with a torrent of indignation. Meetings were everywhere held in support of the Government. In the House of Commons Macaulay — a young man afterwards the historian of the reigns of James II. and William 1 1 1 . — urged the ministry to persist in its course. The public enthusiasm,” he said, “ is undiminished. Old Sarum has grown no bigger, Manchester has grown no smaller. ... I know only two ways in which societies can be governed— by public opinion and by the sword. A government having at its command the armies, the fleets, and the revenues of 1 A Bill before either House is read a first time in order that the members may be enabled to see what it is like. In voting on the second reading members express an opinion whether or no they approve of its general principle. In committee it is discussed clause by clause, to give the House an opportunity of amending it in detail ; and a vote is then taken on the third reading to see if the majority of the House approves of it in its amended form. It is then sent to the other House, where it goes through the same process. 904 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM 1831 Great Britain might possibly hold Ireland by the sword ; . . . but to govern Great Britain by the sword, so wild a thought has never occurred to any public man of any party. . . . In old times, when the villeins were driven to revolt by oppression, when a hundred thousand insurgents appeared in arms on Blackheath, the king rode up to them and exclaimed, ‘ I will be your leader,’ and at once the infuriated multitude laid down their arms and dispersed Lord Palmerston : from a seated figure in Hayter’s Reformed Parliament in the National Portrait Gallery. at his command. Herein let us imitate him. Let us say to our countrymen ‘We are your leaders. Our lawful power shall be firmly exerted to the utmost in your cause ; and our lawful power is such that it must finally prevail.’” It was a timely warning. Outside Parliament there were men who thought that nothing but force would bear down the resistance of the Lords. The Birming- ham Political Union (see p. 899) held a meeting at which those 1831-1832 THE FIRST REFORM ACT 905 who were present engaged to pay no taxes if the Reform Bill were again rejected. At Bristol there were fierce riots in which houses were burnt and men killed. 19. The Reform Bill becomes Law. 1831 — 1832. — On Decem- ber 12, 1831, the Reform Bill was again, for a third time, brought into the House of Commons. On March 23, 1832, it was passed, and the Lords had then once more to consider it. On April 14 they passed the second reading. On May 7, on the motion of Lord Lyndhurst, who had been Chancellor in Wellington’s ministry, they adopted a substantial alteration in it. The ministers at once asked the king to create fifty new peers to carry the Bill, in the same way that the address on the Treaty of Utrecht had been carried by the creation of twelve new peers in the reign of Anne. The king, who was getting frightened at the turmoil in the country, refused, and ministers resigned. Wellington was ready to take office, giving his support to a less complete Reform Bill, but Peel refused to join him, and Lord Grey’s Government was reinstated, receiving from the king a promise to create peers if necessary. On this Wellington, unwilling to see the House of Lords swamped by fresh creations, persuaded many of his friends to abstain from voting. The Bill met with no further obstacles, and, on June 7, became an Act of Parliament by the Royal Assent. 20. Character of the Reform Act. 1832. — In its final shape the Reform Act absolutely disfranchised forty-one boroughs and took away one member from thirty others. Thereby, and by its alteration of the franchise, it accomplished a great transference of power, in favour of the middle classes in the towns. Though it did not establish a democracy, it took a long step in that direction. 21. Roads and Coaches. 1802 — 1820. — The advent of the middle classes to power was prepared by a series of material improvements by which they were especially benefited. The canals made in the beginning of the reign of George HI. no longer sufficed to carry the increased traffic of the country. Attention was therefore paid to the improvement of the roads. Telford, a Scotchman, taught road-makers that it was better to go round a hill than to climb over it, and, beginning in 1802, he was employed for eighteen years in improving the communications in Scotland and Wales by making good roads and iron bridges. The Menai sus- pension bridge, his best known work, was begun in 1819. He and another Scotchman, Macadam, also improved the surface of the roads, which had hitherto been made of gravel or flint, thrown down at random. Telford ordered the large stones to be broken and III. 3 N go6 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM 1811-1825 mixed with fine gravel, and Macadam pursued the same course round Bristol. He declared that no stone should ever be used m mending roads which was not small enough to go into a man^s mouth. Through these improvements travelling became more easy, and coaches flew about the country at what was considered to be the wonderful rate of ten miles an hour. 22. Steam Vessels and Locomotives. 1811—1825. — The first application of steam to locomotion was in vessels. The first steam- boat in Great Britain, ‘ The Comet,’ the work of Henry Bell, plied on the Clyde in 1812, and though Fulton in America had made a steam-boat in 1811, it is almost certain that he derived his ideas ftom Bell. It was not till later that a steam-engine was made to Early steamboat : from the Instructor of 1833. draw travellers and goods by land. Of many attempts, none suc- ceeded till the matter was taken in hand by George Stephenson, the son of a poor collier in Northumberland. He had learnt some- thing about machinery in the colliery in which he worked as a boy, *\nd when he grew up he saved money to pay for instruction in reading and writing. He began as an engineer by mending a pumping-engine, and at last attempted to construct a locomotive. His new engine, constructed in 1814, was not successful at first, and it made such a noise that it was popularly known as ‘ Puffing Billy.’ In 1816 he improved it sufficiently to enable it to draw trucks of coal on tramlines from the colliery to the liver. At last, in 1825, the Stockton and Darlington Railway was opened for the convey- ance of passengers as well as goods, and both the lip^ and the loco- No. I. Engine of the Stockton and Darlington Railway ; now on a pedestal at the south end of the new station at Darlington. 1829, when it was finished, the proprietors were frightened at the idea of employing steam-engines upon it, till Stephenson persuaded them to offer a prize for an improved locomotive. F our inventors, Engine employed at the Killingworth Colliery, familiarly known as ‘ Puffing Billy.’ 23. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway. 1825 — 1829.— In 1825 it was resolved to make a railway between Liverpool and Manchester, and Stephenson was employed as the engineer. In 1825-1829 GEORGE STEPHENSON 907 motive used on it were constructed under Stephenson’s manage- ment. The new engine was able to draw ninety tons at the rate of eight miles an hour. 9o8 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM 1824 St. Luke’s, Chelsea (an early example of the Gothic revival), designed by Savage, and built in 1824. 1832-1833 HUSKISSON^S DEATH 909 of whom Stephenson was one, sent in engines to compete. Stephenson’s, which was called the ‘ Rocket,’ was the only one which would move, and finally ran at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour. After that there was no doubt that Stephenson’s was the only engine likely to be of any use. Unfortunately the experiment cost the life of a statesman. Huskisson, who had quarrelled with Wellington in 1828 (see p. 895), seeing him in a railway carriage, stepped up to shake hands, when he was himself run over by the Rocket and killed. CHAPTER LVII THE REFORMERS IN POWER. 1832 — 184I LEADING DATES William IV., 1830—1837 Victoria, 1837— igoi Abolition of Slavery 1833 The New Poor Law 1834 Peel’s First Ministry . . . 1834 The Second Melbourne Ministry 1835 Accession of Victoria . 1837 Resignation and Re-instatement of the Melbourne Ministry 1839 Pinal Resignation of the Melbourne Ministry . . 1841 1. Liberals and Conservatives. 1832. — Before the end of 1832 a Parliament met, in which the House of Commons was elected by the new constituencies created by the Reform Act. The Minis- terialists were in an enormous majority, all of them anxious to make use of their victory by the introduction of practical reforms. There was, however, considerable difference amongst them as to the reforms desirable, the Radicals wishing to go much farther than the Whigs. To conceal, as far as possible, this difference, a new name — that of Liberals — was borrowed from Continental politicians, to cover the whole party. Their opponents, finding the name of Tories unpopular, began to call themselves Conservatives. 2. Irish Tithes. 1831 — 1833. — One of the first difficulties which the Government had to face was that of Irish tithes. Catholic emancipation had not made Ireland richer, and there was still in that country a superabundant population, in many parts scarcely able to live and at the same time meet the demands of their 910 THE REFORMERS IN POWER 1831-1833 landlords and of the clergy of a Church which was not their own. There was no poor law in Ireland to give relief to the destitute, and many of the landlords were absentees. In 1831 and 1832 the payment of tithes was often refused, and the collectors were some- times murdered. General outrages also increased in number, and in 1833, when an attempt was made by the Government to enforce the payment of tithes, only 12,000/. out of 104,000/. was recovered. The Government was divided as to the proper measures to be adopted. The Chief Secretary ^ — the minister specially entrusted with Irish affairs — was Stanley, a man of great abilities and a fiery temper, who wished to accompany proposals of redress by strong measures for the coercion of those by whom the law was resisted. His policy was described as a ‘quick alternation of kicks and kind- ness.’ On the other hand, O’Connell had begun to denounce the Union between Ireland and Great Britain and to ask for its repeal. In 1833 Stanley brought in a Bill for the trial of offenders in dis- turbed districts by courts-martial. As soon as this had been passed Althorp brought in another Bill to reduce the number of Irish bishops from twenty-two to twelve, and to tax the Irish clergy and apply the proceeds to the extinction of Church-cess, a rate levied to keep the church buildings in good condition. This Bill too became law, but only after the Government had dropped what was called the Appropriation Clause, which was to enable the Government to apply to general purposes the revenue obtained by diminishing the number of the bishops. 3. Abolition of Slavery. 1833. — Stanley had made so many enemies in Ireland that it was thought advisable to remove him from his post. He became Colonial Secretary, and was at once confronted with the question of the abolition of slavery in British colonies. For some years Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, and Zachary Macaulay (the father of Macaulay the historian), had been pleading the cause of the slave. In the West Indies slaves were often sub- jected to brutal cruelty. To take a few instances : a little slave-girl, having dropped some cream belonging to her mistress, was scolded by her mother, a slave-woman named America. The master of both of them had America flogged with no less than 175 lashes for remonstrating with her own daughter, holding that, as the child was his property, she ought only to have been scolded by himself or his wife. Three slave-women were flogged for crying when their brothers were flogged. Another woman, whose brother was 1 I.e. the chief secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, but practically controlling him, as being responsible directly to Parliament, of which he is a member. 1833-1834 PRACT'ICAL REFORMS 911 flogged for attending a dissenting chapel, was flogged merely for sighing. When Stanley came into ofiice, new as he was to the details of the subject, he mastered them in three weeks, and car- ried a Bill for the complete abolition of slavery, though leaving the former slaves apprentices to their late masters for twelve years. The purchase-money given by Great Britain to the slave-owners was 20,000,000/. The apprenticeship system was found unsatis- factory and was soon done away with. 4. The First Factory Act. 1833. — The abolition of negro slavery was accompanied by an eifort to lighten the sorrows of factory children who were kept at work in unwholesome air often for thirteen hours a day. Lord Ashley, who afterwards became Earl of Shaftesbury, took up their cause, and carried a Bill limiting the hours of labour for children under thirteen years to eight hours a day, and for children between thirteen and eighteen to twelve hours a day, though he would himself have preferred a stronger measure. This law was the beginning of a factory legislation which has done much to make England peaceable and contented. 5. The New Poor Law. 1834. — The session of 1834 was occupied with a measure of a different kind. The Poor Law, as it existed, was a direct encouragement to thriftlessness. Relief was given to the poor at random, even when they were earning wages, so that employers of labour preferred to be served by paupers, be- cause part of the wages would then be paid out of the rates. The more children a poor man had the more he received from the rates, and in this and in other ways labourers were taught that they would be better off by being dependent on the parish than by striving to make their own way in the world. The consequent increase of the rates had become unbearable to those who had to pay them : in one parish, for instance, rates which had been less than ii/. in 1801 had risen to 367/. in 1832. By the new Poor Law, passed in 1834, workhouses were built and no person was to receive relief who did not consent to live in one of them. The object of this rule was that no one might claim to be supported by others who was capable of supporting himself, and residence in the workhouse, where work would be required, was considered as the best test of real poverty, because it was thought that no one would consent to go in unless he was really distressed. Afterwards it was remem- bered that in some cases, such as those of old people who could not work even if they had the will, no such test was required. The strict rule of the law was, therefore, subsequently relaxed, and out- door relief granted in certain cases. gi 2 THE REFORMERS IH POWER 1830- 1834 6. Break-up of the Ministry. 1834. — The ministry had by this time lost much of its popularity. Every piece of successful legis- lation alienated some of its supporters, and the rapidity of the changes effected by the reformed Parliament frightened many easy- going people. Peel, too, who led the Conservatives in the House of Commons, was growing in favour by the ability, and still more by the moderation, which he displayed. The ministers, too, disagreed amongst themselves. An open rupture occurred when Lord John Russell declared for the right of Parliament to appropriate the misused revenues of the Irish Church to other purposes. “ Johnny,” wrote Stanley to Sir James Graham, the First Lord of the Admi- ralty, “ has upset the coach.” Stanley, Graham, and Lord Ripon — who had formerly been known as Lord Goderich (see p. 892) — resigned together. Further misunderstandings brought about the resignation of Grey, who had been an excellent Prime Minister as long as the Reform question was still unsettled, but who did not possess the qualities needed in the head of a divided Cabinet. He was succeeded by Lord Melbourne, and Melbourne contrived to keep his followers together for a few months. In November, however. Lord Althorp, who was the leader of the House of Commons, became Earl Spencer by his father’s death, and it was therefore necessary to find a successor to him. The king, who had long been alienated from the Reformers, took advantage of the occasion to dismiss the ministry. It was the last time that a ministry was dismissed by a sovereign. 7. Foreign Policy of the Reformers. 1830 — 1834. — Whilst the home policy of the Reform ministry had been weakened by divisions in the Cabinet, its foreign policy had been in the strong hands of Lord Palmerston (see p. 901). In 1830 the revolution at Paris had been followed by a revolution at Brussels, the object of which was not to procure internal reforms but to separate Belgium from the kingdom of the Netherlands, of which it had formed a part only since 1814 (see p. 873). Lord Palmerston’s policy was to forward the desire of the Belgians for independence and at the same time to hinder any attempt on the part of France to annex their territory. In this, with the assistance of Louis Philippe the new king of the French, he completely succeeded. In 1831 Leopold of Saxe Coburg, whose first wife had been the Princess Charlotte (see p. 881), was chosen by the Belgians as their king, and married one of the daughters of Louis Philippe. Though the Dutch resisted for a time, they were compelled to relinquish their hold on any part of Belgium. A F rench army captured from them PEEL AND MELBOURNE 9»3 1834-1835 the citadel of Antwerp and then retired to its own territory. The key-stone of Palmerston’s policy was an alliance — not too trustful — between the constitutional monarchies of England and France, which was drawn the more tightly because the absolute govern- ment of Austria crushed all attempts at resistance in Italy, and the absolute government of Russia put down with great harshness an attempt made by Poland to assert her independence. To these two monarchies Prussia was a close ally, and Europe was thus divided into two camps, the absolute and the constitutional. 8. Peel’s First Ministry. 1834 — 1835. — Sir Robert Peel, having been appointed Prime Minister by the king, dissolved Parliament. In an address to the electors of Tamworth, the borough for which he stood, he threw off the doctrines of the old Tories, professing himself to be a moderate but conservative reformer. This ‘ Tam- worth manifesto,’ as it was called, served his party in good stead. The Conservatives gained seat after seat, and it is probable that, if the king had had a little more patience and had allowed the ministry to fall to pieces of itself instead of dismissing it, the Con- servatives would have been in a majority. As it was, though they had nearly half the House, they were still in a minority. When Parliament met, February 19, 1835, it had some difficulty in finding temporary accommodation, as the old Houses of Parliament, in which the struggles of nearly three centuries had been conducted, had been burnt to the ground in the preceding October. Peel was outvoted from the beginning, but he insisted on bringing in his measures before he would retire, and, at all events, had the satis- faction of showing that he was capable of preparing good laws as well as of giving good advice. The Liberals, however, were too angry to adopt even good laws when proposed by a minister who had risen to power by the use of the king’s prerogative. They entered into an agreement with O’Connell, known, from the place where its terms were settled, as the Lichfield House Compact, and, having thus secured, by the support of the Irish members, an un- divided majority, they insisted on the appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church to purposes of education. They carried a succession of votes on this subject, and, on April 8, 1835, Peel resigned. He left behind him a general impression that he was the first statesman in the country. 9. Beginning of Melbourne’s Second Ministry. 1835 — 1837. — Melbourne again became Prime Minister, and Russell Home Secre- tary and leader of the House of Commons. The first great work of the new ministry was the passing of a Municipal Corporations 9 t 4 the reformers IN POWER 1835^1838 Bill, providing that corporations should be elected by the ratepayers, instead of being self-chosen as they frequently were. The Tories in the House of Lords, where they had a large majority, tried to introduce considerable alterations in it, but Peel threw them over and accepted the Bill with a few changes, so that it became law without further difficulty. Peel gained in credit by subordi- nating the interests of his party to those of the country, and the ministry consequently lost ground. Their weakness was exposed by the attitude which they were obliged to assume towards the Lords on another question. The Commons passed a Bill for placing Irish tithes upon the landlord instead of the tenant, adding the Appropriation Clause which they had formerly attempted to attach to the Bill for the reduction of the number of Bishops (see p. 910). The Lords threw out the clause, and the ministers then withdrew the Bill. Attempts made in later years to get the Bill passed with the clause equally failed, and at last, in 1838, ministers ignominiously dropped the clause, upon which they passed the Bill through both Houses. A Government with the House of Commons and the nation at its back can in modern times defy the House of Lords. Melbourne’s Government tried to defy it with the support of the House of Commons but without the support of the nation. Banner of the Royal Arms, as borne Consequently, though some USeful measures were passed, the Lords were able, in the teeth of the Government, to reject anything they disliked. 10. Queen Victoria. 1837. — On June 20, 1837, William IV. died, and was succeeded by his niece the Princess Victoria who was just over eighteen, the time of life at which heirs to the throne come of age. Her dignity and grace won her general popularity, and the ministry, which she was known to favour, regained some popularity and, after the new elections had been held in the autumn, it was, as before, supported by a small majority in the House of Commons. 11. Canada. 1837 — 1841. — The state of Canada at this time caused great difficulties to the ministry. Upper and Lower Canada were independent colonies, the population of the former Queen Victoria at her accession : engraved by Thompson after a portrait by Lane. 9l(? TBR RERORMRRS m ROUTER 1835-1837 being almost entirely British, and the population of the latter being preponderantly French. In both there were loud complaints of the jobbery and misconduct of the Home Government, but the consti- tutional arrangements were such that in neither colony was the popularly elected Legislative Assembly able to influence the action of the colonial government, by which the Home Government was represented. The feeling in Lower Canada was particularly bitter, as the French, who were attached to their own ways, resented the pushing, self-satisfied behaviour of English settlers who came amongst them. The Colonial Secretary in England, Lord Glenelg, was not enough of a statesman to find a satisfactory remedy for the grievances of the colonists, and in 1837 ^ rebellion burst out which was, indeed, suppressed, but which alarmed the Home Government sufficiently to induce it to send Lord Durham out as Commissioner, with full powers to arrange all difficulties, so far as he could do so in accordance with the law. Lord Durham was the ablest man of the Liberal party, but he had no tact, and was excessively self-willed. On his arrival in Canada in 1838, he transported to Bermuda eight persons connected with the rebellion, and ordered that fifteen persons who had left the colony should be put to death if they came back. As both these orders were illegal the Home Government recalled him, but they took his advice after his return, and joined together the two colonies, at the same time altering the constitution so as to give control over the executive to the Legislative Assembly. The union between the colonies, which was intended to prevent the French of Lower Canada having entirely their own way in their own colony, was proposed in 1839 and finally proclaimed in 1841. The new arrangements gave satis- faction to both colonies for the time. 12. Ireland. 1835 — 1841. — The condition of Ireland under the Melbourne Government was much improved, and its improvement was due to the ability and firmness of Thomas Drummond, the Under-Secretary. Hitherto the Orangemen (see p. 834), including in their ranks many magistrates, had had it all their own way in the North, where Catholics, whom they chose to oppress, seldom met with justice. Drummond did his best to enforce the la’Ji equally in all parts of Ireland, not only between Protestant and Catholic, but also between landlord and tenant. He thereby ex- asperated the landlords, whose ideas of right and wrong had hitherto been entirely shared by the Government. On the other hand, he so thoroughly won for himself the goodwill of the Irish Catholics, that O’Connell laid aside for a time the cry for the re- 1838 THOMAS DRUMMOND 917 peal of the Union which he had raised under Lord Grey’s ministry. One element of Irish discontent was beyond the power of any government wholly to remove. So rapid was the increase of the population as to bring with it great poverty, and some landlords, finding their rents unpaid, solved the difficulty by evicting the tenants who were unable or unwilling to pay. As there was no poor law in Ireland the evicted tenant had seldom anything but starvation before him, and he often revenged himself by outrages Lord John Russell : from a painting by Sir F. Grant, in the possession of the Dowager Countess Russell. and even by murder. In a celebrated letter to the magistrates of Tipperary Drummond announced that ‘ Property has its duties as well as its rights,’ reminding them that in part, at least, the misery in Ireland had arisen from their unsympathetic treatment of their tenants. The magistrates were so angry that they suppressed the letter for a time. In 1838 a Poor Law for Ireland was passed to enable some relief to be given to those who were in danger of 9i8 THE REFORMERS IN POWER 1839 starvation, and, in the same year, a Tithe Act became law without the Appropriation Clause, upon which the ministers had hitherto insisted (see p, 914), thus removing one of the chief causes of conflict in Ireland by enacting that tithes should be levied on the landowner and not on the tenant. 13. The Bedchamber Question. 1839. — Though Lord Mel- bourne’s government had addressed itself with ability to the solution of most of the questions of the day, it had no longer any popular sentiment behind it, and was obliged to submit without resistance to the mutilation or rejection of its measures by the House of Lords. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Spring Rice, who was a poor financier, had to announce, without venturing to provide a remedy, that the national expenditure was greater than the national income. The mere fact that the Government found itself baffled, weakened it both in Parliament and in the nation ; and accordingly, in 1839, the Government resigned. Though Peel, who was summoned to succeed Melbourne, had no difflculty in forming a ministry, he was afraid of the influence which the Ladies of the Bedchamber exercised over the young queen, and asked that the sisters and wives of members of the late Govern- ment who held that post should be dismissed. The queen, being unwilling to part with her old friends, refused to dismiss them, and Peel then declined to form a ministry. Melbourne returned to office hoping to be more popular than before, as the sympathy of the country was on the side of the queen. 14. Post Office Reform. 1839. — One piece of reform was only unwillingly accepted by the re-instated ministers. One day the poet Coleridge passed a cottage in the north of England as a post- man arrived with a letter. A girl came out, looked at the letter, and returned it to the postman. In those days the payment for postage was high, a shilling or two being an ordinary charge, the postage rising according to the distance. The receiver, not the sender of the letter, had to pay for it. Coleridge felt compassion for the girl and paid for the letter. As soon as the postman was out of hearing the girl told him that she was sorry that he had given so much money for a letter which had nothing written inside it. She then explained that her brother had gone to London and had promised that, as she was too poor to pay postage, he would, at stated intervals of time, address to her a blank sheet of paper, which she would have to return to the postman, but the sight of which would let her know that he was in good health. Coleridge told this story to Rowland Hill, an officer in the Post Office, who thought 1852 THE NEW HOUSES OF PARL/AMENT 919 The new Houses of Parliament : designed by Barry, opened 1852. 920 THE REFORMERS IN POWER 1833-1840 it over and asked the Government to reduce the postage on letters between all places in Great Britain and Ireland to a penny. The change, he declared, would be a great boon to the poor, and also in time increase instead of diminishing the revenue of the Govern- ment, as the number of letters written would be enormously greater than it had been under the old system. As, in consequence of the large increase of letters carried, the postmen would no longer have time to collect the pennies from the receivers, it would be neces- sary to charge them upon the senders, and this, Rowland Hill thought, could be done most conveniently by making them buy postage stamps, which had been before unknown. F or some time the Post-Office officials and the ministers laughed at the scheme, but public opinion rose in its favour, and, in 1839, the adoption of the new system was ordered, though it did not come into complete force till 1840, up to which time there was a uniform charge of fourpence. The system of low payments and postage stamps has since been adopted by every country in the civilised world. 15. Education. 1833 — 1839. — At the time of the Reform Act general education was at a low ebb. In 1833 Parliament for the first time gave assistance to education by granting 20,000/. annually towards the building of school-houses. In 1839 this grant was in- creased to 30,000/., and its distribution was placed under the direc- tion of a Committee of the Privy Council, called the ‘ Committee of the Privy Council on Education,’ in whose hands the manage- ment of public instruction has rested ever since. The Committee was not to teach, but to see that, where public money was em- ployed, the teaching was satisfactory. 16. The Queen’s Marriage. 1840. — In 1840 the queen married her first cousin. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, a man of varied learning and accomplishments. What was of more importance, he brought with him affectionate devotion to his young wife, together with a tact and refinement of mind which made him her wisest coun- sellor. Knowing many things about which Englishmen at that time cared little, he did much towards the development of culture and art in the country. 17. Palmerston and Spain. 1833 — 1839. — The policy of friendship between England and France, which had led to the establishment of Belgian independence (see p. 912), had been continued by Lord Palmerston during the early stages of the second Melbourne ministry. Ferdinand VII. of Spain had for some time before his death in 1833 hesitated whether he should declare as his successor his little daughter Isabella— who, according to old 1831-1838 SPA/N AND THE EAST 921 Spanish law, was capable of inheriting — or his brother, Don Carlos, who claimed in virtue of the so-called Salic law (see p. 232) in- troduced by the Bourbons. On the side of Don Carlos were the priests, on the side of the child was her mother, and the dying man listened in the end to his wife rather than to the priests. Isabella became queen, and her mother, Christina, regent. The Basque Provinces and the priests and absolutists all over Spain took the side of Don Carlos, and a civil war marked by horrible cruelties on both sides was the result. As Don Carlos declared himself an absolute king, Christina was obliged, in word at least, to profess herself a constitutionalist. Louis Philippe and Pal- merston would not interfere directly, but they agreed to interfere indirectly on behalf of Christina and Isabella : Louis Philippe by cutting off the supplies from the Carlists, Palmerston by allowing a British legion of 10,000 men to be enlisted for service against them. The legion fought well, but the Spanish Government did little for it, and it was dissolved in 1838. The habit of interfering in Spanish quarrels led to a habit of interfering in Spanish politics, and as F ranee and England often took opposite sides in supporting or assailing Spanish ministries, there gradually sprang up an unfor- tunate coolness between the two. Ultimately, in 1839, the Carlists were overpowered, and there was no further question of foreign interference. 18. Palmerston and the Eastern Question. 1831—1839. — The results of the interference of England in the East were more momentous than the results of her interference in Spain. In 1831 Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, sent Ibrahim (see p. 884) to attack the Pasha of Acre. Ibrahim, against whom the Sultan, Mahmoud, sent a Turkish army in 1832, not only defeated the Turks at Konieh, the ancient Iconium, but crossed the Taurus Mountains into Asia Minor and overthrew the last army which the Sultan could muster. Mahmoud, knowing that Constantinople itself was now at the mercy of the Egyptians, called on the Tzar, his old enemy, for aid. Accordingly, in 1833, an arrangement was made at Kutaya by which Mehemet Ali stopped hostilities on re^ ceiving all Syria and the province of Adana in addition to his own Pashalic. Later in the same year, m reward for Russia’s sup- port, the Sultan signed the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, by which he bound himself to the Tzar to close the Dardanelles to foreign war ships whenever the Tzar was at war. If this treaty took effect the Russians would be able to train their sailors unmolested in the Black Sea, whilst they would be able to send their fleet out through III. 3 0 922 THE REFORMERS IN POWER 1838*1841 the Dardanelles, and to bring it back to a place of safety whenever they pleased. Both England and France disliked this arrange- ment, but while Palmerston thought that the best remedy was the strengthening of the power of the Sultan, the French Govern- ment thought it better to strengthen Mehemet Ali, as being a more capable ruler than Mahmoud. In coming to this conclusion the French were no doubt influenced by the fact that Mehemet Ali em|)loyed many Frenchmen in his service. In 1839 the war between the Turks and the Egyptians broke out again, and neither England nor France could remain entirely unconcerned. 19. Threatened Breach with France. 1839 — 1841. — The war was disastrous to the Turks. The army of the Sultan was routed at Nisib. Sultan Mahmoud died before he heard the news, and was succeeded by his son, Abdul Medjid. The Turkish admiral at once sailed off with the fleet under his command, and handed it over at Alexandria to Mehemet Ali. Palmerston insisted that the Egyptians must be driven back, and in 1840, Russia, aban- doning the advantages she had gained by the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, joined England, Austria, and Prussia in a quadruple Treaty, with the object of enforcing suitable terms on the belli- gerents. France, left out of the treaty, was deeply exasperated. There was wild talk of avenging Waterloo and reconquering the frontier of the Rhine. The French Prime Minister, Thiers, made every preparation for war. A British admiral. Sir Charles Napier, however, joined by an Austrian squadron, captured Acre, and Mehemet Ali abandoned Syria, receiving from the Sultan in re- turn the hereditary government of Egypt, which he had hitherto held only for his own lifetime. Louis Philippe dismissed Thiers, and placed in office Guizot, a sworn foe to revolutionary projects and revolutionary wars. In 1841 all the powers, including Russia, substituted for the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi an agreement by which the Dardanelles was closed against the war ships of all nations unless the Sultan himself was at war. Time was thus allowed to the Turks to show whether they were capable, as Palmerston thought they were, of reforming their own government. 20. Condition of the Poor. 1837 — 1841. — The Reform Act of 1832 had brought into power the middle classes, and had been followed by such legislation as was satisfactory to those classes. Little had been done for the artisans and the poor, and their condition was most deplorable. A succession of bad seasons raised the price of wheat from a little ever 39^-. a quarter in 1835 to a little over 70J. in 1839. Even if food had been cheap the masses dwelling in great cities were exposed to misery against which the 1837-1841 UNSANITARY CONDITIONS 923 law afforded no protection. Crowded and dirty as many of the dwellings of the poor still are, their condition was far worse early in the reign of Victoria. In Manchester, for instance, one-tenth of the population lived in cellars. Each of these cellars was reached through a small area, to which steps descended from a court, often flooded with stagnating filth. A person standing in one of these areas would, according to the statement of a contemporary writer, ‘ have his head about one foot below the level of the street, and might, at the same time, without the least motion of his body, touch the window of the cellar and the damp, muddy wall right oppo- site.’ The cellar itself was dark, filled with a horrible stench. Here a whole family lived in a single room, the children lying on the ‘ damp, nay, wet, brick floor through which the stagnant moisture ’ oozed up. In Bethnal Green and other parts of the east end of London things were quite as bad. Overcrowding added to the horrors of such a life. One small cellar, measuring four yards by five, contained two rooms and eight persons, sleeping four in a bed. In some parts of the country similar evils prevailed. In one parish in Dorset thirty- six persons dwelt, on an average, in each house. All modesty was at an end under these miserable conditions. In one case — and the case was common enough — a father and mother, with their married daughter and her husband, a baby, a boy of sixteen, and two girls, all slept in a single room. People living in such a way were sure to be ignorant and vicious. They were badly paid, and even for their low wages were very much at the mercy of their employers. In spite of the law against ‘ truck,’ as it was called, employers often persisted in paying their men in goods charged above their real prices instead of in money. In one instance a man was obliged to take a piece of cloth worth only 1 1 j. in payment of his wages of 35J. 21. The People’s Charter. 1837 — ^840. — Many remedies were proposed for these evils, but the one which caught the imagination of the workmen themselves was the People’s Charter. The six points of the charter were (i) annual parliaments, (2) manhood suffrage, (3) vote by ballot, (4) equal electoral districts, (5) abolition of the property qualification for entering Parliament, and (6) pay- ment for members of the House of Commons. Those who sup- ported the charter thought that, as the acquisition of political power had enabled the middle classes to redress their grievances, the working class would in like way be able to redress theirs. They did not recognise the unfortunate truth that the working class still needed the political education without which political power is dangerous even to those who exercise it. In 1839 large meetings 924 THE REFORMERS IN POWER 1838-1840 were held in support of the charter, and at these threats of appealing to violence, if no gentler means availed, were freely used. In 1839 a so-called ‘National Convention,’ composed of delegates from the workers of the large towns and led by Feargus O’Connor, a news- paper owner, and Ernest Jones, a barrister, sent a monster petition to Parliament. Parliament refused even to take it into considera- tion, and an increased bitterness of feeling was the result. A riot occurred at Birmingham : houses and shops were sacked, as if Birmingham had been a town taken by storm. The Government repressed these acts of violence by the operation of the ordinary law, without having recourse to those exceptional measures on which Sidmouth had fallen back thirty years before (see p. 880). The last deed of violence was an armed attack on Newport in Monmouth- shire. Soldiers, brought to defend the place, fired upon the mob, and killed and wounded many. In 1840 the ringleaders were tried and condemned to death, though the Government commuted the sentence into transportation for life. 22. The Anti-Corn-Law League. 1838 — 1840. — The middle classes were not likely to be tolerant of violence and disorder, but there was one point on which their interests coincided with those of the working men. The high price of corn not only caused sufferings amongst the poor, but also injured trade. This high price was to a great extent owing to the Corn Law, which had been amended from time to time since it was passed in 1815 (see p, 875), and which continued to make corn dear by imposing heavy duties on imported corn whenever there was a good harvest in England, with the view of protecting the agriculturists against low prices. In 1838 an Anti- Corn- Law League was formed at Manchester in which the leading men were Richard Cobden, a master of clear and popular reasoning, whose knowledge of facts relating to the question was exhaustive, and John Bright, whose simple diction and stirring eloquence appealed to the feelings and the morality of his audience. In 1839 Charles Villiers, who took the lead of the Corn Law repealers in the House of Commons, was beaten by 342 votes to 195, but he had amongst his supporters Russell, Palmerston, and most of the prominent members of the Government. It was evident, however, that some time must elapse before a change so great could be accomplished, as the proposal was offensive to the agriculturists, who formed the main strength of the Conservative party. More- over, the proposal to put an end to the Corn Law had still to make its way, by dint of argument, with the trading and working classes who were interested in its abolition. 1841 A DISCREDITED MINISTRY 925 23. The Fall of the Melbourne Ministry. 1841. — The middle classes had grievances of their own against the ministry. They disliked financial disorder as well as physical violence, and, though the ministry had put down the latter, they had encouraged the former. Every year showed a deficit, and whilst the produce of the taxes was falling, the expenditure was increasing. In 1841 the ministry made an heroic effort to deal with the mischief by a movement in the direction of freedom of trade, proposing that there should be a fixed Ss. duty on every quarter of imported corn, whatever its price in England might be, in the place of the sliding scale varying with the price which had been adopted in 1822. Peel opposed them on the ground that they had shown themselves too in- competent as financiers to be entrusted with the working of so large a scheme. The ministry was defeated in the House of Commons, and, after a dissolution, a new House was returned in which the Conservatives were in a majority of ninety-one. The discredited Melbourne ministry resigned, and Peel had no difficulty in forming a new ministry. There was no longer any difficulty about the Ladies of the Bedchamber. Now that the queen was married and in full enjoyment of the society of a husband whom she loved and trusted, she no longer objected to abandon the company of the Whig ladies whom, in 1839, she had refused to dismiss.' ^ Genealogy of the principal descendants of Queen Victoria : — I I Edward VII. Alice Maud 1840—1901. 1841—1910 Mary. , tn. Frederick William, m. Alexandra, 1843 — 1878. Edinburgh, afterwards Frede- dau. of Christian m. Louis, 1844—1900. rick III., king of IX., king of Grand Duke m. Marie, dau. Prussia and German Denmark of Hesse- of Alexander II., Emperor Darmstadt Emperor of William II., king of Prussia and German Emperor Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale. 1864—1892 George V. 1865— m. Princess Vic- ? toria Mary of Teck 1846 — m. Prince Frederick Christian of Schleswig- Holstein- Sonderburg- Augustenburg I w. Prince Charles of Denmark m. the Marquis of Lorne, afterwarcis Duke of Argyll Edward Albert, Albert Victoria Prince of Wales. Frederick. Alexandra 1894— 1895— Alice Mary. 1897- i ^ Arthur William Leopold George Patrick Albert. Duncan Albert. Duke of Connaught. 1853—1884. 1850— m. Helen, a dau. tn. Louise Margaret, of the Prince dau of Prince Ere- ofWaldeck- derick Charles of Pyrmont Prussia Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore. 1857- nt. Prince Henry of Battenberg. 926 CHAPTER LVIII FREE TRADE. 184I— 1852 LEADING DATES Peel’s second Ministry 1841—1846 Peel’s first Free-trade Budget 1842 Peel’s second Free-trade Budget 1845 Repeal of the Corn Law 1846 The Russell Ministry 1846—1852 European Revolutions 1848 The first Derby Ministry 1852 1. Peel’s New Ministry. 1841. — In his new ministry Peel found roomnot only for leading Conservatives, but also for Stanley, Graham, and Ripon, who had left the Whigs in 1834, and had since then voted with the Conservatives. Stanley — now Lord Stanley — and Graham were amongst the ablest of the ministers who formed the Cabinet ; though the help of a young minister, Gladstone, who was not a member of the Cabinet, was especially valuable on account of his grasp of economical truths, and of the clearness with which his opinions were set forth. 2. Peel’s First Free-trade Budget. 1842. — Peel’s first great Budget was that of 1842. He put an end to the deficit by carrying a measure re-imposing, for three years, an income-tax similar to that which Pitt had imposed to carry on the great war with France. He justified his action on the plea that it was necessary, in the first place, to stop the constantly recurring deficit ; and, in the second place, to effect financial reforms which would enlarge the resources of the government. He consequently lowered many duties the main object of which had been the protection of home manufactures or agriculture. So far as the com duties were concerned, he modified the sliding scale, but refused to effect any distinct reduction. The advocates of free-trade thought he had done too little, and those of protection thought he had done too much. 3. Returning Prosperity. 1843—1844. — During the next two years, 1843 and 1844, Peel’s budgets were not remarkable, as he did not wish to take any further step of importance till he had had time to watch the result of the budget of 1842. The experience gained at the end of three years was in every way favourable, as it showed that manufactures really flourished more now that they had to face competition than they had done in its absence. No doubt 1842-1846 PALMERSTON AND ABERDEEN 927 the return of prosperity was partly owing to the good harvests which followed PeeFs accession to power, but it was also in a great measure owing to his policy. 4. Mines and Factories. 1842 — 1847. — It would be of little worth to encourage manufactures, if those by whose labour they were produced were to be a miserable, vicious, and stunted popu- lation. In 1842, a commission, appointed to examine into the con- dition of mines, reported that women and even young children were forced to drag heavy trucks underground, sometimes for twelve hours a day. Lord Ashley, foremost in every good work, and who had already alleviated the lot of factory children (see p. 91 1), induced Parliament to pass a bill which was not all that he wished, but which enacted that no woman or child under ten should be employed under ground, and that no child between ten and thirteen should be em- ployed for more than three days a week. In 1844, Graham passed an Act prohibiting the employment of children under nine in cotton and silk mills ; but it was not till 1847 after a long struggle con- ducted by Lord Ashley, an Act was passed prohibiting the employ- ment of women and children in all factories for more than ten hours a day. The arguments employed in favour of confining these re- strictions to women and children were that they could not take care of themselves as well as men, and also that injuries done by over- work to the health of mothers and of young people, seriously affect the health and strength of future generations. 5. Aberdeen’s Foreign Policy. 1841—1846. — The fall of the Melbourne ministry had been caused nearly as much by its foreign as by its domestic policy. Though Lord Palmerston had suc- ceeded in getting his way in the East without bringing on a war with France (see p. 922), sober people were afraid lest he might sooner or later provoke war by his violent self-assertion. Peel’s foreign minister, the Earl of Aberdeen, was always ready to give up something in order to secure the blessing of peace. In 1842 he put an end to a long dispute with the United States about the frontier between the English colonies and the State of Maine on the eastern side of America ; and in 1846 he put an end to another dispute about the frontier of Oregon on the western side. With France, where Guizot was now Prime Minister, his relations were excessively cordial, and a close understanding grew up between the two governments, assuring the maintenance of European peace. The entente cordiale^ as it was called, was ratified in 1843 by a visit of Queen Victoria to Louis Philippe, at Eu, and by a return visit paid by Louis Philippe to the Queen at Windsor in 1844. 928 FREE TRADE 1843-1845 These friendly relations enabled Aberdeen and Guizot to settle amicably a dispute arising out of the conduct of an English Consul at Tahiti, which might very easily have led to war. 6. Peel and O’Connell. 1843. — Each successive ministry was confronted with the problem of Irish government, and soon after Peel came into office the cry for the Repeal of the Union, which had died away during the Melbourne government, was once more loudly raised. In 1843, O’Connell, instigated by younger men, such as Thomas Davis and Gavan Duffy, pushed the movement on, and predicted that Repeal would be carried before the year was over. He summoned a monster meeting at Clontarf, but before the ap- pointed day the government prohibited the meeting and poured troops into Ireland to enforce the prohibition. O’Connell shrank from causing useless bloodshed, and advised his followers to keep away from the place of gathering. Though no attempt was made to hold the meeting, O’Connell was charged with sedition and con- spiracy. Being convicted by a jury from which all Roman Catholics were excluded, he was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment and a heavy fine. There were, however, technical errors in the proceed- ings, and the judgment was reversed in his favour by the House of Lords, or rather by the five lawyers who had seats in the House of Lords, and who alone decided legal appeals in the name of that House. Partly in consequence of the hopelessness of resisting the government, partly in consequence of the satisfaction felt in Ireland at the reversal of the judgment against O’Connell, the demand for Repeal once more died away, and the Irish leader, whose health was breaking, retired from public life, living quietly till his death at Genoa in 1847. 7. Peel’s Irish Policy. 1843 — 1845. — The main source of mis- chief in Ireland was to be found in the relations between landlord and tenant. Evictions on the one hand were answered by murder and outrage on the other. To check the latter Peel in 1843 passed an amended Arms Act, forbidding the possession of arms except by special license, whilst, to check the former, he issued, in 1844, a commission, of which the Earl of Devon was chairman, to inquire into the grievances of Irish tenants. In 1845 he raised, amidst a storm of obloquy from many English Protestants, the government grant to the College of Maynooth, in which Roman Catholics were educated for the priesthood, from 9,000/. to 26,000/., and established three Queen’s Colleges to give unsectarian education to the laity. In 1845 the Devon Commission reported that in the three provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught the landlords were in most THE DEVON COMMISSION 929 1845 cases unable to make improvements on their land because the law prevented them from borrowing money on the security of their estates ; and that they frequently let their lands to middlemen, who let it out again to tenants at will. Improvements, if made at all, were usually made by the tenant at will, though he was liable to be turned out of his holding without any compensation for what he had done to increase the value of the estate. The con- sequence was that the tenant rarely made any improvement at all, and that, when he did, he frequently either had his holding taken from him, or had his rent raised in consequence of his own improvements. In Ulster, on the other hand, there had grown up a custom of tenant right, and when a tenant left he received compensation for his improvements from the incoming tenant who took his place. In 1845 the government, finding that Ulster was peaceful whilst the other provinces were not, came to the conclusion that the Ulster tenant-right made the difference between them, and brought in a bill securing a limited amount of compensation to those tenants who made improvements duly certified to be of value. The House of Lords, however, refused to pass it, and for many years no further effort was made to improve the condition of the Irish tenant. 8. Peel’s Second Free-trade Budget. 1845. — Peel was more successful in dealing with England. When in 1845 the three years for which the income-tax had been granted came to an end. Peel, instead of remitting it, obtained leave from Parliament to continue it for three more years ; though, as a matter of fact, it was subse- quently re-imposed and is still levied to this day. Peel, having received a surplus, employed it to sweep away a vast number of duties upon imports which weighed upon trade, and to lower other duties which he did not sweep away ; whilst at the same time he put an entire end to all duties on exports. The country gentlemen who formed the large majority of Peel’s supporters took alarm at a proposal made by him to remove the duties on lard and hides, on the ground that if this were done foreigners would, in regard to these two articles, be enabled to compete with English produce. 9. Peel and Disraeli. 1845. — The country gentlemen could grumble, but they were no match for Peel in debate ; and they were therefore in a mood to transfer their allegiance to any man capable of heading an opposition in Parliament to the statesman whom they had hitherto followed. Such a spokesman they found in a young member, Benjamin Disraeli, who, after attempting to enter Parliament as a Radical, had been elected as a Conservative. 930 FREE TRADE 1845 His change of opinion was greater in appearance than in reality, as his principal motive, both as a Radical and as a Conservative, was hostility to the tendencies of the middle classes which he held to be embodied in the Whigs. He now discovered that the same tendencies were also embodied in Peel. Disraeli, indeed, never grasped the meaning of those doctrines of political economy which were in favour with the Whigs, and were growing in favour with Peel, and being moreover a man of great ambition, he seized the occasion to place himself at the head of the malcontent Conserva- tives, with the less difficulty because, in giving expression to their ignorance, he did not fling away any settled conviction of his own. He was the more angry with Peel because Peel had refused him office. Fixing upon Peel’s weak point, his want of originality, he declared that the Prime Minister, having caught the Whigs bathing, had walked away with their clothes, and that under him a Con- servative government was ‘ an organised hypocrisy.’ 10. Spread of the Anti-Corn-Law League. 1845. — In the mean- while, the Anti- Corn-Law League was growing in influence. The oratory of Bright and the close reasoning of Cobden were telling even on the agricultural population. The small farmers and the labourers were suffering whilst the manufacturers were flourishing. Peel, indeed, was a free-trader on principle. He believed that legislation ought to make goods, cheap for the sake of consumers rather than dear for the sake of producers, and at this time he even believed that ' the nation would be wealthier if corn fell in price by being freely imported than if its price was raised by the imposition of duties. He still held, however, that it was the duty of Parliament to keep up the price of corn, not for the benefit of the existing generation, but as an insurance for future generations. If Great Britain came to depend for a great part of her food supply upon foreign countries, an enemy in time of war would have little difficulty in starving out the country by cutting off its supply of foreign food. The only answer to this was, that the starvation which Peel dreaded in the future was existing in the present. It was easy to say that the com laws encouraged the production of food at home to support the population. As a plain matter of fact, the population had increased so rapidly that starvation was permanently estab- lished in the country. ‘ I be protected,’ said an agricultural labourer at a meeting of the League, ' and I be starving.’ If any- thing occurred to bring home to Peel the existence of this perma- nent starvation, he would become a free-trader in com as well as in manufactures. 1845-1846 CORN-LAW REPEAL 931 11. The Irish Famine. 1845. — The conviction which Peel needed came from Ireland. The population was 8,000,000, and half of this number subsisted on potatoes alone. In the summer of 1845, a potato disease, previously unknown, swept over both islands. Potato plants, green and flourishing at night, were in the morning a blackened and fetid mass of corruption. A mis- fortune which, in England and Scotland was a mere inconvenience, caused abject misery in Ireland. 12. The Abolition of the Corn Law. 1845 — 1846. — Peel saw that if the starving millions were to be fed, corn must be cheapened as much as possible, and that the only way of cheapening it was to take off the duty. In October he asked the Cabinet to support him in taking off the duty. The majority in it had minds less flexible than his own, and its decision was postponed. In November, Russell, now the leader of the Liberals, wrote what was known as ‘ the Edinburgh letter ’ to his constituents, declaring for the complete abolition of the Corn Law. Peel again attempted to induce the Cabinet to follow him, but the Cabinet again refused, and on December 5 he resigned office. Russell, however, was unable to form a ministry, and on December 20 Peel returned to office pledged to repeal the Corn Law. Lord Stanley now resigned, and became the acknowledged head of the Protectionists, who resolved to oppose Peel’s forthcoming measure. On the other hand, Russell gave assurances that he and the Whigs would loyally support it. Accordingly, when Parliament met in January 1846, Peel proposed to bring in a Bill for the abolition of the Corn Law, though three years were to pass before the abolition would be quite complete. On June 25, the Bill, having previously passed the Commons, passed the Lords, and an end was at last put to the long- continued attempt to raise by artificial means the price of bread. 13. The Close of Peel’s Ministry. 1846. — Peel had done what he could to mitigate the distress in Ireland. He sent Indian corn there to be sold cheaply, and he ordered the establishment of public works to give means of subsistence to the starving popula- tion. The old antagonism between landlord and tenant, however, had not ceased, and evicted tenants and those who sympathised with them still had recourse to outrages and murder. Peel brought in a Bill for the protection of life in Ireland. Russell and the Liberals disliked it because it was too stringent. The Protec- tionists in the House of Commons, led nominally by Lord George Bentinck and really by Disraeli, were glad of any opportunity to 932 FREE TRADE 1846 defeat Peel, and on June 25, the day on which the Corn Bill passed the Lords, the Irish Bill was thrown out by the Commons. On the 27th Peel resigned office. 14. The Russell Ministry. 1846—1847. — Lord John Russell had no difficulty this time in forming a ministry, and though his followers were in a minority in the House of Commons, he was sure of the support of Peel and of the Peelites, as those Conservatives were called who had voted with their leader for the abolition of Sir Robert Peel : from the bust by Noble in the National Portrait Gallery. the Corn Law. Russell had in 1846 to face a state of things in Ireland even more deplorable than that which had compelled his predecessor in 1845 to abandon Protection. In 1846, the failure of the potato crop was even more complete than it had been in 1845, and at the same time it was found that the system of public works established by Peel had led to gross abuses. Thousands of men who applied to mend the roads made them worse instead of better, whilst they neglected opportunities of working for private persons, because the public authorities exacted less work and gave 1847 the first RUSSELL MINISTRY 933 higher pay than the private employer. Russell did what was possible to check these abuses, and in the session of 1847 he passed a Bill for enabling the guardians to give outdoor relief, which they had been forbidden to do by the Act which in 1838 established a Poor Law (see p. 917). Such a change in the law was imperatively demanded, as in the existing poor-houses there was only room for three out of every hundred starving persons. 15. Irish Emigration. 1847. — No poor law, however, could do more than mitigate the consequences of famine, especially as the slow forms of parliamentary procedure delayed the remedy, and as those who had to administer the new law were interested rather in keeping rates down than in saving life. The misery was too wide-spread to be much allayed by any remedy, and such English charity as was added to the relief provided by law was almost as in- effectual. Thousands perished by starvation, and many thousands more emigrated to America, many of them perishing on board ship from disease engendered in bodies enfeebled by previous want of nourishment. Those who reached America preserved and handed down to their children a hatred of the English name and government, to which they attributed their sufferings. By starva- tion and emigration the population of Ireland fell from 8,000,000 to 5,000,000. 16. Landlord and Tenant in Ireland. 1847. — Russell was statesman enough to perceive that the legal relations between landlord and tenant needed alteration, if the deep-seated causes of Irish misery were to be removed. Many of the landlords were hopelessly in debt. Out of a gross rental of 17,000,000/. 9,000,000/. was mortgaged, and the remaining 8,000,000/. was in- sufficient to provide for the support of the starving poor and to meet the expenses of the landlords. Impoverished landlords were consequently tempted to bear hardly on their tenants. Improve- ments in the English sense were few, but it often happened that a poor tenant on a wild hillside would erect a fence or clear off the stones from his rough farm, thus making it more productive than before. In too many cases the landlord, or more often the land- lord’s agent when the landlord was an absentee, pounced down on the struggling improver, and either forced him to pay a higher rent, or evicted him in order to replace him by someone who offered more. The evicted tenant not unfrequently revenged himself by murder- ing the landlord or his agent, or else the new tenant who had ousted him from his holding. 17. The Encumbered Estates Act. 1848. — Russell proposed 934 FREE TRADE 1848 to meet the evil by a double remedy. On the one hand he brought in a Bill which became law in 1848 as the Encumbered Estates Act, for the sale of deeply mortgaged estates to solvent purchasers, in the hope that the new landlords might be sufficiently well off to treat their tenants with consideration. At the same time he proposed another measure to compel landlords to compensate their evicted tenants for improvements which the tenants had themselves made, and he would gladly have supported a further measure which he did not venture even to introduce, forbidding the eviction of any tenant who had held land exceeding a quarter of an acre for more than five years, without compensation for the loss of his tenure. English opinion, however, prevented even the Bill for compensation for actual improvements from becoming law ; on the other hand, the Bill for buying out the owners of encumbered estates was readily passed, and was also accompanied by a Coercion Act, milder, indeed, than that which had been proposed by Peel (see p. 931). The Encumbered Estates Act standing alone was a curse rather than a blessing, as many of the indebted landowners had been easy-going, whereas many of the new landowners, having paid down ready money, thought themselves justified in applying purely commercial principles to their relations with the tenants, and exacted from them every penny that could be wrung from men who had no protection for the results of their own industry upon the soil. Those who suffered smarted from a sense of wrong, which in 1848 became stronger and more likely to lead to acts of violence, because in that year the course of affairs in Europe gave superabundant examples of successful resistance to govern- ments. 18. European Revolution. 1848. — The year 1848 was a year of European revolution. France expelled Louis Philippe, and estab- lished a second republic, based on universal suffrage. In Italy, not only were constitutional reforms forced on the governments, but Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, led an armed attack on the Austrian power in Lombardy and Venice, by which the despotism of the petty sovereigns of Italy had been bolstered up. In Germany, a parliament met at Frankfurt to devise some scheme for uniting in closer bonds the loose confederation which had been established in 1815 (see p. 873), whilst revolutions at Berlin and Vienna led to the adoption of a constitutional system in Prussia and Austria. The demand for constitutional government was everywhere put forth. In France it was associated with socialism ; and an attempt was made to set up national workshops in which every artisan 1848 A YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS 935 might find work. In that country, however, there was no aggressive spirit as in 1792, and no attempt was made to change the frontiers of the State. In central Europe and in Italy, on the other hand, dissatisfaction with existing frontiers was the prominent feature. The peoples were there eager to see real nations, of which the component parts were bound together by the tie of common attachment, taking the place of artificial states the creations of past wars and treaties. Hence the populations of the Italian States drew together in a desire for the expulsion of the Austrians, and the populations of the German states drew together in a desire to give a common government to the German nation. In the hetero- geneous Austrian empire, however, the idea of nationality acted as a dissolvent. Austrians, Hungarians, and Slavs, who together formed the vast majority of the population, had no love for each other, and before the end of the year Austria and Hungary were at open war. 19. Renewed Trouble in Ireland. 1848. — In Ireland, a number of young men imagined that they could play the part in which O’Connell had failed, and raise up armed resistance against England. One of these. Smith O’Brien, tried to put in practice their teaching by attacking a police station, but he was easily- captured, and no attempt was made to follow his example. 20. The Chartists on Kennington Common. 1848. — In England the Chartists thought the time had come to gain that supremacy for the mass of the nation which had been gained in France. Their leader, Feargus O’Connor, a half-mad member of Parliament, called on enormous numbers of them to meet on April 10 on Kennington Common,^ and to carry to the House of Commons a monster petition for the Charter, said to be signed by 5,700,000 persons. The government declared the design to be illegal, as crowds are for- bidden by law to present petitions, and called on all who would, to serve as special constables — that is to say, to act as policemen for the day. No less than 200,000 enrolled themselves, whereas, when the appointed day came, no more than 25,000 persons assembled on Kennington Common, many of whom were not Chartists. Those who were Chartists formed a procession intending to cross Westminster Bridge. The Duke of Wellington had posted soldiers in the houses on the Middlesex side of the bridge, to be used in case of necessity, but he left the special constables to stop the procession. This they did without difficulty. There was, however, no attempt to stop the presentation of the petition, which was carried in a cab to the ^ Now Kennington Park. 936 FREE TRADE 1848-1850 House of Commons, and found to bear 2,000 signatures. Many columns of these were, however, in the same handwriting, and some who actually signed it, wrote the names of celebrated persons, such as Prince Albert and the Duke of Wellington, instead of their own. Others called themselves Pugnose, Wooden- legs, Bread-and-cheese, and so forth. For all this there was a large number of Chartists in England ; but, on the other hand, there was a still larger number of persons who were resolved that, what- ever changes might be made in the constitution, they should not be brought about by the exertion of physical force. 21. European reaction. 1848 — 1849. — The attempt to change existing European order failed as completely on the Continent as it did in England. In December, 1848, the French nation elected Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, a nephew of the first Napoleon, as President for ten years, on the expectation that he would give to the country a quiet and orderly government. Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, taking up arms to drive the Austrians out of Italy, was defeated by them at Custozza in 1848, and at Novara in 1849. After these successive failures he was forced to abdicate in favour of his son, Victor Emmanuel II., who maintained constitutional government in his own kingdom of Sardinia, whilst the Austrians regained Lombardy and Venetia, and restored the absolute govern- ments in the other Italian states, except in the Papal dominions, where a French army restored the absolute government of the Pope. In Germany the Frankfurt parliament tried to erect a con- stitutional empire, and was dissolved by force. In Prussia, the King, Frederick William IV., got the better of the revolution, though he established a Parliament which, for the present at least, he was able to control. In the Austrian Empire the war between Austria and Hungary was brought to an end by the intervention of a Russian army in favour of Austria, and the constitution of Hungary was abolished. By the end of 1848 reaction prevailed over the whole Continent. 22. The Decline of the Russell Ministry. 1848—1851. — In England the ministry was supported, not merely as the representa- tive of order against turbulence, but also as the representative of free-trade against protection. In 1849 the Navigation Act (see pp. 565, 589) was repealed, and foreign shipping admitted to compete with English. Yet the government only maintained itself by de- pending on the votes of the Peelites, and in 1850 Peel unfortu- nately died in consequence of a fall from his horse. Later in the year the Pope appointed Roman Catholic bishops to English sees, i85 A MORIBUND MINISTRY 937 and an excited public opinion saw in this an attack on the Queen’s authority. In 1851 Russell introduced an Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, declaring all acts done by the Roman Catholic bishops, and all deeds bestowing property to them under the new titles, to be null and void. This Bill alienated the Peelites and advanced Liberals like Bright and Cobden. In February the ministry resisted a proposal to lower the county franchise, and resigned. Lord Stanley, how- ever, declined to form a ministry, and Russell and his followers returned to office. The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill was passed in a The Britannia Tubular Railway Bridge over the Menai Strait : designed by Robert Stephenson, opened in 1850. modified form, but it was never in a single instance put in execu- tion and was ultimately repealed. 23. The Great Exhibition. 1851. — In 1851 people thought less of politics than of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, where the produce of the world was to be seen in the enormous glass house known as the Crystal Palace — afterwards removed to Penge Hill. The Exhibition was a useful undertaking suggested by Prince Albert, and it served its purpose in teaching English manufacturers that they might improve their own work by studying the work of foreigners. Many people thought that crowds of revolutionists, who would come under pretence of seeing the exhibition, would set London on fire. Others thought that the nations of Europe would III. 3 P FREE TRADE 938 1851-1852 be so knit together by commercial interests that there would be no more wars. 24. The End of the Russell Ministry. 1851 — 1852. — On December 2, 1851, Louis Napoleon dissolved the Assembly, put most of the leading French politicians in prison, and marched soldiers into the streets of Paris to shoot all who resisted him. He then asked the French people to name him President for ten years, with institutions which made him practically the master of the State. The French people, frightened at anarchy, gave him what he asked. In Eng- land, Lord Palmerston not only approved of the proceeding, but expressed his approval to the French ambassador, though the Cabinet was for absolute neutrality ; whereupon he was dismissed from office. Early in 1852 he took his revenge by declaring against the ministry on a detail in a militia bill. The ministers, finding themselves in a minority, resigned office. 25. The First Derby Ministry. 1852. — Lord Stanley, who had recently become Earl of Derby by his father’s death, now formed a ministry out of the Protectionist party, and declared that the question whether free-trade or protection should prevail was one to be settled by a new parliament to be elected in the summer of 1852. The real master of the government was Disraeli, who had succeeded to the nominal as well as to the actual leadership of his party in the House of Commons upon the death of Lord George Bentinck in 1848, and who now became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Disraeli knew well that the feeling of the country was in favour of free-trade, and he astonished his colleagues and sup- porters by declaring his admiration of its blessings. The elections, when they took place, left the government in a minority. On the meeting of the new Parliament, the first question needing solution was whether the dissensions between Russell and Palmerston, and between the Whigs and Peelites, could be made up so as to form a united opposition, and the second, whether the government could contrive to renounce Protection without complete loss of dignity. The Duke of Wellington had died before Parliament met, and his death served to remind people how he had again and again aban- doned political positions with credit, by stating with perfect frank- ness that his opinions were unchanged, but that circumstances made it no longer possible or desirable to give effect to them. 26. The Burial of Protection. 1852. — Soon after the meeting of Parliament, Villiers, the old champion of free trade (see p. 924), brought forward a resolution, declaring the repeal of the Corn Laws to haye been ‘ wise, just, and beneficial.’ Ti^ose who had once PROTECTION RENOUNCED 939 1852 been Protectionists, shrank from condemning so distinctly a policy which they had formerly defended ; but when Palmerston came to their help by proposing in a less offensive form a resolution which meant much the same as that of Villiers, he was supported by the greater number of them, and his motion was carried with only fifty-three dissentients. Disraeli then brought forward an in- genious budget, which was rejected by the House, upon which the Derby ministry resigned. If Disraeli had not succeeded in maintaining his party in power, at least he had freed it from the unpopular burden of attachment to protection, and had made it capable of rising to power in the future. Before he left office Louis Napoleon became, by a popular vote, Napoleon III. Emperor of the French. CHAPTER LIX THE CRIMEAN WAR AND THE INDIAN MUTINY. 1852— 1858 LEADING DATES The Aberdeen Ministry 1852 War between Russia and Turkey 1853 France and England at War with Russia .... 1854 Battle of the Alma Sept. 20, 1854 Battle of Inkerman Nov. 5, 1854 Capture of Sebastopol Sept. 8, 1855 Peace of Paris March 30, 1857 Outbreak of the Sepoy Mutiny at Meerut . May 10, 1857 Capture of Delhi Sept. 14-20, 1857 Relief of Lucknow by Havelock and Outram . Sept. 25, 1857 End of the Indian Mutiny . . . 1858 I. Expectation of Peace. 1852. — Since the accession to power of Lord Grey’s ministry in 1830, the opinions of Bentham (see p. 890) had gained the upper hand, and the greatest happiness of the greatest number had become the inspiring thought of states- men. Free trade was regarded, not merely as desirable because it averted starvation, but as uniting nations together in commercial bonds. Nothing was more common in 1851 and 1852 than to heat sensible men predict that the era of wars was past, and that nations trafficking with one another would have no motive for engaging in strife. The fierce passions evoked by the struggles for nationality in 1848 were forgotten, and a time of peace and prosperity regarded as permanently established, 940 CRIMEAN WAR AND THE INDIAN MUTINY 1851-1859 2. Church Movements. 1827 — 1853. — There had, indeed, been signs that it was impossible to bring all men to forsake the pursuit of ideal truth. In 1827 Keble published the first edition of the Christian Year, and in the following years a body of writers at Oxford, of whom the most prominent were Newman and Pusey, did their best to inspire the rising generation with the belief that the Church of England had a life of its own independent of the State or of Society, and that its true doctrines were those which had been taught in the earlier centuries of the Church’s existence. Their teaching was not unlike that of Laud (see p. 520), though without Laud’s leaning upon the State, and with a reverence for the great mediaeval ecclesiastics and their teaching which Laud had not possessed. In Scotland, reaction against State inter- ference took another turn. Large numbers of the Scottish clergy and people objected to the system by which lay patrons had in their hands the appointment of ministers to Church livings, and in 1843 no less than 474 ministers threw up their livings and, followed by numerous congregations, formed the Free Church of Scotland. Different as were the movements in the two countries, they had this in common, that they regarded religion as some- thing more than the creature of law and Parliament. 3. Growth of Science. 1830 — 1859. — Other men sought their ideals in science, and though scientific men did not meddle with politics, their work was not only productive of an increase of material comfort, but also permeated the minds of unscientific persons with a belief in natural law and order, which steadied them when they came to deal with the complex facts of human life. The rapid growth of railways, especially after 1844, the introduction of the electric telegraph in 1837, other practical results of scientific discovery, prepared the way for a favourable re- ception of doctrines such as those announced in Lyell’s Principles of Geology, the first edition of which was published in 1830, where the formation of the earth’s surface was traced to a series of gradual changes similar to those in action at the present day. Darwin’s Origin of Species, in which the multiplicity of living forms were accounted for by permanent natural causes, did not appear till 1859. 4. Dickens, Thackeray, and Macaulay. 1837 — 1848. — The feel- ings and opinions of the age were, as is usually the case, reflected in its literature. Dickens, whose first considerable work. The Pickwick Papers, appeared in 1837, painted humorously the lives of the middle classes, which had obtained political power through the Reform Act of 1832 ; and Thackeray, whose Vanity Fair was 837-1856 MODERN LITERATURE 941 published in 1848, lashed the vices of great and wealthy sinners, principally of those who had held a high place in the society of the preceding generations, though he delighted in painting the gentleness and self-denial of men, and still more of women of a lower station. For him the halo of glory with which Scott had crowned the past had disappeared. Amongst the historians of this period, by far the greatest is Macaulay, whose history of England began to appear in 1848, the year in which Vanity Fair was published. In him was to be found a massive common-sense in applying the political judgments of the day to the events of past times, combined with an inability to grasp sympathetically the opinions of those who had struggled against the social and political movements out of which the life of the nineteenth century had been developed. As for the future, Macaulay had no such dissatisfaction with life around him as to crave for further organic change. Piecemeal reforms he welcomed gladly, but he had no wish to alter the political basis of society. The Reform Act of 1832 gave him all that he desired. 5. Grote, Mill, and Carlyle. 1833 — 1856. — There were not wanting writers who saw the weak points of that rule of the middle classes which seemed so excellent to Macaulay. Grote’s History of Greece^ which was published at intervals from 1845 to 1856, was in reality a panegyric on the democracy of Athens and, by impli- cation, a pleading in favour of democracy in England. Mill, whose System of Logic appeared in 1843, expounded the utilitarian philosophy of Bentham, accompanying his scientific teaching with the expression of hopefulness in the growth of democracy as likely to lead to better government. The man, however, whose teaching did most to rouse the age to a sense of the insufficiency of its work was Thomas Carlyle, whose Sartor Resartus began to appear in 1833, and who detested alike the middle-class Parliamentary government dear to Macaulay, and the democratic government dear to Grote and Mill. He was the prophet of duty. Each individual was to set himself resolutely to despise the conventions of the world, and to conform to the utmost of his power to the divine laws of the world. Those who did this most completely were heroes, to whom and not to Parliamentary majorities or scientific deductions, reverence and obedience were due. The negative part of Carlyle’s teaching — its condemnation of democracy and science — made no impression. The positive part fixed itself upon the mind of the young, thousands of whom learnt from it to follow the call of duty, and to obey her behests. 942 CRIMEAN WAR AND THE INDIAN MUTINY 1849 St. George’s Hall, Liverpool : designed by Elmes, completed in 1859. 1849-1852 LITERATURE AND PAINTING 943 6. Tennyson. 1849. — The best poetry of the time reflected in a milder way the teaching of Carlyle. Tennyson, whose most thoughtful work, In Memormm^ appeared in 1849, is filled with a sense of the pre-eminence of duty, combined with a reverent religious feeling and a respect for the teaching of science which was then bursting on the world. The opening lines of In Memoriam give the key-note of the teaching of a master who held out the hand to Carlyle on the one hand, and to Keble and Newman on the other. Strong Son of God, immortal love Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace. Believing where we cannot prove ; Thou seemest human and divine, The holiest, highest manhood, thou ; Our wills are ours, we know not how. Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 7. Turner. 1775 — 1851. — The pursuit of the knowledge of the secret processes and the open manifestations of nature, which placed its stamp upon the science and the literature of the time, made itself also visible in its art. No man ever revealed in land- scape-painting the infinity of the natural world and the subtleness of its gradations, as did Turner in the days of his strength, before his eyes fixed on the glory of the atmosphere and the sky lost perception of the beauty of the earth. 8. The beginning of the Aberdeen Ministry. 1852—1854. — The Derby Ministry was followed by a coalition ministry of Liberals and Peelites under the Earl of Aberdeen. At first it seemed as if Parliament was about to settle down to a series of internal reforms. In 1853, Gladstone, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, produced a budget which proved generally acceptable, and Russell promised a new Reform Bill which was actually brought forward in 1854, though by that time circumstances having become adverse to its consideration caused its prompt withdrawal. 9. The Eastern Question. 1850 — 1853. — For some time there had been a diplomatic struggle between France and Russia for the possession of certain holy places in Palestine by the clergy of their respective churches, and though in 1852 the Sultan proposed a compromise, neither party was satisfied. In the beginning of 1853, the Tzar Nicholas spoke to Sir Hamilton Seymour of ‘ the Turk ’ as a sick man, and proposed that if he died, that is to say, if the Turkish power fell to pieces, England should take Crete and §44 CRIMEAN WAR AND TNM INDIAN MUTINY 1853-1854 Egypt, and that the Sultan’s European provinces should be formed into independent states, of course under Russian protection. There can be no doubt that the Christians under the Sultan were misgoverned, and that the Tzar, like every Russian, honestly sympathised with them, especially as they belonged to the Orthodox Church — commonly known as the Greek Church — which was his own. It was, however, also true that every Tzar wished to extend his dominions southward, and that his sym- pathies undoubtedly tended in the same direction as his ambition. In England the sympathies were ignored, whilst the ambition was clearly perceived, and the British ministers refused to agree to Nicholas’s proposal. Nicholas then sent Prince Menschikoff as ambassador to Constantinople to demand that the protection of the Sultan’s Christian subjects should be given over to himself, and when this was refused, occupied the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia with his troops ; upon which a British fleet was moved up to the entrance of the Dardanelles. . 10. War between Russia and Turkey. 1853 — 1854. — To avert an outbreak of war the four great Powers, Austria, France, Great Britain, and Prussia, in what is usually called the Vienna note, em- bodied a proposal, which, if adopted by the Sultan, would convey his promise to the Tzar to protect the Christians of the Greek Church as his predecessors had promised to do in older treaties with the Tzars, and to extend to the Greek Christians all advan- tages granted to other Christians. With this note the Tzar was contented, but the Sultan urged on by the imperious Sir Stratford Canning, the British ambassador at Constantinople, refused to ac- cept it without alteration, and on the Tzar insisting on its accept- ance as it stood declared war upon him. In the autumn the Turks crossed the Danube and defeated some Russian troops, on which the Russian fleet sallied forth from Sebastopol, the great Russian fortified harbour in the Crimea, and on November 30 destroyed the Turkish fleet at Sinope. In England strong indignation was felt ; England and France bound themselves closely together, and, refus- ing to be held back by Austria and Prussia, entered upon war with Russia in March 1854. In May the Russians laid siege to Silistria on the south bank of the Danube. The siege however ended in failure, and, as a British and French army arrived at Varna, a seaport on the Black Sea, south of the mouth of the Danube, and as the Austrians insisted on the Russians evacuating Moldavia and Wallachia, the Russian army drew back to its own territory, and abandoned any further attempt to enforce its claims by invasion. 11. Resolution of the Allies. 1854. — Two courses were now THE ^SICK MAN' 945 1854 open to the Allies. They might knit themselves again to Austria and Prussia and substitute a European protection of the Christians under the Sultan for a merely Russian protection, without driving Russia to a prolongation of the war ; or else, breaking loose from their alliance with Austria and Prussia (neither of which was in- clined to drive matters to extremities), they might seek to destroy the Russian Black Sea fleet and the fortifications of Sebastopol, in order to take from Russia the power of again threatening the Turks. Public opinion in England was defiantly set upon the latter course. There was exasperation against the ambition of Russia and a de- termination that the work should be thoroughly done. To the support of this passionate desire to carry on the war to its end, came a misconception of the nature of the Turkish Government. In reality the Turk was, as Nicholas had said, a sick man, and as he would become weaker every year, it was impossible to provide for his guarding his own even if Sebastopol were destroyed. In England the Government of the Sultan was regarded as well- intentioned and perfectly capable of holding its own, if the existing danger could be removed. This view of the case was strongly supported by Palmerston, who, though he was no longer foreign minister, brought his strong will to bear on the resolutions of the ministry. England and France resolved on transporting their armies from Varna to the Crimea. The English force was com- manded by Lord Raglan, and the French by Marshal St. Arnaud. 12. Alma and Sebastopol. 1854. — On September 14, the two armies, numbering together with a body of Turkish soldiers about 61,000 men, landed to the south of Eupatoria. They marched south- wards and found the Russian army drawn up on high ground beyond the river Alma. There was not much skill shown by the generals on either side, but the Allies had the better weapons, and the dogged persistence of the British contributed much to the success of the Allies. The Russians were defeated, and the Allies wheeled round the harbour of Sebastopol and established them- selves on the plateau to the south of the town.( There was inside the place a vast store of guns and of everything needed for the defence, and what was more, a man of genius. General Todleben, to improve the fortifications and direct the movements of the garrison. He closed the harbour against the Allied fleets by sinking ships at the mouth, and he brought up guns and raised earthworks to resist the impending attack on the land side. On October 17, the Allies opened a tremendous fire. The British batteries de- stroyed the guns opposed to them, and the place might perhaps have been taken by assault if the French had done as well. The 946 CRIMEAN WAR AND THE INDIAN MUTINY 1854-1855 French, however, who were now under the command of Marshal Canrobert — St. Arnaud having died after the battle of the Alma — made their magazines of gunpowder too near the surface of the ground, and when one of them exploded, their efforts were rendered useless. The attack had to be postponed for an indefinite time. 13. Balaclava and Inkerman. 1854. — The stores and provisions for the British army were landed at the little port of Balaclava. On October 25, a Russian army pushed forward to cut off communication between this port and the British force before Sebastopol. A charge by the Brigade of Heavy Cavalry drove back a huge mass of Russian horsemen. Lord Cardigan, who commanded the Brigade of Light Cavalry, received an order vaguely worded to retake some guns which had been captured by the Russians. The order was misunderstood, and the Light Brigade, knowing that it was riding to its destruction, but refusing to set an example of disobedience, charged nOt in the direction of the guns, which they were unable to see, but into the very centre of the Russian army. The ranks of the English cavalry were mown down and but few escaped alive. ‘ It is magnificent,’ said a French general, ‘ but it is not war.’ On November 5, the battle of Inkerman was fought, in which the scanty British drove back thick columns of Russians. If the Russians had prevailed, both the Allied armies would have been destroyed. As it was the British held out against fearful odds, till the French came to their help, and forced the Russians to retreat. 14. Winter in the Crimea. 1854 — 1855. — Winter was now upon the armies. It had been supposed at home that their task would be accomplished before the fine weather ended, and no adequate provision for a winter season had been made. A storm swept over the Black Sea and wrecked vessels laden with stores. The soldiers had only tents to keep off the rain and bitter cold, and fell ill by hundreds. The horses, which should have brought stores from Balaclava, died, and it was useless to replace them, because, though large numbers of horses were obtainable, forage had not been sent from home to keep them alive. What provisions reached the camp had to be carried by the men, and the men were worn out by having to spend long hours in guarding the trenches and to fetch provisions as well. Besides, the English Government, having had no experience of war, committed many blunders in their ar- rangements for the supply of the army. The French were better off, because Kamiesch Bay, where their provisions were landed, was nearer their camp than Balaclava was to the camp of the British. SUCCESSFUL OPERATIONS 947 1856 15. Thd Hospital at Scutari. 1855. — The sick were carried to a hospital at Scutari near Constantinople, but when they arrived there were no nurses to attend on them, and large numbers died. After a while Miss Florence Nightingale was sent out with other ladies to nurse the sick. It was the first time that women had been employed as nurses in war. Miss Nightingale soon reduced, the disorder into order, made the place clean, and saw that the sufferers were skilfully tended. Good nursing at once told on the health of the men, and valuable lives were spared in conse- quence of the gentle help received. 16. The Palmerston Ministry. 1855. — At home Englishmen looked on the misery in the Crimea with growing anger. They thought that some one was to blame, and as soon as Parliament met, the Government was forced to resign. Lord Palmerston became Prime Minister. It was known that his whole heart was in the war, and that he was a man of strong common sense and resolute character. Matters in the Crimea began to improve, principally because by that time English officials had begun, after numerous failures, to understand their duties. 17. The Fall of Sebastopol and the End of the War. 1855 — 1856. — During the summer the siege of Sebastopol was pushed on. The British army was in good condition. The French troops were, however, more numerous, and occupied the positions from which the town could be most easily attacked. They had, too, a new commander. Marshal Pelissier, who was more strong-willed than Canrobert had been. The King of Sardinia,Victor Emmanuel, joined the Allies, and in the battle of Trakir ^ his troops took part with the French in driving back a fresh Russian onslaught. After various attempts a final attack on Sebastopol was made on Sep- tember 8. The English failed to capture the Redan which was opposed to them, but the French stormed the Malakhoff Tower, and the whole of the fortifications were thereby rendered untenable. The Tzar Nicholas had died in the spring, and his successor, Alexander II., was now ready to make peace. The The Victoria Cross : instituted in 1856. 1 Trakir is the Russian word for an inn. 948 CRIMEAN WAR AND THE INDIAN MUTINY 1856 Russian losses had been enormous, not merely in Sebastopol itself, but over the whole of the empire. There was scarcely a railway in Russia then, and hundreds of thousands of men had perished of fatigue in the long and exhausting marches. In March 1856 peace was made. The fortifications of Sebastopol were destroyed, and Russia promised not to have a fleet in the Black Sea or to re-fortify the town. The Russians abode by these terms as long as they were obliged to do so, and no longer. It was, however, long enough to give the Turks time to improve and strengthen their government if they had been capable of carrying out reforms of any kind. 18. India after Wellesley’s Recall. 1805 — 1823. — British hos- tility to Russia had arisen chiefly from fear lest she should, by gaining possession of Constantinople, cut off the passage to India. Alarm on this score had not been of recent growth. Partly in consequence of a desire to win the attachment of the natives of India as a security against foreign aggression, successive governors- general had, since Wellesley left India in 1805 (see p. 859), devoted themselves to improve the condition of the people, and had for some time abstained from war as much as possible. Their reluc- tance to appeal to arms had, however, encouraged bands of plunderers known as Pindarrees, supported by the Mahratta chiefs whose power Wellesley had curtailed, but who still retained their independence. In 1817 the Marquis of Hastings, at that time governor-general, began the third Mahratta War (see pp. 804, 859). The Peishwah (see p. 802) abdicated in favour of the British, and the other Mahratta chiefs were reduced to a condition of dependency, and gave no more shelter to robbers. Hastings completed Wellesley’s work, by making the power of the East India Company absolutely predominant, and, after 1823, when he left India, there were, indeed, wars occasionally on a small scale, but for soihe years the chief feature of Indian history was its peaceful progress. 19. The North-Western Frontier. 1806 — 1835. — The suppres- sion of internal disorder did not relieve the Government of India from anxiety lest increasing prosperity within should tempt invaders from without. Secured on the north by the lofty wall of the Himalayas, India, until the arrival of the British by sea, had always been invaded by enemies pouring across its north-western frontier from the passes of the highlands of Afghanistan ; and it was from the same quarter that danger was now feared. For some time, indeed, a sufficient bulwark had been erected by the estab- 1835-1840 THE AFGHAN WAR 949 lishment in the Punjab — the land of the five rivers — of the Sikhs, a warlike people with a special religion, neither Mahomedan nor Hindoo. The Sikhs were strongly organised for military purposes under a capable ruler, Runjeet Singh, who had entered in 1806 into a treaty with the British which to the end of his life he faithfully observed. Under him the Sikhs covered the British territory from an attack through Afghanistan, much in the same way that in the time of Warren Hastings the Nawab of Oude had covered it against the attacks of the Mahrattas (see p. 802). 20. Russia and Afghanistan. 1835 — 1838. — In 1835, when England and Russia were striving for the mastery at Constanti- nople (see p. 921), the two countries were necessarily thrown into opposition in Asia. In 1837 the Shah of Persia, who was under Russian influence, laid siege to Herat, on the eastern border of his own country. As Herat was on the road to India, Lord Auckland, the governor-general, took alarm, and, even before the siege was actually begun, sent an agent, Alexander Burnes, to Cabul to win over Dost Mahommed, the ruler of Afghanistan, to enter into an alliance with England against Persia, the ally of Russia. Burnes, knowing that soft words would not suffice to gain the heart of Dost Mahommed, offered him British aid in his own quarrels. Auckland, however, refused to carry out the engagement made by Burnes, on which Dost Mahommed, taking offence, allied himself with Russia. In 1838, Auckland sent an expedition to dethrone Dost Mahommed, and to replace him by Shah Soojah, an Afghan prince who had been living in exile in India. Before the expedition started the siege of Herat had been raised by the Persians, and there was, therefore, no longer any real excuse for an attack on the fierce and warlike Afghans. 21. The Invasion of Afghanistan. 1839—1842. — Nevertheless the British army entered Afghanistan in 1839, and, reaching Cabul in safety, placed Shah Soojah on the throne. In 1840, Dost Mahommed knowing that he could not carry on a successful resistance in the field, surrendered himself as a prisoner. So peaceful was the outlook that Sir William Macnaghten, who had charge of the political arrangements at Cabul, fancied that all danger was at an end. Suddenly, however, an insurrection broke out, and some of the British officers, amongst whom was Burnes, were murdered. Though the British were taken by surprise, they had still soldiers enough to attack the Afghans with every prospect of success, but General Elphinstone, who was in command, refused to run the risk. On this the Afghans became still more daring, 950 CRIMEAN WAR AND THE INDIAN MUTINY 1841-1842 and, as food was growing short in the British cantonments, Macnaghten and Elphinstone offered to surrender the forts of Cabul to the enemy on condition of being supplied with provisions. Akbar Khan, a son of Dost Mahommed, invited Macnaghten to a conference and shot him dead with his own hand. The British officers then entered on a treaty with the murderer, who engaged to protect their army, if it would immediately return to India. 22. The Retreat from Cabul. 1842. — The retreat began on January 6, 1842. Snow and ice lay thickly on the passes over the lofty mountain ranges, which had to be climbed before the plains of India were reached. Akbar Khan did what he could to protect the retreating regiments, but he could not restrain his followers. Crowds of Afghans stationed themselves on the rocks which rose above the track, and shot down the fugitives. With the retreating soldiers were English ladies, some of them with children to care for. To save them from certain death they were surrendered to Akbar Khan, who promised to treat them kindly, and who, to his credit, kept his word. After five days’ march, out of 14,500 men who left Cabul, no more than 4,000 remained alive. Each day the butchery was renewed. On the morning of the eighth day only sixty-five were left, and this scanty remnant of a mighty host struggled on to reach Jellalabad in which there was a British garrison. Of these, sixty-four were slain on the way ; after which the Afghans, believing that all their enemies had perished, returned in triumph. One Englishman, however. Dr. Brydon, who had lagged behind because both he and the pony on which he rode were too exhausted to keep up with the march, escaped their notice. Fainting and scarcely able to speak, he at last stumbled into Jellalabad, and told the tale of the great disaster. 23. Pollock’s March to Cabul. 1842. — Jellalabad held out against all the Afghans who could be brought against it. Then General Pollock was sent to retrieve the honour of the British arms. He occupied Cabul, but he had to replace Dost Mahommed on the throne, and to content himself with recovering the British captives. 24. Conquest of Sindh. 1842. — Lord Ellenborough, who had succeeded Auckland as governor- general, coveted Sindh, because he wished to control the lower course of the Indus. He brought accusations of treachery against the Ameers who ruled it, some of which appear to have been based on forged letters. He then sent against the Ameers Sir Charles Napier, who, fighting against tremendous odds, defeated them at Meanee. Sindh was annexed, THE SIKH WARS 1845-1849 95 * and its inhabitants, being far better governed than before, rapidly became prosperous and contented. 25. The First Sikh War. 1845 — 1846. — Runjeet Singh (see p. 949), ‘ the lion of the Punjab,’ as he was called, died in 1839. His succession was disputed, and the Government really fell into the hands of the Sikh army, which raised to power one competitor after another amidst scenes of bloodshed. The governor-general. Sir Henry Hardinge, himself a soldier, had succeeded Ellen- borough in 1843. He was anxious to keep the peace, but the mutinous Sikh army was under no restraint, and on December ii, 1845, it crossed the Sutlej and poured into British territory. Never had a British army in India met antagonists so formidable. Yet in two fierce battles, at Ferozeshah and Moodkee, the invaders were repulsed by Sir Hugh Gough, the commander-in-chief. The Sikhs, however, were not disheartened. In January 1846, they were again defeated by Sir Harry Smith at Aliwal, and finally on February 8, their entrenched camp at Sobraon, on the Sutlej, though defended by more powerful artillery than could be brought against them, was stormed by Gough. After these defeats, the Sikhs submitted, yielding the territory between the Sutlej and the Beas. 26. The Second Sikh War. 1848 — 1849. — In 1848 there was a second Sikh war. On January 13, 1849, Gough — now Lord Gough — met with a check at Chillian walla, and Sir Charles Napier was sent out to succeed him as commander-in-chief. Before Napier arrived, Gough gained a decisive victory at Gujerat. On this the whole of the Punjab was annexed. Chiefly under the firm and kindly management of two brothers, Henry and John Lawrence, the Punjab was reduced to order and contentment, and the very Sikh soldiers who had been the most dangerous antagonists of the British Government were converted into its most unwavering supporters. 27. Lord Dalhousie’s Administration. 1848—1856. — When the second Sikh war was being fought. Lord Dalhousie was the governor-general, and he continued to rule India for eight years, from 1848 to 1856. He was impressed with the advantages which would accrue to the native population by being brought under British rule, and he annexed one territory after another. In his time the Punjab, 'Sattara, Nagpoor, Lower Burmah, and finally Oude, were brought directly under British authority either by conquest or by the dethronement of the native princes. Lord Palfiousie’s intentions were undoubtedly good, but he irritated an 953 CRIMEAN WAR AND THE INDIAN MUTINY 1856 influential class of natives by his entire disregard of their feelings and prejudices. Especially was this the case when, as happened at Sattara, territory was seized, on the ground that the native ruler, being childless, was without an heir. The Hindoos, like the old Romans, regard an adopted son and a real son as standing on exactly the same footing, and as in the case of the old Romans, this idea was based on the religious belief that the father needed a son to perform certain sacrifices for his benefit after death. When, therefore, Lord Dalhousie refused to acknowledge the adopted son of the Rajah of Sattara as his successor, he was guilty, in Hindoo opinion, of an unjust and irreligious act. Moreover, Lord Dal- housie alienated, especially in Oude and the North-West Provinces, an influential class of native gentlemen because the officials supported by him took every opportunity of depriving them of certain rights which they claimed over the land, and which they had long exercised. Though this was done with the benevolent intention of sweeping away all middle-men standing between the officers of the Government and the cultivators, whom they wished to shield from wrong, the result was none the less deplorable. 28. The Sepoy Army. 1856—1857. — In 1856, Lord Canning, a son of the Prime Minister George Canning, became governor- general. By that time some of the dispossessed princes and most of the offended native gentlemen had formed a conspiracy against the British Government, which they held to have been unjust towards them and which in some cases had really been so. The conspirators aimed at securing the support of the Bengal Sepoy army, which had also been alarmed by certain acts in which the Govern- ment had not shown itself sufficiently careful of their feelings and prejudices. Most of the Sepoys were Hindoos, and all Hindoos are divided into castes, and believe that the man who loses his caste is not only disgraced in the present life but suffers misery after death. This loss of caste is not the penalty for moral faults, but for purely bodily actions, such as eating out of the same vessel as one of a lower caste. Caste, too, is lost by eating any part of the sacred animal the cow, and, as a new rifle had been lately served out, the conspirators easily frightened the mass of the Sepoys into the belief that the cartridges for this rifle were greased with cow’s fat. When, therefore, they bit the new cartridges, as soldiers then had to do, before loading, their lips would touch the cow’s grease and they would at once lose caste. It was said that the object of the Government was to render the men miserable by 1857 MUTINY OF THE SEPOY ARMY 953 depriving them of the shelter of their own religion in order to drive them to the adoption of Christianity in despair. 29. The Outbreak of the Mutiny. 1857. — In the spring of 1857 there were attempts to mutiny near Calcutta, but the actual outbreak occurred at Meerut near Delhi. There the native regiments first massacred their English officers and such other Englishmen as they met with, and then marched to Delhi, where they proclaimed the descendant of the Great Mogul (see p. 801), who was living there as a British pensioner. Emperor of India. Canning did what he could by sending for British troops from other parts of India, and also for a considerable force which happened to be at sea on its way to take part in a war which had broken out with China. His position was, however, exceedingly precarious till further reinforcements could be brought from England. His best helper was Sir John Lawrence, .who had governed the recently annexed Punjab with such ability and justice that the Sikh war- riors, so lately the fierce enemies of the British, were ready to fight in their behalf. As the Sikhs did not profess the Hindoo religion, there was, in their case, no difficulty about caste. With their aid Lawrence disarmed the Sepoys in the Punjab, and sent all the troops he could spare to besiege Delhi. Delhi, however, was a strong place and, as the besiegers were few, months elapsed before it could be taken. 30. Cawnpore. 1857. — The mutiny spread to Lucknow, the capital of Oude, where the few Englishmen in the place were driven into the Residency with Sir Henry Lawrence, Sir John’s brother, at their head, to hold out, if they could, till help arrived. At Cawnpore, not far off, were about five hundred British women and children, and less than five hundred British men were besieged by one Nana Sahib, who hated the English on account of wrongs which he conceived himself to have suffered at their hands. After they had endured terrible hardships, Nana Sahib offered to allow the garrison to depart in safety. The offer was accepted and the weary defenders made their way to the boats waiting for them on the river, where they were shot down from the bank. Some of the women and children were kept alive for a few days, but in the end all were massacred, and their bodies flung into a well. Only four of the defenders of Cawnpore escaped to tell the miserable tale. 31. The Recovery of Delhi and the Relief of Lucknow. 1857. The mutiny, widely spread as it was, was confined to the Bengal Presidency. In Lucknow, though Sir Henry Lawrence had been slain, the garrison held out in the Residency. At last Havelock, III. 3 Q 954 CRIMEAN WAR AND THE INDIAN MUTINY 1857-1858 a brave, pious officer, who prayed and taught his men to pray as the Puritan soldiers had prayed in Cromwell’s time, brought a small band through every obstacle to its relief. Before he reached the place Sir James Outram joined him, authorised by the Go- vernment to take the command out of his hands. Outram, how- ever, honourably refused to take from Havelock the credit of the achievement. ‘ To you,’ wrote Outram to Havelock, ‘ shall be left the glory of relieving Lucknow, for which you have already struggled so much. I shall accompany you, placing my military service at your disposal, should you please, and serving under you as a volunteer.’ Thus supported, Havelock relieved Lucknow on September 25, but he had not men enough to drive off the be- siegers permanently, and Outram, who, after the city had been entered, took the command, had to wait for relief in turn. Delhi had already been taken by stornj on September 19. 32. The End of the Mutiny. 1857 — 1858. — Soon after the relief of Lucknow Sir Colin Campbell, who afterwards became Lord Clyde, arrived with reinforcements from England, and finally suppressed the mutiny. In 1858 Parliament put an end to the authority of the East India Company (see p. 808). Thenceforth the Governor- General was brought directly under the Queen, acting through a British Secretary of State for India responsible to Parliament. There was also to be an Indian Council in Eng- land composed of persons familiar with Indian affairs, in order that the Secretary of State might have the advice of experienced persons. On assuming full authority, the Queen issued a proclama- tion to the peoples and princes of India. To the people she promised complete toleration in religion, and admission to office of qualified persons. To the princes she promised scrupulous respect for their rights and dignities. To all she declared her intention of respecting their rights and customs. It is in this last respect especially that the proclamation laid down the lines on which administration of India will always have to move if it is to be successful. Englishmen cannot but perceive that many things are done by the natives of India which are in their nature hurtful, unjust, or even cruel, and they are naturally impatient to remove evils that are very evident to them. The lesson necessary for them to learn is the one which Walpole taught their own ancestors, that it is better to leave evils untouched for a while than to risk the overthrow of a system of government which, on the whole, works beneficently. It is one thing to endeavour to lead the people of India forward to a better life, another thing to drag them forward [857-1858 CONSPIRACV-TO-MURDER BILL 955 and thereby to provoke a general exasperation which would lessen the chances of improvement m the future, and might possibly sweep the reforming government itself away. CHAPTER LX ANTECEDENTS AND RESULTS OF THE SECOND REFORM ACT 1857—1874 LEADING DATES The Second Derby Ministry . . 1858 The Second Palmerston Ministry . . 1859 War of Italian Liberation . 1859 Commercial Treaty with France . i860 The American Civil War .... . 1861-1864 Earl Russell’s Ministry . 1865 War between Austria and Prussia . 1866 The Third Derby Ministry .... . 1866 The Second Reform Act . 1867 The First Disraeli Ministry .... . 1868 The First Gladstone Ministry .... . 1868 Disestablishment of the Irish Church . 1869 The First Irish Land Act and the Education Act . . 1870 War between France and Germany . 1870-1871 Abolition of Army Purchase .... . 1871 The Ballot Act Fall of the Gladstone Ministry . 1874 Fall of the First Palmerston Ministry. 1857—1858. — When the Mutiny was crushed the Palmerston ministry no longer existed. Palmerston’s readiness to enforce his will on foreign nations had led him in 1857 to provoke a war with China which the majority of the House of Commons condemned as unjustifiable. He dis- solved Parliament and appealed to the fighting instincts of the nation, and, though not only Cobden and Bright, but Gladstone, joined the Conservatives against him, he obtained a sweeping majority in the new Parliament. Curiously enough, he was turned out of office, in 1858, by this very same Parliament, on a charge of truckling to the French Emperor. Explosive bombs, wherewith to murder Napoleon HI., were manufactured in England, and plans for using them against him were laid on English soil. The attempt was made by an Italian, Orsini, and upon its failure the French Government and people called upon the English Government to prevent such designs in future. Palmerston brought in a Conspiracy- to-Murder Bill, the object of which was to punish those who con- trived the assassination of foreign princes on English soil. This measure, desirable as it was, was unpopular in England, because 956 ANTECEDENTS OF SECOND REFORM ACT 1858-1859 some Frenchmen talked abusively of Englishmen as protectors of murderers, and even called on the Emperor to invade England. Parliament refused to be bullied even into doing a good thing, and, the Bill being rejected, the Palmerston ministry resigned. 2. The Second Derby Ministry and the Beginning of the Second Palmerston Ministry. 1858 — 1859. — Lord Derby became Prime Minister a second time, and in 1859 Disraeli, who was again Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, brought in a Reform Bill which was rejected by the House of Commons. A new ministry was formed which, like Lord Aber- deen’s in 1852, comprised Whigs and Peelites. Palmerston was Prime Minister, Russell Foreign Secretary, and Gladstone Chan- cellor of the Exchequer. 3. Italian War of Liberation. 1859. — In 1859, the year in which the second Palmerston ministry took office, a great war broke out in Italy. Italians could have no freedom in their own states as long as Austria held Lombardy and Venetia, because Austrian armies were always ready to help any Italian prince in maintaining despotism. In the kingdom of Sardinia alone, Victor Emmanuel persisted in maintaining a constitutional government in defiance of Austria, and thereby, and by his ingrained honesty of nature, attracted the reverence of all Italians who longed to expel the Austrians and gain political freedom. It was evident that all Italy must be governed despotically or constitutionally, and that consti- tutional government could not be maintained even in the kingdom of Sardinia unless Austria was driven back, whilst despotic govern- ment could not be maintained elsewhere unless Sardinia was crushed. In 1858 Napoleon came to an understanding with Cavour, the statesmanlike Sardinian minister, and in 1859 he led an army across the Alps to support the Sardinians. Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the northern parts of the States of the Church, drove away their rulers and combined forces with Victor Emmanuel. Napoleon and his ally defeated the Austrians in the two great battles of Magenta and Solferino, after which the Emperor made peace with Austria. Victor Emmanuel and his subjects, who had hoped that the war might be continued till Austria had been entirely excluded from Italy, were grievously disappointed. Napoleon was, however, probably justified in bringing the war to a close, as he had reason to think that, if he continued it, Prussia would take part with Austria against him, and as it was very likely that if hostilities were prolonged his own subjects would refuse to support him. By the peace of Zurich, which put an end to the war, Milan i859-i86i victor EMMANUEL AND ITALY 9 S 7 was given to Victor Emmanuel, but Venetia was left to Austria. The expelled princes were to be reinstated, and all Italian states, includ- ing Austrian Venetia and the increased kingdom of Sardinia, were to form a confederation, of which the president was to be the Pope. 4. The Kingdom of Italy. 1859 — 1861. — The Italians of the central provinces, Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the northern part of the Papal States, refused to accept this absurd arrangement. In i860 they joined Victor Emmanuel’s kingdom, which now began to be known as the Kingdom of Italy. Russell, as Foreign Secretary, did everything in his power to uphold their right to dispose of themselves, and on Savoy and Nice being surrendered to France Napoleon acquiesced in the arrangement, whilst Austria did not venture to provoke a new war by interfering. In i860, too. Garibaldi, a straightforward and enthusiastic soldier, whose ideal was the union of Italy, invaded Sicily, and in a few weeks con- quered both Sicily and Naples, with the exception of the strong fortress of Gaeta. In the meanwhile many Catholics had come from other countries to defend the independence of the Pope, which was visibly threatened. They were, however, defeated by an Italian army, and that part of the Papal dominions which lay between the Apennines and the Adriatic was added to Victor Em- manuel’s kingdom. Victor Emmanuel himself came into Southern Italy through his newly-annexed regions, where he was welcomed by Garibaldi. The joint armies laid siege to Gaeta, which sur- rendered on February 13, 1861. Victor Emmanuel now ruled over all Italy except Venetia, which was held by an Austrian army, and Rome, which, together with the district round it, was secured to the Pope by a French garrison. 5. The Volunteers. 1859 — 1860. — In i860 Russell brought in a Reform Bill, but the country did not care about it, and even Russell perceived that it was useless to press it. It was withdrawn, and no other similar measure was proposed whilst Palmerston lived. The country, indeed, was agitated about other matters. Napoleon’s annexation of Savoy and Nice caused disquiet, and suspicions were entertained that, having succeeded in defeating Austria, he might think of trying to defeat either Prussia or England. Already, whilst Lord Derby was Prime Minister, young men had come forward to serve as volunteers in defence of the country. Palmerston gave great encouragement to the movement, and before long corps of volunteers were established in every county, as a permanent part of the British army. 6. The Commercial Treaty with France, i860. — Napoleon did 958 ANTECEDENTS OF SECOND REFORM ACT i86o-lS6i not really want to quarrel with England, and before long an oppor- tunity presented itself for binding the two nations together. The Emperor warmly adopted a scheme for a commercial treaty between England and France which had been suggested by Cobden, and which was also supported by Gladstone, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had been completing Peel’s work by carrying out the principles of F ree Trade. In i860 was signed the Commercial Treaty, in virtue of which English goods were admitted into France at low duties, whilst French wines and other articles were treated in England in the same way. Between England and France, however, there was this difference : in England the treaty was sanctioned by Parliament as being in accordance with the opinions generally entertained in the country. In France it was put in force by the sole authority of the Emperor in defiance of the opinions generally entertained by the French nation. Consequently, when, at a later time, the power of the Emperor came to an end, France took the earliest opportunity to annul a treaty the value of which she was unable to appreciate. 7. The Presidential Election in America, i860. — In i860, the year in which the treaty with France was signed, events occurred in the United States of America which pressed heavily on England. In the southern states there were some millions of negro slaves, mostly employed in producing sugar and cotton, whilst in the northern states there were no slaves of any kind. The free states flourished, and the slave states decayed. The slave-owners hoped to improve their position by occupying fresh soil and carrying theil slaves with them to cultivate it. The inhabitants of the free states did not yet propose to abolish slavery in the old slave states, which they were unable to do constitutionally, but they asked that slavery should not be tolerated in any new states. In i860 Abraham Lincoln was chosen President in order that he might enforce this doctrine, on which the slave states declared themselves independent, taking the name of the ‘ Confederate States.’ The free states continued to speak of themselves and of all the other states as still forming the ‘ United States,’ declaring that the confederates had no right to leave the union, and must be compelled to return to it. 8. England and the American Civil War. 1861 — 1862. — A terrible war between the two sections broke out in 1861. English opinion was divided on the subject. The upper classes, for the most part, sided with the South ; the working men, for the most part, with the North. Towards the end of 1861 the Confederate Government despatched two agents. Mason and Slidell, to Europe 1§6i-i862 Th£: AMERICAN Cli^IL WAR 9^0 in an English mail- steamer to seek for the friendship of England and France. They were taken out of the steamer by the captain of a United States’ man-of-war. As it was contrary to the rules of international law to seize anyone on board a neutral ship, the British Government protested, and prepared to make war with the United States if they refused to surrender the agents. Fortu- nately the United States Government promptly surrendered the men, honourably acknowledging that its officer had acted wrongly, and the miserable spectacle of a war between two nations which ought always to be bound together by ties of brotherhood was averted. When the demand for the surrender of Mason and Slidell was being prepared in England, Prince Albert, who had lately received the title of Prince Consort, lay upon what proved to be his death-bed. His last act was to suggest that some passages in the English despatch, which might possibly give offence in America, should be more courteously expressed. On December 14, 1861, he died. His whole married life had been one of continuous self-abnegation. He never put himself forward, or aspired to the semblance of power ; but he placed his intelligence and tact at the service of the queen and the country, softening down asperities and helping on the smooth working of the machinery of government. 9. The ‘Alabama.’ 1862. — The fleet of the United States had from the beginning of the war blockaded the southern ports, and many English merchants fitted out steamers to run through the blockading squadrons, carrying goods to the confederates and taking away cotton in return. The confederates, who had no navy, were anxious to attack the commercial marine of their enemies, and ordered a swift war-steamer to be built at Birkenhead by an English ship-builder, which, after it had put to sea, was named the ‘ Alabama.’ The ‘ Alabama ’ took a large number of American merchant-ships, sinking the ships after removing the crews and the valuable part of the cargo. Such proceedings caused the greatest indignation in America, where it was held that the British Govern- ment ought to have seized the ‘ Alabama ’ before it put to sea, as being in reality a ship of war, which ought not to be allowed to start on its career from a neutral harbour. Some years afterwards England had to pay heavy damages to the United States for the losses arising in consequence of the mismanagement of the Government in allowing this ship to sail. 10. The Cotton Famine. 1861 — 1864. — In the meanwhile great suffering was caused in the north of England by the stop- page of the supplies of cotton from America, in consequence of the 96o antecedents OE SECOND REFORM ACT 1861-1865 blockade of the southern ports. It was on American cotton that the cotton-mills in Lancashire had almost exclusively depended, and the small amount brought by the blockade-runners was far too little to meet their needs. Attempts were made to get supplies from Egypt and India, but these supplies were as yet insufficient in quantity, and in quality very inferior. Mills were either stopped or kept going only for a few hours in the week. Thousands were thrown out of work, and the cotton-famine caused as much misery as a bread-famine would have done. Yet not only were the sufferers patient under their misfortune, but they refused to speak evil of the northern states, whose blockading operations had been the cause of their misery. Believing that slave-owning was a crime, and that the result of the victory of the northern states would be the downfall of slavery in America, they suffered in silence rather than ask that England should aid a cause which in their hearts they condemned. 11. End of the American Civil War. 1864. — In 1864 the American civil war ended by the complete victory of the North. Slavery was brought to an end in the whole of the territory of the United States. The conquerors showed themselves most merciful in the hour of victory, setting themselves deliberately to win back the hearts of the conquered. Such a spectacle could not fail to in- fluence the course of English politics. A democratic government, sorely tried, had shown itself strong and merciful. The cause of democratic progress also gained adherents through the abnegation of the working-men of Lancashire in the time of the cotton-famine. Those who willingly suffered on behalf of what they believed to be a righteous cause could hardly be debarred much longer from the exercise of the full rights of citizenship. 12. The Last Days of Lord Palmerston. 1865. — Although Parlia- mentary reform could not be long delayed, it was not likely to come as long as Lord Palmerston lived. He was the most popular man in England : cheery, high-spirited, and worthily representing the indomitable courage of the race to which he belonged. He was now eighty years of age, and the old system did well enough for him. On the other hand, Gladstone, whose energy and financial success gave him an authority only second to that of Palmerston in the House of Commons, declared for reform. In 1865 a new Parliament was elected. On October 18, before it met, Palmerston died. He had been brisk and active to the last, but there was work now to be done needing the hands and hearts of younger men. 13. The Ministry of Earl Russell. 1865 — 1866. — Russell, who had been created Earl Russell in 1861, succeeded Palmerston as 1866-1867 DlSkAkU AND REFORM 961 Prime Minister, and Gladstone became leader of the House of Com- mons. When the session opened in 1866, the ministry introduced a Reform Bill, with the object of lowering the franchise in counties and boroughs. The majority in the House of Commons did not care about reform, and though the House did not directly throw out the Bill, so many objections were raised, mainly by dis- satisfied Liberals, and so much time was lost in discussing them, that the ministry came to the conclusion that the House did not wish to pass it. On this they resigned, intending to show by so doing that they really cared about the Bill, and were ready to sacrifice office for its sake. 14. The Third Derby Ministry and the Second Reform Act. 1866 — 1868. — For the third time Lord Derby became Prime Minister, with Disraeli again as Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. It soon appeared that, though the House of Commons cared little for reform, the working-men cared for it much. Crowded and enthusiastic meetings were held in most of the large towns in the North. In London, the Govern- ment having prohibited a meeting appointed to be held in Hyde Park, the crowd, finding the gates shut, broke down the railings and rushed in. Disraeli, quick to perceive that the country was determined to have reform, made up his mind to be the minister to give it ; and, as he was able to carry his usual supporters with him, the opposition of the discontented Liberals — through which the Reform Bill of the last session had been wrecked — was ren- dered innocuous. At the opening of the session of 1867, Disraeli first proposed a series of resolutions laying down the principles on which reform ought to be based. Finding that the House of Com- mons preferred an actual Bill, he sketched out the plan of a Bill, and then, as it did not please the Houses, withdrew it and brought in a second Bill very different from the one which he had first proposed. Three Cabinet ministers, one of whom was Lord Cran- borne (who afterwards became Lord Salisbury), resigned rather than accept a Bill so democratic as the final proposal. Before the Bill got through the House of Commons it became still more de- mocratic. In its final shape every man who paid rates in the boroughs was to have a vote, and in towns therefore household suffrage was practically established, whilst even lodgers were allowed to vote if they paid 10/. rent and had resided in the same lodgings for a whole year. In the counties the franchise was given to all who inhabited houses at 12/: rental whilst the old freehold suffrage (see p. 902) of 40s. was retained. At least in towns large 962 kESULTS OF THE SECOND EEFOEM ACT l86?-i870 enough to return members separately, the working-men would henceforth have a voice in managing the affairs of the nation. In 1868 Bills were carried changing on similar principles the franchise in Scotland and Ireland. In England and Scotland there was also a redistribution of seats, small constituencies being disfranchised and their members given to large ones. 15. Irish Troubles. 1867. — The year of the second Reform Act was one of trouble in Ireland. The discontented in Ireland were now supported by an immense population of Irish in America, the whole of which was hostile to England, and large numbers of which had acquired military discipline in the American Civil War. A secret society, whose members were known as Fenians, sprang up on both sides of the Atlantic. Many of the military Irish returned from America to Ireland, and in March 1867 a general rising was attempted in Ireland. Heavy snow-storms made the movements of the insurgents impossible, and this effort to bring about a complete separation between Ireland and England was suppressed with little bloodshed. Numbers of Irish, as well those residing in England as those who remained in their own country, sympathised with the Fenians. In Manchester, some of these rescued some Fenian prisoners from a prison van, and in the course of the struggle a shot was fired which killed a policeman. Five of the rescuers were tried in November, and three were hanged. In December, other Irishmen blew down with gunpowder the wall of Clerkenwell Prison, in which two Fenians were confined, hoping to liberate the prisoners. 16. The Gladstone Ministry and the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. 1868 — 1869. — In February 1868, Disraeli became Prime Minister, Lord Derby having resigned in consequence of the state of his health. It had by this time become evident to the principal Liberals that Irish discontent must be caused by grievances which it behoved the British Parliament to remedy. Accordingly, Gladstone proposed and carried resolutions calling for the dis- establishment of the Irish Church. Disraeli dissolved Parliament, as he was obliged in any case to do in order to allow the new constituencies created by the Reform Act to choose their represen- tatives. The new Parliament contained a large Liberal majority, and Gladstone became Prime Minister. In 1869 he brought in and carried a Bill disestablishing and disendowing the Protestant Church of Ireland, which was the Church of the minority. 17. The Irish Land Act. 1870.— In 1870 the Government attacked the more difficult question of Irish land. An Irish Land 1866-1870 mk NOkTH GEkMAN CONFEDEkATlON $63 Act was now passed which obliged landlords to compensate their tenants for improvements made by them, and to give them some payment if they turned them out of their holding for any reason except for not paying their rent. Tenants who desired to buy land from their landlords might receive loans from the Govern- ment to enable them to become owners of farms which they had rented. The Act had less effect than was intended, as the land- lord, being allowed to come to an agreement with a tenant that the Act should not in his case be enforced, had usually sufficient influence over his tenants to induce them to abandon all claim to the benefits which Parliament intended them to receive. 18. The Education Act. 1870. — In the same year Forster, who was one of the ministers, introduced a new system of education in primary schools in England. Up to this time the Government had been allowed by Parliament to grant money to schools on condition that a sum at least equal to the grant was raised by school fees and local subscriptions, and that the Government in- spectors were satisfied that the children were properly taught. By the new Education Act, wherever there was a deficiency in school accommodation, the ratepayers were to elect a School Board with authority to draw upon the rates for the building and main- tenance of as many schools as the Committee of the Privy Council appointed to decide on questions of education (see p. 920) thought to be necessary — which School Boards had authority to compel parents who neglected the education of their children to send them either to the Board School or to some other efficient school. At these schools the Bible was to be read and explained, but no re- ligious instruction according to the principles of any special religious body was to be given in school hours. 19. The War between Prussia and Austria. 1866. — Whilst these events were occurring in England great changes had taken place on the Continent. In 1866 a war had broken out between Prussia on the one hand, and Austria supported by the great majority of the German states on the other. The Austrians were completely defeated by the Prussians at Sadowa in Bohemia, though at Custozza they defeated the Italians, who had allied themselves with Prussia. The result was that when peace was made, Venetia was ceded to Italy, whilst in Germany, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau and Frankfort were annexed to Prussia, and the whole of the country to the north of the Main formed into a North German Confederation under Prussian supremacy. ^ 20. War between France and Germany. 1870—1871. — The 9^4 RESULTS OF TtiE SRCOJ^D REFORM ACT 1870-1871 French growing jealous of the success of Prussia, in 1870 the Emperor Napoleon picked a quarrel with the King of Prussia. In the war which followed the whole of Germany sided with Prussia. The German army was thoroughly prepared for war, and had a consummate strategist. Count Moltke, to direct its operations, whilst the French army was in utter confusion. The Germans invaded France, and, after defeating outlying bodies of French troops at Worth and Forbach, overthrew the main army under Bazaine at Gravelotte. Driving Bazaine into Metz, they left a large part of their force to block him up in the town, whilst they advanced towards Paris with the remainder. On the way, learning that Napoleon was marching to relieve Bazaine, they turned upon him and completely defeated him at Sedan, making both him and his whole army prisoners. On this the Parisians established a Re- public, but the Germans pressed on, laid siege to Paris, in the meanwhile forcing the French army in Metz to capitulate. The Republican Government made an heroic resistance, but in March 1871 Paris capitulated and peace was made ; France having to pay a large sum of money and to cede to Germany Alsace and the north-eastern part of Lorraine. Before this the southern German princes had agreed to combine with the northern princes in a new German Empire, and William I., king of Prussia, was proclaimed hereditary German Emperor at Versailles. As France had been obliged to call home the garrison which she had hitherto kept at Rome, the Italian troops entered that city, thus completing Italian unity under the constitutional monarchy of Victor Emmanuel. 21. Abolition of Army- Purchase. 1871. — In these wars England took no part. Government and Parliament continued to pay atten- tion to domestic reforms. Hitherto regimental officers in the army had been allowed, on voluntarily retiring from the service, to receive a sum of money from the senior officer beneath them who was willing or able to pay the price for the creation of a vacancy to which he would be promoted over the heads of officers who, though they were his own seniors, did not pay the money. A poor officer, therefore, could only be promoted when vacancies above him were caused by death. A Government Bill for the abolition of this practice passed the Commons, but was laid aside by the Lords till a complete measure of army-reform, which had been joined to the Bill when it was first brought into the Commons, should be produced. Gladstone, taking this to be equivalent to the rejection of the Bill, obtained from the Queen the withdrawal of the warrant by which purchase was authorised, thus settling by a stroke of the 1871-1872 THE BALLOT ACT 965 prerogative a measure which he had at first hoped to pass by the authority of Parliament. His action on this occasion lost him the good will of some of his best and most independent supporters, whilst large numbers of Dissenters had been alienated from the Government because the Education Act had not entirely put an end to the giving of religious instruction in schools, so as to relieve them from the fear that the religious belief of the children would be influenced by the teaching of Church of England school- masters and schoolmistresses. 22. The Ballot Act. 1872. — All members of the Liberal party, however, concurred in supporting a Bill introduced by Forster in 1872 for establishing secret voting by means of the ballot. The Ballot Act, which passed in this year, made it impossible to know how any man’s vote was given, and consequently enabled persons dependent on others for their livelihood or advancement to give their votes freely without fear of being deprived of employment if they voted otherwise than their employers wished. The work of the first Gladstone ministry was in some respects like the work of the ministry of Lord Grey after the first Reform Act. In both cases the accession of a new class to a share of power was followed by almost feverish activity in legislation, in the one case in accordance with the ideas of the middle classes, in the other case in accordance with the ideas of the artisans. In both cases vigorous progress was followed by a reaction. Many who had applauded what was done had no desire to see more done in the same direction, and, as always happens when people are no longer in accord with the ideas of a ministry, they fix angrily on mistakes committed and think of unavoidable misfortunes as though they were intentional mistakes. Some of the ministers, moreover, made themselves unpopular by the discourtesy of their language. 23. Foreign Policy of the Ministry. 1871 — 1872. — The foreign policy of the Government made it unpopular. One result of the great war between France and Germany in 1871 was that Russia refused to be any longer bound by the treaty of 1856 (see p. 948) to abstain from keeping ships of war in the Black Sea, and the English Government, as a matter of necessity, but to its own griev- ous injury at home, agreed to a conference being held between the representatives of the great Powers in London, at which the stipula- tions objected to by Russia were annulled. Another cause of the unpopularity of the Government was its agreement in 1871 to refer to arbitration the claims which had been brought forward by the United States for compensation for damages inflicted on their 966 RESULTS OF THE SECOND REFORM ACT 1872-1874 commercial marine by the ravages of the ‘ Alabama ’ (see p. 960). In 1872 a Court of Arbitration sat at Geneva and awarded to the United States a sum of 15,000,000 dollars, or rather more than 3,000,000/. The sum was regarded by many in England as exces- sive, but, whether this was so or not, it was well spent in putting an end to a misunderstanding between the two great branches of the English-speaking race. Since that time there has been an increas- ing readiness to submit disputes between nations to arbitration ; but those who admire this course sometimes forget that it is only in some cases that arbitration is acceptable. When two nations are desirous to live on good terms with one another and are only prevented from doing so by a dispute on some particular question of comparatively slight importance, it is not only possible, but in the highest degree desirable, that they should abide by the decision of arbitrators rather than go to war. Questions reaching to the permanent interests of a nation, and still more, questions touching its honour or its very existence, are not likely to be decided by arbitration. In 1872 England could honourably pay an unduly large sum of money rather than go to war. In 1859 the King of Sardinia could not have been expected to submit to arbitration the question whether the Italian nation should be united or divided. 24. Fall of the First Gladstone Ministry. 1873 — 1874.— In 1873 the ministry brought in a Bill to establish in Ireland a new University which, in order that it might inspire confidence in Protestants and Catholics alike, was to be forbidden to teach the disputed but important subjects of theology, philosophy, and his- tory. This singular Bill being rejected by the House of Commons, the ministers resigned. As, however, Disraeli refused to take office, they continued to carry on the government. In January 1874, Parlia- ment being dissolved, a large Conservative majority was returned. The ministry then resigned, and Disraeli became Prime Minister a second time. It was the first time since Peel’s resignation that the Conservatives had held office, except on sufferance. 25. Colonial Expansion. 1815— 1901.— After the great war with France which ended in 1815, the colonies retained and acquired by England were valued either like the West India Islands because they produced sugar, or like the Cape of Good Hope because they afforded stations for British fleets which would be of the highest value in time of war. There were, no doubt, British emigrants who had left their homes to settle in Canada and Australia, but their numbers were not very great, and at the Cape of Good Hope the population was almost entirely of Dutch origin. Since that 1841-1874 COLONIAL EXPANSION 967 time the West India Islands have decreased in importance in con- sequence of the abolition of slavery, the throwing open of the British market to foreign sugar, and to defects in a system of cultivation which had been adopted in the time of slavery. On the other hand there have grown up great and powerful communities mainly com- posed of emigrants from Great Britain, self-governing like Great Britain herself^ and held to the mother-country by the loosest pos- sible ties. These communities are to be found in three parts of the globe — the Dominion of Canada, Australasia, and South Africa. 26. The North-American Colonies. 1841 — 1874. — It had been supposed in England that the troubles which had resulted in Canada from the dissensions between the British and French settlers had been brought to an end in 1841 by the legislative union of the two provinces (see p. 916). The British inhabitants of Upper Canada, however, complained of the influence exercised by the French of Lower Canada. To provide a remedy an Act of the British Parliament created, in 1867, a federation known as the Dominion of Canada into which any existing colonies on the North American continent were to be allowed to enter. There was to be a governor-general appointed by the Crown, and a Dominion Parlia- ment seated at Ottawa and legislating for matters of common concern, which was to consist of a Senate, the members of which are nominated for life by the governor-general on the advice of responsible ministers, and a House of Commons, the members of which are elected by constituencies in the provinces in proportion to the population of each province. The parliaments of the separate provinces retained in their own hands the management of their own local affairs. The provincial parliaments of Upper and Lower Canada were separated from one another, bearing respec- tively the names of the province of Ontario and the province of Quebec. To them were added as component parts of the Dominion Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Between 1870 and 1872 Mani- toba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island joined the Dominion. Newfoundland continues to hold aloof. The unoccu- pied lands of the north-west are placed under the control of the authorities of the Dominion, which thus combines under one government the whole of America north of the territory of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific with the exception of Newfoundland and its subject territory of Labrador. 27. Australasia. 1788 — 1901. — The Australasian colonies are divided into two groups, those of Australia and those of New Zealand. The first British settlers in Australia were convicts, who 968 RESULTS OF THE SECOND REFORM ACT 1788-1883 arrived at Port Jackson in 1788. For many years the colony thus founded under the name of New South Wales remained a penal settlement. The convicts themselves, after serving their time in servitude, became free, their children were free, and there was a certain amount of free emigration from Great Britain. In 1821 New South Wales had a population of 30,000, of which three- fourths were convicts. It had already been discovered that the country was peculiarly adapted to the production of wool, and the number of sheep in the colony rose from 25,000 in 1810 to 290,000 in 1821. From this time success was assured. Other colonies were founded in due course. Van Diemen’s Land, afterwards known as Tasmania, was established as a separate colony in 1825. In the same year a small convict settlement was founded under the name of West Australia. South Australia received a separate government in 1836 under a British Act of Parliament passed in 1834. Victoria was separated from New South Wales in 1850. By this time the free population, indignant at the constant influx of British criminals, resisted the importation of convicts so strenuously that in 1851 an end was put to the system of transportation to Australia except in the small and thinly populated colony of West Australia. In that year the population flocked to the newly discovered gold fields, and the attraction of gold brought an enormous number of immigrants from Great Britain. Queensland became a separate colony in 1859. In 1901 the white population of the whole of Australia numbered about 3,700,000. After a long delay, Tasmania and the five Australian colonies followed the example of the North American colonies, and set up a federal government. The Commonwealth of Australia came into being on January i, 1901, in accordance with an Act passed by the Parlia- ment of Great Britain in the previous year. New Zealand, in which the white population reached 772,000 in 1901, has, since 1876, been governed by a single parliament, the seat of which is at Wellington. 28. South Africa. — The Cape Colony finally passed under British authority in 1806. In 1820 a stream of British immigra- tion began to set in. The colony was under the disadvantage of having fierce and warlike Kaffir tribes on its north-eastern frontier, and from 1834 onwards a series of wars with the Kaffirs broke out from time to time, which taxed to the uttermost the resources of the colonists and of the British regiments sent for their defence. Many of the Dutch, who were usually known as Boers or farmers, were dissatisfied with British rule, and in 1835 they began to migrate further north. Some settled in Natal, 1874-1878 LAST YEARS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 969 which, in 1843, became a British colony. Others founded the Orange River Free State and the Transvaal Republic, both of which the British Government finally recognised as independent states. In spite of emigration and Kaffir wars, the British colonists continually pressed further north, and in 1871 the dis- covery of diamonds at Kimberley attracted immigrants and capital to the colony. That which distinguishes the South African settle- ments of Great Britain from those in North America and Australia, is the enormous preponderance of a native population. Out of every six inhabitants five are natives. The total white population in 1891, excluding the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, amounted to about 430,000 persons. CHAPTER LXI THE LAST YEARS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 1874—1901 I. The Disraeli (Beaconsfield) Ministry. 1874 — 1880. — The Conservative ministry, formed under Disraeli in 1874, contented itself for some time with domestic legislation. In 1876 troubles broke out in the Balkan Peninsula, caused by the misdeeds of the Turkish officials. Servia and Montenegro made war upon the Turks, and in January 1877 a conference of European ministers was held at Con- stantinople to settle all questions at issue. Nothing, however, was done to coerce the Turkish Government into better behaviour, and as other European powers refused to act, Russia declared war against Turkey. After a long and doubtful struggle, the Turkish power of resistance collapsed early in 1878, and a treaty between Russia and the Sultan was signed at San Stefano, by which the latter abandoned a considerable amount of territory. Disraeli, who had recently been made Earl of Beaconsfield, insisted that no engagement between Russia and Turkey would be valid unless it were confirmed by a European congress, and a congress was accordingly held at Berlin. By the Treaty of Berlin, which was signed in the course of 1878, Roumania and Servia became in- dependent kingdoms, with some addition to their territory ; Monte- negro was also enlarged, and Bulgaria erected into a principality paying tribute to the Sultan ; whilst a district to which the name of Eastern Roumelia was given was to be ruled by a Christian governor nominated by the Sultan, who was to have the right of III. 3 R 970 LAST YEARS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY, 1874-1901 garrisoning fortresses in the Balkan Mountains. Russia acquired the piece of land near the mouth of the Danube, which she had lost after the Crimean War, and also another piece of land round Kars, which she had just conquered. The Sultan was recommended to cede Thessaly and part of Epirus to Greece. The protectorate over Bosnia and Herzegovina was given to Austria, and, by a separate convention, Cyprus, was given to England on condition of paying tribute to the Sultan and protecting Asia Minor, which the Sultan promised to govern on an improved system. These ar- rangements have remained to the present day (1901), except that the Sultan has never garrisoned the fortresses in the Balkans, and that Eastern Roumelia has been annexed by its own population to Bulgaria, whilst the Sultan has only given over Thessaly to Greece, refusing to abandon any part of Epirus. In 1879 Egypt, having become practically bankrupt, was brought under the dual control of England and France. In South Africa, the territory of the republic of the Transvaal was annexed in 1877, and in 1879 there was a war with the Zulus, which began with the slaughter of a British force, though it ended in a complete victory. In Asia a second Afghan War broke out in 1878, arising from the attempt to establish a British agent at Cabul in order to check Russian intrigues. An impression grew up in the country that the Govern- ment was too fond of war, and when Parliament was dissolved in 1880, a considerable Liberal majority was returned. 2. The Second Gladstone Ministry. 1880—1885. — Gladstone formed a ministry which was soon confronted by difficulties in Ireland. There were troubles arising from the relations between landlord and tenant, and a Land Leagne had been formed to support the tenants in their contentions with their landlords. There had also for some little time been amongst the Irish members a parlia- mentary party which demanded Home Rule, or the concession of an Irish parliament for the management of Irish affairs. This party was led by Parnell. In 1880 the ministry, in which the leading authority on Irish questions was Forster, the Irish Secretary, brought in a Compensation for Disturbance Bill, giving an evicted tenant compensation for the loss falling on him by being thrust out of his holding. This Bill passed the Commons, but was rejected by the Lords. In 1881 the ministry carried another fresh Land Act, appointing a land court to fix rents which were not to be changed for fifteen years. At the same time it carried an Act for the protection of life and property, intended to suppress the murders and outrages which were rife in Ireland, by authorising 1874-1901 LAST YEARS OF N/NETEENTH CENTURY 971 the imprisonment of suspected persons without legal trial. In 1881 Parnell and other leading Irishmen were arrested, but in 1882 the Government let them out of prison, with the intention of pur- suing a more conciliatory course. On this Forster resigned. His successor. Lord Frederick Cavendish, was murdered, together with the Irish Under-Secretary, Burke, in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, by a band of ruffians who called themselves Invincibles. An Act for the prevention of crimes was then passed. The Irish members of parliament continued bitterly hostile to the ministry. On the other hand, some at least of the members of the Government and of their supporters were becoming convinced that another method for the suppression of violence than compulsion must be employed, if Ireland was ever to be tranquil. As had been the case with the last Government, foreign com- plications discredited the ministry. In 1880 the Dutch inhabitants of the Transvaal rose against the English government set up in their territory in 1877, and drove back with slaughter at Majuba Hill a British force sent against them. On this, the home govern- ment restored the independence of the republic, subject to its acknowledgment of the suzerainty of Great Britain. The greatest trouble, however, arose in Egypt. In 1882 an insurrection headed by Arabi Pacha with the object of getting rid of European in- fluence, broke out against the Khedive, as the Pacha of Egypt had been called since his power had become hereditary (see p. 922). France, which had joined Great Britain in establishing the dual control, refused to act, and the British Government sent a fleet and army to overthrow Arabi. The forts of Alexandria were destroyed by the fleet, and a great part of the town burnt by the native populace. Sir Garnet Wolseley, at the head of a British army, defeated Arabi’s troops at Tel-el-Kebir, and since that time the British Government has temporarily assumed the protectorate of Egypt, helping the Khedive to improve the con- dition of the Egyptian people. Farther south, in the Soudan, a Mahommedan fanatic calling himself the Mahdi roused his Mahommedan followers against the tyranny of the Egyptian officials and brought almost the whole country under his cruel and despotic control. An Egyptian army under an Englishman, Hicks, was massacred, and a few posts, of which the principal was Khar- toum, alone held out. An enthusiastic and heroic Englishman, General Gordon, who had at one time put down a widespread rebel- lion in China, and had at another time been governor of the Soudan, where he had been renowned for his justice and kindliness as well 972 LAST YEATS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 1874-1901 as for his vigour, offered to go out, in the hope of saving the people at Khartoum from being overwhelmed by the Mahdi. The Government sent him off, but refused to comply with his requests. In 1884 Gordon’s position was so critical that Wolseley, now Lord Wolseley, was sent to relieve him. It was too late, for in January 1885, before Wolseley could reach Khartoum, the town was betrayed into the hands of the Mahdi, and Gordon himself murdered. The vacillation of the Cabinet, probably resulting from differences of opinion inside it, alienated a large amount of public opinion. In Asia, Russia was pushing on in the direction of Afghanistan, and in 1885 seized a post called Penjdeh. For a time war with Russia seemed imminent, but eventually an arrangement was come to which left Penjdeh in Russian hands. At home, in 1884, by an agreement between Liberals and Con- servatives, a third Reform Act was passed, conferring the franchise in the counties on the same conditions as those on which it had been conferred by the second Reform Act on the boroughs. The county constituencies and those in the large towns were split up into separate constituencies, each of them returning a single member, so that with a few exceptions no constituency now returns more than one. The ministry was by this time thoroughly unpopular, and in 1885 it was defeated and resigned, being followed by a Conservative Government under Lord Salisbury. 3. The First Salisbury Ministry. — The Government formed by Lord Salisbury in June 1885 lasted little more than seven months. It annexed Upper Burma to the British dominions, and passed an Act to facilitate the purchase of Irish land by the tenants. The general election of the autumn gave the Liberals a majority over the Conservatives, but left the eighty-six Irish Nationalists the arbiters of the situation. When the Irish members discovered that the Government intended to bring in a new bill for the suppression of crime in Ireland, and that Mr. Gladstone was favourable to Home Rule, they threw their weight into the scale of the Opposition, and Lord Salisbury’s Government fell. (January 1886. ) 4. The Third Gladstone Ministry. — Mr. Gladstone again formed a ministry, and at once introduced a bill for granting self- government to Ireland. By the “ Home Rule ” Bill Ireland was to have, under certain restrictions, a Parliament of its own, and Irish members were no longer to sit in the Imperial Parliament at Westminster. He put forward also a comprehensive scheme for buying out the Irish landlords and selling their lands to the tenants, 1874-1901 LAST yLATS OP NINETEENTH CENTURY 973 which was to be carried out by the expenditure of fifty millions advanced by the Imperial exchequer. Both plans met with great opposition, even amongst his own followers. Some thought that the sovereignty of the Imperial Parliament was not sufficiently secured and that the unity of the empire would be endangered : others that the money borrowed to buy the land would not be repaid. Several members of the ministry resigned, and ninety- three Liberals voted against the second reading of the Home Rule Bill, so that it was rejected by a majority of thirty. Mr. Gladstone appealed to the country, but in the election which followed the Conservatives and the Liberal-Unionists, as the dissentient Liberals called themselves, obtained a majority of 118 over the Home Rulers. (July 1886.) 5. The Second Salisbury Ministry. — Lord Salisbury’s ministry did not include any Liberal- Unionists, but they firmly supported it throughout its existence. The first difficulty the Government had to deal with was the condition of Ireland. Since the passing of Mr. Gladstone’s Land Act in 1881 the prices of all kinds of farm produce had fallen considerably, so that farmers were often unable to pay the rents which had been fixed as fair. Some landlords made equitable remissions to their tenants ; others ignored the fall in prices and refused to make any. In many places the tenants combined to resist eviction, adopting a scheme called the Plan of Campaign, by which they offered to pay their landlord what they themselves deemed a fair rent, and if he refused to accept it as sufficient applied the money to the relief of the tenants whom he evicted. The • Government brought in a Crimes Act (1887) to put down illegal combinations among the tenants, suppressed the meetings of the National League, and imprisoned many Irish members of Parliament. It adopted also various remedial measures, such as admitting leaseholders, hitherto excluded, to the right of having their rents fixed by the land courts, and enabling tenants under certain conditions to obtain the revision of rents fixed before the fall in prices. Acts were also passed to facilitate the purchase of land by tenants, for the Irish policy of Lord Salisbury aimed rather at the increase of peasant proprietorship than the regulation of the system of dual ownership. In Great Britain Lord Salisbury’s ministry carried two excellent reforms. One completed the Elementary Education Act of 1870 by making education free in all elementary schools. (1891.) The other followed up the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, somewhat tardily it is true, by placing the government of the counties in the m LAST VkAkS OF NlNBTEBNTii CkNTURV 1874-1901 hands of councils elected by the ratepayers. At the same time a similar ‘ county council ’ was established for the government of all that large part of London outside the limits of the city proper. (1888.) 6. Fourth Gladstone Ministry. — In 1892 a general election took place, and the Salisbury ministry, rendered unpopular by its coercive policy in Ireland, was defeated by an alliance between the Liberals and the Irish Nationalists. Mr. Gladstone became Prime Minister for the fourth time, and introduced a second Home Rule Bill. (1893.) Unlike the previous bill, it provided that the Irish members should retain their seats in the Imperial Parliament ; but though it passed the House of Commons the Lords threw it out by 419 to 41 votes. However a bill for completing the fabric of local government in the counties by establishing elective councils to administer parish affairs became law in the same year. In March 1894 Mr. Gladstone resigned office on account of age, and Lord Rosebery succeeded him as Prime Minister. The most important measure of his administration was a change in the system of taxa- tion made by the Finance Act of 1894. By it the duties on property known as the death duties were revised and augmented, so that large properties paid in proportion more than small ones. Lord Rosebery’s ministry fell in June 1895, and Lord Salisbury became for the third time Prime Minister. 7. Third Salisbury Ministry. — The elections of 1895 gave Lord Salisbury a majority of 153 over Liberals and Irish Nationalists combined, and in the ministry which he formed Liberal- Unionists were included. It was not, however, remarkable for its legislation. It passed another Irish Land Act (1896), and did something to develop local industries and agriculture in Ireland, but its most important measure was the establishment of county and district councils in that country like those which had been set up in England and Scotland. (1898.) The Irish were offered local self- government and material prosperity as a substitute for Home Rule. Foreign and colonial affairs absorbed most of the ministry’s attention. Once more the misgovernment of Turkey called for European intervention. A series of brutal massacres took place in Armenia ; the Cretan Christians rose in revolt ; the Greeks came to the aid of the Cretans as the Servians had come to the aid of tihe Bulgarians in 1876. The principle which dictated Lord Salisbury’s Eastern policy was that the condition of the Christian subjects of Turkey concerned Europe as a whole, and should be ameliorated by agreement between the six great powers, not by 1 ^^ 74-1901 YEARS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 97S the isolated action of one or two of them. By that method alone could the peace of Europe be preserved and the necessary reforms secured. The process, however, was slow, and agreement difficult to obtain. Owing to the differences of the great powers nothing was done to redress the wrongs of the Armenians, but Greece was protected from the consequences of its defeat by Turkey, and the Cretans obtained self-government. Though Crete still remained nominally subject to Turkey it became practically independent, with the second son of the King of Greece as its ruler. (1898.) 8. The Reconquest of the Soudan. —In the years which followed the suppression of Arabi’s rebellion the government of Egypt was reorganised under British influence. Reforms were introduced into every branch of the administration, the condition of the people was greatly improved, and the finances were so well managed that there was an annual surplus of revenue over expendi- ture. Sir Evelyn Baring, afterwards Lord Cromer, the British consul-general, was the chief agent in this work. During the same period other Englishmen trained and disciplined the Egyptian army till it became an efficient body of fighting men. British troops had been withdrawn from the Soudan in 1885, after the fall of Khartoum, and it was left entirely to the possession of the Mahdi and his successor the Khalifa. Under English leaders, however, the new Egyptian army proved capable of defending the frontier of Egypt against attack from the south, and became finally efficient enough to undertake the reconquest of the Soudan. In 1896 the province of Dongola was recovered, and in 1897 Berber was reoccupied. The work was completed in 1898 when a mixed British and Egyptian force under General Kitchener defeated one of the Khalifa’s lieutenants on the Atbara, a tributary of the Blue Nile (April 8, 1898), and routed the Khalifa’s whole army with immense slaughter before the walls of his capital, Omdurrnan (September 2, 1898). A year later the Khalifa himself was killed in battle. For a moment the reconquest of the Soudan seemed likely to involve England in a quarrel with France, as a French post had been established at Fashoda in its extreme south. But the French Government eventually recognised that the place was properly a part of the Soudan, and ordered it to be evacuated. 9. Venezuela. — During the same period another difference which threatened to lead to war was peacefully settled. For many years a dispute had existed as to the boundary between British Guiana and the neighbouring republic of Venezuela. An impres- sion prevailed in the United States that Great Britain was unjustly 976 LAST YEARS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 1874-190! seeking to extend her possessions at the expense of a weaker state. President Cleveland, claiming the right to protect South American republicanism against European aggression, called upon England to submit the dispute to arbitration. Lord Salisbury, while denying the right of intervention claimed by the United States, consented, with certain restrictions, to accept the method of settlement proposed. Accordingly a treaty for arbitration was signed at Washington on February 2, 1897, ^ court was established to determine the disputed boundary. It gave judg- ment in October 1899, awarding to British Guiana the greater part of the territory claimed by the British Government. 10. China. — In 1894 a war broke out between China and Japan, in the course of which China was completely defeated. The break-up of the Chinese Empire seemed a possible consequence, and the European powers began to lay hands upon Chinese territory. Russia claimed the control of Manchuria and an- nexed Port Arthur ; Germany seized Kiao-Chau ; and Great Britain took possession of Wei-hai-wei, and extended her territory on the mainland opposite Hong- Kong. The result was a popular movement in China directed against all foreigners and their friends. Large numbers of Chinese Christians and many European missionaries were barbarously murdered. The German am- bassador was killed in the streets of Pekin, and the ambassadors of the other powers with their retinues were besieged in the British Legation in that city. The great powers of Europe, joined by the United States and Japan, intervened to restore order and protect their representatives. An army composed of the soldiers of many nations, of which the English and Indian troops formed part, captured Pekin, and set at liberty the besieged ambassadors. (August 1900.) But the restoration of order in China and the settlement of terms was a work of greater difficulty, and was not effected till the following year. 11. South Africa and the Transvaal War. — In 1899 war broke out in South Africa. The conventions by which Mr. Gladstone’s government had annulled the annexation of the Transvaal Republic and restored to its inhabitants the right of self-government sub- jected it to a vague British suzerainty. The limits of the republic were defined, and the Transvaal was prohibited from entering into any treaties with foreign states without the consent of the British Government. From the first there was much friction, and many disputes arose. The Boers persistently overpassed the boundaries imposed by the conventions, in order to conquer fresh territory from the natives. The British Government had to inter- i874 1901 Years of nineteenth century 977 fere to prevent the annexation of Zululand and Bechuanaland, and north of the Transvaal a British colony called Rhodesia was established in 1889 by a chartered company called the British South Africa Company. A more serious cause of dispute arose from the treatment of British settlers in the Transvaal. Many Englishmen were established in that country before its retro- cession by Mr. Gladstone, and the discovery of large goldfields there in 1886 attracted a large white population, four-fifths of which was of British origin. These immigrants, whom the Boers called ‘ outlanders,’ were badly governed, heavily taxed, and per- sistently denied the political rights which the men of Dutch descent enjoyed in all the British colonies in Africa. Discontent spread among the outlanders, and, as all redress of their grievance was refused, some of them plotted an armed rising in order to force concessions from the Transvaal Government. At the end of 1896 a small body of irregular troops levied for the defence of the territories of the Chartered Company against the natives entered the Transvaal, but were defeated and captured by the Boers. Though ‘Jameson’s raid,’ as this invasion was termed, from the name of its leader, was disavowed by the British Government, it greatly increased the friction which already existed between the republic and its suzerain. The Transvaal Government, which had at first promised concessions to the outlanders, became still more hostile to them, and prepared large armaments. In 1899 the British outlanders petitioned the Queen to intervene on their behalf, and Mr. Chamberlain, the Secretary for the Colonies, demanded that they should be granted political rights. Mr. Kruger, the President of the Republic, refused any substantial concessions, and demanded, on behalf of the Transvaal, the complete abolition of British suzerainty. No agreement was arrived at, and, as the British Government declined to withdraw the troops which it had sent to the Cape, President Kruger published a declaration of war and invaded the British colonies. (October 1899.) The Boers of the Transvaal, who were Joined by those of the Orange Free State and by many colonial rebels, gained at first many successes. Mafeking and Kimberley, in the north-west of Cape Colony, were for many months besieged, and the army of 11,000 men charged with the defence of Natal was shut up in its fortified camp at Ladysmith. Efforts to relieve Kimberley and Ladysmith were defeated with loss at Magers- fontein and Colenso. Early in 1900, however, Lord Roberts relieved Kimberley, forced 4,000 Boers to surrender at Paardeberg, and successively occupied the capitals of the Free State and the 978 Last YEARS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 1874-1901 Transvaal. General Buller about the same time relieved Lady- smith, and drove the Boer forces out of Natal. President Kruger fled to Europe, and the annexation of the two Boer republics was proclaimed. Nevertheless, their subjugation was only partial, and for some time longer roving bands of Boers carried on an active guerilla war. While the Transvaal War, like the Crimean War, revealed many defects in the organisation of the army, it also exhibited a convincing proof of the military value of the colonies. The - self-governing colonies of Great Britain, regarding the war as one for the unity of the Empire, sent contingents of volunteers to take part in it. It became evident that the Empire, which had grown up during the nineteenth century, was not a collection of heterogeneous atoms, but a great association of states bound together by common interests and common aims. Queen Victoria did not live to see the conclusion of the war : she died on January 22, 1901, in her eighty-second year, having reigned a longer time than either Elizabeth or George III. Like Queen Elizabeth, she might have said with truth that she never cherished a thought in her heart that did not tend to her people’s good (p. 478). Her influence in public affairs was constantly em- ployed to moderate party differences, and to facilitate the har- monious working of the constitution. Though with the advance of democracy, the direct power of the monarchy steadily diminished, its popularity, thanks to her, had continually increased. She left her successor not only wider dominions than she had inherited, but a throne established upon a firmer because a broader basis. Books recommended for the further study of Part XI. Walpole, Spencer. A History of England from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815. Vol. ii. p. 159-vol. V. Life of Lord John Russell. Le Marchant. Memoir of Viscount Althorp, third Earl Spencer. Greville, Charles C. F. Memoirs. McLennan, J. K. Memoirs of Thomas Drummond. Thursfield. Peel. Morley, J. Life of Richard Cobden. Bulwer, Sir H. L., and Ashley, Hon. E. Life of Viscount Palmerston. Reid, T. Wemyss. Life of W. E. Forster. Hamley, Gen. Sir E. The Crimean War. Kaye, Sir John, and Malleson, Col. G. B. History of the Indian Mutiny. O’Brien. Life of Parnell. Milner. England in Egypt. Brodrick, Hon. G. C. The Political History of England. Vol. x'. (1801-1837). Low, Sidney. The Political History of England. Vol. xii. (1837- 1901)- m CHAPTER LXII THE NINE YEARS OF KING EDWARD VII.’S REIGN, 1901 191O LEADING DATES Accession of King Edward VII Jan. 1901 Boer War (from Oct. 1899) ended by Peace of Vereeniging May 1902 Lord Salisbury’s Ministry 1895-1902 Balfour’s Ministry July i902-Dtc. 1905 Alliance with Japan (renewed 1905) 1902 Education Act 1902 Irish Land Act 1903 Anglo-French Agreement 1904 Russo Japanese War 1904-5 Dogger Bank Incident Oct. 1904 Campbell-Bannerman Premier .... Dec. 1905-8 Anglo- Russian Agreement 1907 Revolution in Turkey Oct. 1908 Austria annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina . . . Oct. 1908 Asquith Premier 1908 Old-Age Pensions 1908 South African Union 1909 Dissolution on Question of Budget .... Jan. 1910 Accession of King George V May 1910 Arbitration on Atlantic Fisheries Dispute . 1909-1910 I. Accession of King Edward VII. — Though the majority sup- porting Lord Salisbury’s Ministry was still unimpaired, Parliament had been dissolved in the autumn of 1900. The Government, appealing to the country to strengthen their position in settling affairs in South Africa, had secured a majority of 134 over Liberals and Irish Nationalists combined. On the death of Queen Victoria on January 22, 1901, the Prince of Wales succeeded and took the title of Edward VII. For many years Parliament had been opened by Commission, but the new King opened Parliament in state. The Coronation, which had been fixed for the end of June 1902, had to be postponed owing to the sudden illness of the King ; however, he happily recovered and was crowned in August. The Prime Ministers of the self-governing colonies had come to England for the Coronation, and an Imperial Conference was held, at which they offered increased contributions for naval defence. The Ministry was modified. Lord Lansdowne relieving the Premier of the duties of the Foreign Office. A new Act rendered I90I-I91C gSo KING EDWARD VII IS REIGN reappointment unnecessary in the case of Ministers and other officials on the demise of the Crown. Parliament had duly met without summons on the Queen’s death, in accordance with Statute, Photo t IV. D. Downey] [<57 Ebury Street^ London. King Edward VII. 2. Boer War.— At the end of 1900 it was thought that the Transvaal War was practically over (p. 978), but the vast extent ol 1901 -1910 KING EDWARD VINS REIGN 981 the veldt with the wild and mountainous nature of the country lent itself to guerilla warfare, in which remarkable skill was shown by the Boers, who had been hunters of game and unerring shots with the rifle all their lives ; they were mounted, and knew where to retreat when pressed and how to make surprise attacks. General L. Botha operated in the East of the Transvaal and threatened raids on Natal. De la Rey was active in the north-west of the Transvaal, while De Wet in the south-west of the Orange Free State crossed the Orange River and made raids far into Cape Colony, trying to stir up an insurrection there and even having hopes of reaching Cape Town. But martial law being proclaimed in Cape Colony there were not many who were willing to rise ; the loyal colonists gave active service as volunteers, and eventually De Wet had the utmost difficulty in escaping almost single-handed back over the Orange River with the loss of nearly all his horses. Lord Kitchener, who had succeeded Lord Roberts in command, kept his troops along the lines of railway and established chains of blockhouses to hold the Boers in check. There was still need of great numbers of troops ; the Regular Army did not nearly suffice ; colonial contingents from Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand and Canada gave invaluable help, while there were many volunteers from England. The lack of trained troops was felt, and there were surprises and regrettable reverses ; but the Boers were gradually worn down, losing all their guns and almost all their transport, till finally on May 31, 1902, they made peace at Vereeniging, laying down their arms and recognising the King, On the other side it was agreed that military government should give way to civil, and that as soon as circumstances admitted representative institutions, leading up to self-government, should be introduced. A free grant of 3,000,000/. was to be given to enable the Boers to stock their farms and re-settle on the land. 3. Chief Measures of Balfour’s Ministry. — In July 1902 Lord Salisbury resigned on account of age and was succeeded as Premier by his nephew Mr. A. J. Balfour, already the leader in the House of Commons. The Education Act of 1902 was one of the principal measures passed by his Ministry. The Act was important as an attempt to organise our educational system. Power was given for the first time to aid higher education by a limited rate. Education was brought under the ordinary local authorities and the School Boards established under Forster’s Act in 1870 {see p. 963) were abolished. While all elementary education in the rural districts was to be administered by the county councils, in towns it w'as 982 KING EDWARD VIKS REIGN 1901-1910 generally put under the borough councils, except in London, where in 1903 it was brought under the County Council. Voluntary or denominational schools, chiefly Church of England and Roman Catholic schools, were to be let to the local authority without rent and their buildings were to be repaired and improved at the cost of their trustees ; but, on the other hand, these ‘ non-provided ’ schools were to receive assistance from the rates in the same way as ‘provided’ schools, formerly called board schools ; while the trustees of these ‘ non-provided ’ schools were allowed to appoint a Lord Salisbury. majority of the managers. These last two provisions were bitterly resented by the Nonconformists, and the subsequent Liberal Government made attempts to overthrow the arrangement, but were foiled by the House of Lords. After a conference between the representatives of the landlords and tenants in Ireland, the Govern- ment passed an Irish Land Purchase Act in 1903, Advances were made to tenants by the State to enable them to purchase the estates of landlords who were willing to sell ; landlords were induced to I90I-I9IO KING EDWARD VIII S REIGN 983 sell by the offer of a bonus of 12 per cent, ; prices were based on rents fixed by the Land Commission, and nearly seventy years were allowed for repayment to the State. Mr. Wyndham, in introducing the Bill, pointed out that under the existing Land Purchase Acts in- stalments had always been paid. The great success of the Act caused a difficulty, as the State could not find money quickly enough to meet all claims. The Government also passed the Licensing Act, 1904, which prescribed that when a license for selling liquor was taken away by the magistrates from an inn or public-house not on the ground of misconduct but because such a house was not required, or on some other public ground, compensation should be paid, but by the trade itself, a special tax for this purpose being imposed on licenses which were renewed. The payment of com- pensation in any form for the loss of an annual license was violently opposed by the Liberals and the Act was' only passed by a drastic use of the closure. By the Unemployed Workmen Act, 1905, Distress Committees were to be established in London and other large towns to give employment or relief to the unemployed, and the expenses, not met by voluntary contributions, were to be borne by the rates. In the case of smaller local bodies the adoption of the Act was to be optional. The majority of the Poor Law Commission in 1909 reported that the Act by systematising relief work without altering its demoralising character had intensified its evils. An Aliens Act, giving power to exclude undesirable immi- grants, was passed in 1905. 4. General Review of Foreign Policy. First Period. — The Foreign Policy of the reign began with three traditions : (i) appre- hension of the aggression of Russia ; (2) attachment to Germany ; (3) estrangement from France. The fear of Russian designs was the leading motive of the first period. The attempt to secure the co-operation of Germany in checking Russia’s action against China by the Anglo-German Agreement of 1900 having failed, England was ready to listen to the overtures made by Japan. The estab- lishment by Russia of a protectorate over Manchuria and her threatening attitude towards China and Korea aroused uneasiness in England as regards the menace to her important Chinese trade, while in Japan it excited the greatest hostility, as threatening her own independence. The result was that an Anglo- Japanese Alliance was made in January 1902 for five years. The object was stated to be to protect China and Korea from aggression. If in defence of these interests one of the allies was involved in war with one Power the other ally was to remain neutral, but if two Powers attacked, then the two allies were to make war together. 984 KING EDWARD VI IIS REIGN 1901 -1910 The alliance was popular in England and in Japan, but some thinkers considered it involved too serious risks for England, whose interests did not seem to be vitally imperilled. It may be added that in August 1905 the alliance was renewed in a more intimate form, its operation being extended to attacks on India and both allies being bound to repel aggressive action, whether by one Power or more, against either country’s territorial rights in the East. 5. Russo-Japanese War. 1904-5. — Japan, unable to obtain satisfaction, and being already prepared for war, on February 6, 1904, withdrew her ambassador from St. Petersburg. At mid- night on the 8th the Japanese fleet made a surprise attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. Another fleet crushed the two Russian ships at Chemulpo, the port of Seoul, the capital of Korea, and landed troops there. Without the command of the sea Japan could not make war, as she could not land troops, but by these two steps a base was secured before the Russians had notice that hostilities had begun. On the loth Japan made a formal declaration of war. The First Japanese Army forced a passage over the river Yalu into Manchuria and the Second Army cut off Port Arthur from the north. A Third Army laid siege to Port Arthur, while the Second Army defeated a Russian relieving force. This was only achieved by desperate fighting. Kuro- patkin, the Russian general, was next forced back by ten days’ continuous fighting from Liaoyang to Mukden. Meanwhile England was profoundly agitated. Admiral Rosh- destvensky with a Russian fleet was proceeding southwards through the North Sea when some of his cruisers opened fire on a fleet of English fishing vessels from Hull, which were peacefully trawling on the Dogger Bank, but which the Russians mistook for Japanese torpedo boats. As the Russian naval officers refused to admit their mistake matters seemed serious ; but eventually the issue was referred to an International Commission, and Russia paid the indemnity claimed. The progress of Roshdestvensky’s Fleet made it vital for the Japanese to hasten the fall of Port Arthur, which finally surrendered on January i, 1905. This freed the besieging force, and before the determined assaults of five armies the Russians had to retreat from Mukden. Finally Roshdestvensky’s fleet was crushed by Togo in the Straits of Tsushima. Peace was made on the kindly intervention of President Roosevelt, Japan securing a practical protectorate over Korea and Port Arthur, while the rest of Manchuria was to be evacuated by both parties. 1 901-19 1 o KING EDWARD VII :S REIGN 985 6. Foreign Policy, 2nd Period. — The next change in our foreign policy was in the cessation of our estrangement from France. On the one hand the menacing increase of the German fleet and other causes led our statesmen to a reconsideration of our inter- national relations. At the same time King Edward, exerting himself throughout his reign in the interests of peace and goodwill and in the settlement of international disputes by arbitration, devoted himself to the conciliation of France. He visited Paris, and being very popular with the French President and people created an atmosphere in which friendly diplomacy could work. A good understanding that was called Entente Cordiale was esta- blished and a Treaty of Arbitration between the two countries was made in October 1903. Finally an Anglo-French Agreement was signed on April 8, 1904, which removed all existing causes of difference. Questions about the Newfoundland fishery and the frontiers of West African colonies were amicably settled. France recognised Britain’s predominant position in Egypt, and England agreed to give France a free hand in Morocco, where she had trouble with the tribes on the Algerian frontier, so long as nothing was done to interfere with the free passage of the Straits of Gibraltar. The Agreement was a purely peaceful one and implied no hostility to any other Power, but the drawing together of France and England was the cause of profound dissatisfaction in Germany. The French Foreign Minister, M. Delcassd, the promoter of the Anglo-French Agreement, who was believed to be the advocate of a further Anglo-French Alliance, had eventually to resign in 1905. This was considered a signal triumph of German diplomacy, which was now very active in interfering in the question of Morocco on the plea of protecting German interests. In 1906 a Conference was held at Algeciras, near Gibraltar. Germany was at first very hostile to France, but eventually the Conference decided that France was to be allowed to act on the Algerian frontier, and, further, that there was to be a Moorish police force with French and Spanish officers. In consequence France and Spain both entered on warlike operations with Morocco. Subsequently there was again serious friction between Germany and France about some German deserters from the French troops there, but the matter was referred to arbitration. France now the friend of England was also the ally of Russia, and the next step was to remove the friction which had long existed between England and Russia. Some of the outstanding questions at issue were settled by an Anglo- Russian Convention III. 3S 986 KING EDWARD VI NS REIGN 1901 -1910 which was signed on August 31, 1907. The independence of Persia was to be respected by both countries : Russia was to have as her sphere of influence for commercial concessions etc. the north of Persia, including the capital, Teheran ; England was to have a smaller sphere in the south-east near Baluchistan. Afghanistan was to be kept from Russian influence, but England was not to alter the status quo in that country. This part of the Convention was to be subject to the consent of the Ameer. While the idea of a friendly agreement with Russia was welcomed, the actual terms of the Convention were criticised as being unfavour- able to British interests. 7. Foreign Countries. — In 1901 a conflict between Chili and Argentina was averted by the arbitration of King Edward VII. In the same year in the United States President McKinley was shot by a Polish Anarchist ; this was the third time that a Presi- dent of the United States had been assassinated. The Vice- President, Theodore Roosevelt, a man of great strength of character, succeeded, in accordance with the Constitution ; he be- came most popular and was re-elected as President from 1904 to 1909. The United States, having bought up the French interest, determined to construct the Panama Canal. In 1903 the Congress of the Republic of Colombia, as sovereign of the Isthmus, having refused to ratify the treaty allowing the construction of the Canal, the Province of Panama declared itself an independent republic and accepted the terms proposed. Great progress has been made in the sanitation of the isthmus and in the construction of the canal. In Servia there had been two rival royal families, the Obreno- vitch and the Karageorgevitch. In 1903 Europe was horrified to hear that through an anti-dynastic plot King Alexander (the last Obrenovitch), with his Queen, Draga, had been murdered by officers in the army. Peter Karageorgevitch succeeded, but was not recognised by Great Britain for some time. After the unsuccessful war, there were widespread revolutionary movements in Russia. In 1905 a Constitution was granted and a Duma or Parliament was established, but the first and second democratic Dumas were soon dissolved. A third Duma was elected in 1907 by indirect election, and also a Council of the Empire or a Second Chamber, half being elected and half nomi- nated by the Czar. Both Houses were given equal powers and a measure had to be passed by both before being submitted for Imperial sanction. The Union between Sweden and Norway existing since 1814 1901-1910 KING ED Ward VII IS REIGN 9«7 was repealed by a peaceful revolution ir 1905, and Prince Carl of Denmark, a nephew of our Queen Alexandra, was elected King of Norway as Haakon VII. In 1906 Alfonso, King of Spain, married Princess Ena of Battenberg, the niece of King Edward VII. ; this was notable as the first intermarriage between the royal families of England and Spain since Queen Mary was wedded to Philip. After the ceremony a bomb was thrown at the royal carriage by an anarchist, causing great loss of life, though the King and Queen were fortunately uninjured. In Portugal party Government had been unsuccessful, and Senhor Franco, becoming Premier, tried to govern for a time without a parliament ; this caused great resent- ment, especially among the politicians, which culminated in 1908 in the assassination of both the King and the Crown Prince. The next heir, only seventeen years of age, was also wounded, but succeeded to the crown as King Manoel. There was no real in- vestigation into the murders, and it -seemed as if the dynasty was not popular and as if there was a strong republican party in the capital.^ 8. Tariff Reform. — In 1903 Mr. Chamberlain, the able Colonial Secretary in Mr. Balfour’s Ministry, advocated a modified form of Protection, which was called Tariff Reform, (i) A preference in trade was to be given to our Colonies, and (2) taxes were to be levied on imports, except raw materials, and there was to be retaliation against hostile tariffs. There was to be in fact a reversal of the Free Trade system of the last sixty years, the experience of which had led Free Traders to believe that all trade flourishes best when it is not interfered with by duties, while a preference to Colonial produce, involving a duty on imports of wheat etc. from other countries, would raise the price of food. The Tariff Reformers, on the other hand, argue that their policy would bind the Colonies closer to the Mother Country, diminish unemployment by stimulating home industries, be a useful weapon in fighting hostile tariffs, while not appreciably increasing the cost of food. On September 18 Mr. Chamberlain resigned in order to advocate his policy more freely. The Free Trade Ministers in the Cabinet, in ignorance of Mr. Chamberlain’s resignation, also resigned. The Ministry was remodelled and lasted two years more, but the gradual weakening of the Government and the internal dissensions of the party on the Tariff Question led to the resignation of Mr. Balfour on December 4, 1905. 1 On October 4, 1910, the anti-monarchical party in Lisbon accomplished a revolution with little difficulty. King Manoel fled the country, and a Republican Government was established. 9^8 Kim EDWARD VW^ REIGN 1901-1916 9. Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith Ministries.— In Decem- ber, 1905, Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman became Premier on Mr. Balfour’s resignation and dissolved Parliament. The Unionists returned with only 157 instead of 369; the Liberals with 379, besides more than 50 Labour members and 83 Nationalists. In April 1908 Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman resigned from ill- health, and was succeeded by Mr. Asquith, whose place as Chan- cellor of the Exchequer was taken by Mr. Lloyd George. 10. Army and Navy Reform. — The Boer War revealed the utter inadequacy of the British army as regards numbers and the insufficiency of its training and organisation. A new danger appeared on the horizon. United Germany for the last thirty years had been rapidly increasing in population, in the volume of her industries, and in wealth, and had become a formidable rival to England in trade. Not content with the possession of the most powerful army in Europe she has especially in King Edward’s reign been building a powerful navy and making extensive naval works on her northern coasts. Such measures could not but arouse suspicion and raise the question whether our army and navy were sufficient at once for the defence of our own shores and our world-wide Empire. The plan of universal military training has been advocated by Earl Roberts and other reformers. The government has so far aimed at improving our existing resources* Under Mr. Balfour’s Ministry in 1903 the Council of Defence was enlarged from a mere Committee of the Cabinet to one including naval and military experts as permanent members. In 1905 Mr. Balfour stated that England ought to be prepared to meet an invading force of 70,000 men. Considerable advance has been made by Mr. Haldane’s scheme of 1907. By this there is established (i) a field army or expeditionary force of about 160,000 men, serving seven years and then five in the reserve, while nucleus battalions to train drafts and a special reserve to fill up wastage in war are to replace the Militia, which is abolished ; (2) there is enrolled a home army, as a second line (replacing the Volunteers), formed as a Territorial Force of about 300,000 men and supplied with artillery, the former Yeomanry being remodelled as the cavalry of this force ; this home army is organised on a county basis and has to serve for four years, drilled on Volunteer lines, but having to spend eight or fifteen days in camp each year. There is a General Staff for the whole. Increases were made in Army Service and Medical Corps, while to supply the deficiency of officers a Senior Officers’ Training Corps was formed at the Uni- versities and a Junior one at the public schools. The new force is I90I-I9IO KING EDWARD VI VS REIGN 989 much more completely organised than the old Volunteers, while it is animated by the same patriotic spirit, but some doubt the possi- bility of its securing numbers and time for training. On the necessity of keeping up a powerful navy there was practically general agreement. In 1904-5 changes were made in naval train- ing ; it was recognised that naval officers must be thoroughly versed in mechanics, and steps were taken towards a fusion of the engineering and executive branches by adopting a common system for the training of cadets. Arrangements were also made by which the fleets in home waters were strengthened. Further, the largest battleship ever built, the first ‘Dreadnought,’ was laid down. The subsequent building in Germany of several ships of this type has led to a large increase in our naval expenditure, in order that we may maintain what is called the Two-Power Standard, according to which England, having to defend an Empire scattered over the globe, should be able to compete by herself on equal terms with any two other Powers. The danger to the Empire has been recognised by the Colonies, and the Imperial Conference of 1909 formulated a scheme for joint action on the basis of local autonomy, with unity of strategic control in time of war. An Imperial General Staff was established. New Zealand determined to adopt a system of universal military training, and further offered England to defray the cost of a ‘Dreadnought’ — an offer which was gratefully accepted. Australia offered 500,000/. a year towards a fleet in Eastern waters, and also decided in favour of compulsory military training of all able-bodied Australians. II. Colonies. — The reign has been noteworthy for the drawing together of the Colonies and the Mother Country. Mr. Chamber- lain distinguished himself by his exertions with this object. The Heir to the Throne (having not yet been created Prince of Wales] presided, as Duke of Cornwall, on May 9, 1901, over the inauguration of the first representative assembly of the Australian Common- wealth, formed by the federation of the five Australian Colonies and Tasmania. He also visited Tasmania, New Zealand, Canada, Natal and Cape Colony, representing the person of the Sovereign and meeting with a most loyal reception. The Transvaal and the Orange River Colony were administered after the peace by a Governor and a Lieutenant-Governor, assisted by an Executive and a Legislative Council. At the close of 1906 the Liberal Government, dispensing with the proposed intermediate stage of representative institutions, granted responsible self-government, with a Legislative Council at first nominated by the Governor and a Legislative Assembly freely elected. In 1908 a further step vvas taken. The colonies of South Africa decided in favour of 990 KING EDWARD VII IS REIGN 1901-1910 union as distinct from mere federation ; Pretoria was to be the seat of Government but Parliament was to meet at Cape Town ; British and Dutch were to have equal rights, representation being based on adult suffrage of whites. The first Parliament of United South Africa was opened on November 4, 1910, by the Duke of Connaught, representing his nephew, King George. While party government seems to some to divide the nation, the Monarchy stands as the cherished symbol of unity throughout the Empire. The Atlantic Fisheries Dispute. — It was agreed early in 1909 that the long-standing dispute about the rights of the United States in our Newfoundland Fisheries should be referred to The Hague. The matter was decided in September 1910. On two most im- portant points, (i) the sovereign rights over the Newfoundland waters, and (2) the definition of the three-mile limit in wide bays, the British contentions have been confirmed ; on other points the views of the United States have prevailed. It is a tribute to the principle of arbitration and to the arbitrators concerned that a dispute of nearly a hundred years’ standing has been thus promptly and equitably determined. 1 2. India. — In consequence of the systematic violation of treaties the Indian Government sent an expedition into Tibet in 1903 under General Younghusband, who forced his way over high mountain passes to the capital, Lhasa, considered inaccessible, and there dictated terms of peace and exacted an indemnity. In India itself there was continued unrest among the Hindus, fomented by the Brahmins, the natural leaders of the caste system in India. Among other causes the defeat of Russia by Japan spread the idea that the Eastern peoples were not inferior to those of the West. The sedition spread from the Deccan to Bengal. In 1908 a revo- lutionary plot for the manufacture and use of bombs was dis- covered. There were assassinations in London as well as in India, where bombs were thrown at the Viceroy. A severe Explosives Act had to be passed, seditious newspapers suppressed, and some revolutionaries deported. At the same time an advance was made in the direction of self-government by increasing the number and powers of Legislative Councils, extending the principle of repre- sentation, and nominating natives to Provincial Executive Councils and even to the Executive Council of the Viceroy. The unrest was confined to the Hindus, the Mohammedans remaining loyal and only anxious that their rights should not be interfered with by the Hindus. The natives princes were also loyal. 13. Revolution in Turkey. — There had been misgovernment in I90I-I9IO KING EDWARD VIII S REIGN 991 Turkey, causing unavailing protests from the Powers. A move- ment for reform arose among the ‘ Young Turks,’ who desired to introduce juster administration and some form of constitutional government in place of the corrupt autocracy which was ruining the country. In 1908 a so-called ‘ Committee of Union and Pro- gress,’ a reforming party composed chiefly of officers, planned a revolution ; two army corps at Adrianople and Salonika were won over ; the Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid surrendered and granted a Con- stitution, or rather restored the short-lived Constitution which he had conceded at the instance of Midhat Pasha in 1878. About the same time Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria proclaimed himself King, declaring Bulgaria to be an independent Kingdom and no longer an autonomous Principality under the suzerainty of Turkey. Austria-Hungary also finally annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had before been under the suzerainty of Turkey. England and Russia protested against any infraction of the Treaty of Berlin 1878 (p. 969), but after some controversy acquiesced. Germany, supporting Austria, was believed to have given a veiled ultimatum to Russia. Some compensation was given to Turkey for the loss of her nominal suzerainty. Crete also took the opportunity to declare its union with Greece, but the Powers were able to prevent a war by forcibly maintaining the status quo. In 1909 Abd-ul-Hamid attempted a counter-revolution with the help of the troops in the capital, but the Army Corps from Mace- donia marched on Constantinople, the Sultan was deposed, and his brother proclaimed as Mohammed V. In Greece in 1909 a league of officers used troops to overawe the Chamber which had to pass the measures demanded : a National Revisionary Assembly was afterwards convoked. 14. Social Reform : Labour Party and Socialists. — 7 'he spread of democratic and socialistic ideas has greatly influenced legisla- tion. It has been well said that though political equality has been successfully attained by democratic measures, yet improvement in economic conditions has come but slowly, and this has produced an atmosphere of disappointment and discontent in the working- classes. At the same time a fuller recognition has been given to the evils attending our existing industrial system and social con- ditions, as shown in disputes between capital and labour, ‘ sweating ’ or underpayment of workers, uncertainty of employment, as well as destitution. While the older Political Economy was chiefly concerned with the production of wealth, the economical questions 992 KING EDWARD VIKS REIGN 1901-1910 of the present day deal rather with its unequal distribution. Further, the socialistic idea that the State can remedy all evils largely prevails. The advent of a large Labour party in Parliament could not fail to bring such questions into greater prominence. Labour Party and Socialists. — In previous Parliaments a few Labour members, working men or others who undertook to represent the interests of Labour, had obtained seats, but the Parliament of 1906 was remarkable as the first in which Labour members sat as a distinct and considerable party numbering over 50, and though all generally voted with the Liberals about 30 of them were pledged not to identify themselves with either the Liberal or Conservative party, but to support a Socialist pro- gramme. These last members were paid by a Parliamentary fund levied on members of the trade unions affiliated to the Socialist party, but Conservative and non-Socialist members of these unions objecting, compulsory levies to pay these members were declared illegal by the Courts in a judgment called the ‘ Osborne Judgment,’ from the name of the plaintiff, a railway workman. The Labour party and the trade unions did not adopt Socialism till the Con- ference at Hull in January 1908, which by a majority of about 5 per cent, declared for the ‘ socialisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.’ The leading body of English Socialists is known as the Independent Labour party, distinct from the Labour party but working with it. The more revolutionary Socialist party is the Social Democratic Federation. An important measure called the Trades Disputes Act was passed at the close of 1906. The Labour party succeeded in altering the Government proposals so as (i) to prevent anyone from recovering penalties from the officials of a trade union for any damage caused by their action, (2) to abolish the law of conspiracy as regards trade unions, and (3) to make ‘ peaceful picketing ’ legal. Some hold that trade unions are put by this Act in a special privileged position outside the ordinary law. An Old-Age Pensions Act was passed on August i, 1908, by which poor persons over seventy years of age, with some exceptions, are entitled to a pension of five shillings a week, the pension decreasing in inverse ratio to the amount of yearly means and ceasing altogether if these exceed a yearly income of 31/. loj-. No previous contributions are required from the receiver. The cost of the scheme has necessarily largely increased the national expenditure. Poor-Law Commission. — One of the last acts of Mr. Bal- four's Ministry in 1905 was the appointment of a Royal Commission I90I-I9IO KING EDWARD VIKS REIGN 993 to inquire into the Poor Law. This Commission reported in 1909 that Boards of Guardians elected ad hoc were not satisfactory ; that a better Poor Law Authority could be found in a Public Assistance Committee of the County Councils, with District Committees co-operating with voluntary aid ; that instead of the general workhouse there should be institutions classified to meet the needs of different cases ; further, there should be com- pulsory detention for habitual vagrants, and also detention colonies for the worst cases. To meet the difficulties of unemployment there should be Labour Exchanges and Insurance against Unem- ployment. The Minority Report of four members went much further, advocating the entire ‘ break-up of the Poor Law,’ and proposing that unemployment should be dealt with by a Govern- ment Labour Market organised under a Minister of Labour spend- ing at least 4,000,000/. a year in such a way as to ‘regularise’ employment. The Government have already established Labour Exchanges. 15. Electoral Reform. — The chief Electoral Questions that have been agitated are : (i) ‘one man, one vote,’ expressed in a Plural Voting Bill, abolishing the ancient franchise of ownership in counties, so that no elector could vote in more than one con- stituency ; this was passed in the Commons but rejected in the Lords ; (2) ‘ one vote, one value ’ — with regard to this, a Redistri- bution measure was proposed by Mr. Balfour shortly before his resignation, directed against the disproportion of constituencies by which, Romford has one member for 51,043 and Kilkenny City one for 1,700 electors ; (3) Proportional Representation, the repre- sentation of minorities in proportion to their numbers, could, it is urged, be secured by making larger constituencies with several members ; then if each voter was restricted to one vote, and this vote was made transferable, the voter could express his second, third, or other preference in case the candidate he most favours did not require his vote. Its advocates point out that in more than one General Election a majority of members has been returned by a minority of electors ; (4) Woman’s Suffrage, giving votes to women on the same terms as to men ; this question has been hotly contested, the one side urging that women are entitled to vote as taxpayers, the other pleading that adult suffrage would follow and then the women electors would out-number the men : then (5) there is the proposal of adopting the Referendum as practised in Switzerland, that is, a reference of a particular question to the electors without the disturbance and complicated issues of a General Election, Some advocate this as a check on the House 994 KING EDWARD VIIIS REIGN 1901-1910 of Lords, to prevent its rejecting Liberal measures while passing Conservative Bills ; others to secure that the Commons do not act in contravention of the wishes of their electors ; (6) lastly, there is the constitutional question as to the House of Lords ; this has come especially to the front, because the Peers, while passing Bills brought in by Conservative governments, have frequently rejected important measures proposed by Liberal ministries. Leading peers have themselves proposed a reform on the principle that the possession of a peerage should not of itself make the holder a ‘ lord of Parliament,’ but that further qualification, such as having held office of State, should be required. Liberals also have pro- posed reform, but many Liberals prefer that the Second Chamber should rather be weakened by limiting its power of veto than strengthened by reform. 16. Finance Bill 1909 and Dissolution. — Mr. Lloyd George the Chancellor of the Exchequer, brought in a Finance Bill which led to 9, quarrel between the two Houses and to the dis- solution of Parliament. Its salient features were heavy death duties, graduated income tax, a new system of land taxation striking at unearned increment and undeveloped land (necessi- tating an elaborate system of land valuation), and finally a great increase in the duties on spirits and on the licenses of public-houses. The House of Lords rejected the Bill by 350 to 75, claiming a right to refer the question to the electors. The Ministry, on the other hand, denied the right which the Lords claimed of rejecting a Money Bill, and carried a resolution in the House of Commons that the Lords’ action ‘ was a breach of the Constitution and a usurpation of the rights of the Commons.’ Mr. Asquith dissolved Parliament and appealed to the country, declar- ing his intention, if returned to office, of bringing in a Bill, on which he would stake the existence of his Government, to abolish the absolute veto of the Lords, by strictly limiting the number of times during which they should be able to reject a Bill when sent up to them more than once from the Commons. The issue was complicated by the question of Tariff Reform as well as by that of the action of the Lords. The result of the General Election (January- February 1910) was the return of 273 Unionists, 275 Liberals, with 40 Labour Members and 82 Nationalists. As the Irish party held the balance of power and the license duties were not popular in Ireland the passing of the Finance Bill was still somewhat delayed, but eventually it went through the Commons practically unchanged and was passed by the Lords without opposi- tion. The abolition of the Lords’ absolute veto, requiring as it did 90I-I910 KING EDWARD VIKS REIGN 995 the action of the Crown to override the opposition of the Lords, was not at once brought before the House owing to the sudden death of the King. It was felt it was hardly fair to the new King Photo: Russell Sons^ King George V. to force on him the decision of such a momentous constitutional question at the commencement of his reign, and a Conference was arranged between four leaders of each of the two parties, in th^ hope that agreement might be reached. 996 KING EDWAUD VIIIS REIGN 1901-1916 17. Death of King Edward VII. — On May 6, 1910, King Edward VII died amid universal regret. His genial manner and conciliatory spirit had enabled him, ‘ while acting strictly within the limits of the Constitution, to create an atmosphere of inter- national goodwill and good feeling which contributed immensely to the consolidation of peace and concord throughout the world.’ The Prince of Wales, already highly esteemed as a naval officer, succeeded as King George V. 18. Motors and Aeroplanes. — The reign has been remarkable in engineering for the development of the motor industry ; motor cars displacing carriages, taxi-cabs with automatic fare recorders taking the place of cabs, the motor-omnibus that of the horse- drawn vehicle, and the motor van or lorry conveying goods into the country, while motor engines are being applied to agricultural and marine purposes. But the most remarkable progress has been made in the ‘ con- quest of the air.’ The first step was made by adding motor engines, propellers and rudders to airships inflated like balloons so as to be lighter than air. In 1900 Count Zeppelin built a large dirigible airship and navigated it over the Lake of Constance. In 1901 Santos Dumont won a prize at Paris for driving his dirigible balloon in a circular course. Then ‘ planes ’ or flat surfaces were attached like fins (or feathers on arrows) to steady the airship. Next other planes were added to direct it up and down at will. The second or greatest advance was made when the lift of curved surfaces was utilised and the balloon principle was aban- doned for that of real flying machines heavier than air. In 1905 the brothers Wright flew successfully on a biplane in America ; in 1906 Santos Dumont flew a short distance in Paris. Great pro- gress was made in 1908. In 1909 Bleriot flew across the Channel in a monoplane. Germany, France and other countries constructed aerial fleets, devoting attention to aeroplanes for scouting purposes and experimenting with dirigible airships not only for scouting, but for carrying guns and explosives as well. The advances made have been extraordinarily rapid and point to further remarkable progress in the future. 19. Science. — There has been a great development of tele- graphic signalling, called wireless telegraphy, following on the discovery of electro-magnetic radiation or electric wave motion. A transmitter conveys rapid electric wave-impulses into space, and these are caught by a receiver or detector. In December 1901 Marconi succeeded in sending a message from Corn\vall to NeW’ 1901-1910 EDWARD VEIL'S REIGN 999 foundland, and ships have been fitted with apparatus and can com- municate with other ships or with the shore when out at sea. The system is being applied to military as well as to naval purposes. Men of science have further been studying the marvellous energy given out by radium and other radio-active substances, and also the part which electricity plays in the ultimate constitution of matter. Agricultural science has been working chiefly in two directions, one to find out the secrets of soil fertility, the other to improve the breeding of seeds, such as wheat and barley. There have been serious earthquakes, by which San Francisco was destroyed in 1906, Kingston in Jamaica in 1907, and Messina with Reggio at the close of 1908, The latter was a most appalling disaster. In Arctic discovery we have to record the reaching of the North Pole by Peary in 1909 and the great advances made towards the Antarctic Pole, first by Scott, and then by Shackleton. Books recommended for the study of Chapter LXIT Annual Register, 1901-1909. Hazeil’s Annual, 1902-1910. INDEX INDEX AAR Aaron, martyrdom of, 23 Abbey lands, the, distributed by Henry VIII., 400: Mary wishes for the re- storation of, 422 Abdul Medjid succeeds his father as sultan, 922 Abercrombie, General, repulsed at I'iconderoga, 753 Abercromby, Sir Ralph, resigns his command in Ireland, 841 ; killed in Egypt, 844 Aberdeen, Earl of, foreign policy of, 927 ; becomes Prime Minister, 943 Aberdeen, Montrose’s victory at, 547 Abhorrers, party name of, 620 Aclea, battle of, 57 • Acre, captured by the Crusaders, 161 ; Edward I. at, 204 ; failure of Bona- parte to take, 838 ; taken by Napier, 922 Act of Settlement, the, 622 Addington becomes Prime Minister, 843 ; resignation of, 848 ; enters Pitt’s ministry and becomes Viscount Sid- mouth, 851 ; see Sidmouth, Viscount Addison, literary and political position of, 693 Addied Parliament, the, 486 Adnionition to t^arliaiiient. An, 446 Adrian IV. grants Ireland to Henry II., 152 Adulterine castles, 137 Adwalton Moor, battle of, 538 Aedan, king of the Scots, is defeated at Degsastan, 42 iElfgar, earl of the Mercians, 90 iElfgifu, wife of Eadwig, 65, 66 iElfheah, Archbishop, murdered by the Danes, 82 iElfred, his struggle with the Danes, 58 ; his position after the Treaty of Wed- more, 59 gains London, ib. ; character of his work, 60 iElfred the iEtheling, murder of, 85, 86 .(Elfthryth, wife of Eadgar, 78 iElla, king of Deira, slave-boys from his kingdom found at Rome, 38 vEscesdun, battle of, 58 -Ethelbald, king of the Mercians, 53 ALA , iEthelbald, king of the West Saxons, 57 iEthelberhtjking of Kent, his supremacy, 38 ; becomes £ ''hristian, 39 ; helps Augustine to set up bishoprics, 40 ; death of, 41 iEthelberht, king of the West Saxons, 57 yEthelfl^d, the Lady of the Mercians, 62 iEthelfrith, king of North-humberland, his struggle with the northern Welsh, 41 ; defeats the Scots at Degsastan, ^2 : and the Kymry near Chester, 43 ; is defeated and slain by Eadwine, ib. .(Ethelred, ealdorman of Mercia, 60 iEthelred, king of the West Saxons, his struggle with the Danes, 58, 62 iEthelred the Unready, his relations with the Danes, 79 ; and with the Nor- mans, 80 ; orders a massacre of the Danes, 81 : flies to Normandy, 82 ; returns and dies, 83 iEthelric unites North-humberland, 41 iEthelstan, reign of, 63 iEthelstan, the HalLKing, 73 iEthelwold drives secular canons from Winchester, 68 .(Ethelwulf defeats the Northmen, 57 Aetius refuses help to the Britons, 26 Afghan war, the first, 949; the stcond, 972 Afghanistan, invasions of India from, Q48 Agincourt, battle of, 302 Agitators, choice of, 554 ; propose to purge the House, 556 Agreement of the People, the, drawn up by the Agitators, 556 Agricola, campaigns of, 16 ; forts built by, 17 • Agriculture in Eadgar’s time, 75 ; More’s views on the decline of, 3' 8 ; progress of, in Elizabeth’s reign, 464 ; improve- ments in, 813 Aidan establishes himself in Holy Island, 47 : his relations with Oswald, ib. : and with Oswine, ib. Aislabie, sent to th'e Tow er, 712 Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), peace of, 599, 743 ; congress at, 879 ‘ Alabama,’ the, depredations of, 959 ; award of a court of arbitration for damages caused by, 966 3T 1000 INDEX ALA Alasco, opinions of, 418 Alban, inanyrdom of, 23 Albany, the Duke of, suspected of the murder of “^he Duke of Rothesay, 295 ; is regent of Scotland, 296 Albemarle, George Monk. Duke of, as Deorge Monk, commands in Scotland, 575 ; effects the res oration, 576 ; created 1 'uke of A bemar.e, 80 ; holds a Command in the battle off the North Foreland, S92 ; advi.ses t harles .^.1. not to dissolve Par iainent, 599 Abierom. enierpris s of, 709 Altteri , Pr n^ e, marria ,e if, 920 : receives the title of Prince Consort, 959 ; deaih o , ib. Albigeois, the, crusade against, 153 Albin, probable Iberian derivation of the name, 6 Albion, see Albin Albuera, battle of 869 Alcluyd (Dumliarton), the capital of Strathclyde, 43 Aien^on, Francis. Duke of, Elizabeth proposes to marry, 4 6 ; entertained by Elizabeth, 454 ; attacks Antwerp, 455 ; "death of, 456 Alexander, bi.shop of Lincoln, 134 Alexa id r I. (the I zar) makes a treaty wiih England, 845 ; looks t > England for help, 857 ; makes peace with Napoleon at TTilsit. 858 Alex . n I r II. (the I'zar) succeeds Nicholas, --nd makes peace, 947 Alexander III., king of Scotland death of, 214 Alexander III., Pope, shrinks from sup- porting Archbishop Thomas, 145 Alexander IV., Pope, confirms a grant of Sicily to H dmund Crouchback, 197 Alexander VI., Pope, character of, 375 Alford, battle of, 549 Alicante, capture of, 685 Alighur, batt e of, 859 All the Talents, the ministry of, forma- tion nf, 855 ; resitination of, 857 Allectus a.sserts a claim to the Empire, 22 Allen, Cardinal, founds a college at Douai, 453 ; plots to murder Elizabeth, 454 Alma, the battle of, 945 Almanza, Galway defe ted at, 689 Alnwick, Malcolm Canmore slain at, 1 19 ; William the Lion captured at, 154 ; dismantled, 296 Althorp, Lord, becomes leader of the Whigs in the H use of Commons, 898 ; is a member of Lord Grey’s mmi.stry, 901 ; carries a bill reducing the number of Irish bishoprics, 910 ; becomes Earl Spenc r, 912 Alva, Duke of, his tyranny in the Ne- therlands, 443 : discusses the murder of Elizabeth, 445 ; fails to reduce the Dutch, 449 Ambresbyrig (Amesbury) named from Ambrosius, 34 Ambrosius figh ts with the W est Saxons, 34. ANN Ambrosius Aurelianus, fights with the Jutes, 27 America, struggl - be ween England and Fran . fur territory in, 747 America, North, the B itish olonies in, rrsisiancc to the Stamp Act by, 771 ; impoit dutie> imposed on, 773 ; re>ist- ance to th. duties b , 774 ; public opinion in Englan 1 turns agaii st, 778 ; repeal of he duties charged on with the exception of the tea duty, 779 ; resistance to the tea duty in, 780 . congres of Philadelphia in, 782 . beginning of armed re istance in, 783 ; meet ng.it ‘ th Congtes-of the Un.ted Colonies’ in, ib. Decla ation of In- dependence voted by the Congress of, 784 ; s^e Canada ; America, the United States of America, the United States of, assist- ance .secietly given by rrance to, 786; open r^llia.ce of France and Soain wiih, 787; British successes against, 788 ; p ogress ot the war in, 792 ; the capitulation of Yorktown • nds t e var in, 794 ; causes of the success of, ib. : pe c- ma.:e at Paris with, 798; war of Great Britain with, 872 ; peace of Ghent wi h, 73 : disputes about thtir frontier with, 927 ; ; ivil war in, 958 : Mason and Slidell surrendered by. 959 Amhaist, General, takes Crown Point and Fort Duquesne, 753 Amicable Loan, the, 372 Ami' n^, the mise of, 200 ; the treaty of, 846 _ Anderida destroyed by the South Saxons, 28 Andr6. Major, execution of, 788 Andred’s Wood covers the Weald, 27 Angevin kings. Church and State under,^ 165 : growth of learning under, 167 ; growth of commerce under, 168; archi- tectural changes under, 170 Angles ravage Roman Britain, 24 ; settle in Britain, 28 : advance gradually, 36 ; see Bernicia, Deira, East Anglia, Mercia, North-humberland Anglesea, see Mona Anjou, Geoffrey, Count of, 131 ; united with Normandy, 137 ; declares for Arthur, 174 ; conquered by Philip II., 176 ; English forays in, 317 Anjou, Henry, Duke of, see Henry III., king of France Annates, first Act of, 388 ; second Act of, 390 Anne, daughter of James II., birth of, 608 ; deserts James If., 645 ; settlement of the crown on, 647 ; accession of, G76 : influence of Marlborough over, 677 ; gives her confidence to Mrs. Masham, 687 ; dismisses the Whig ministers, 691 : death of, 700 Anne Boleyn, appears at Court, 380 ; is married to Henry VIII., 389 ; execu- tion of, 395 ■ INDEX lOOI ANN Anne of Beaujeu, policy of, 548 Anne of Bohemia marries Richard II., 278 Anne of Brittany is married to Maximilian by proxy, 349 ; married to Charles VIII., 349 Anneof Cleves married to Henry VIII., 400 ; divorce of, 401 Ai nual Parliaments advocated by the Duke of Richmond, 7^, 792 Anselm acknowledges iElfheah to be a martyr, 82 ; character of, 117 ; be- comes Archbishop of Canterbury, n8 ; quarrels with William II., io. ; his relations with Henry I., 125 Anson, Admiral, sails round the world, 73.0 Anti-Corn-Law League, the, foundation of, 924 ; spread of, 932 Antoninus Pius, wall of, 17 Antwerp attacked by Alengon, 455 ; taken by Parma, 456 Appeals, Act of, 389 ; provision for the hearing of, 391 Appellant, the Lords, 279 Appropriation clause, the, proposed, 910 : dropped, 914 Aquae Sulis (Bath) subdued of the We®*: Saxons, 35 Aquitaine, Duchy of, passes to Henry II. by his marriage, 137 ; is given to Richard, 155 ; divided in language and character from the North of France, 176 ; intrigues of Philip IV. in, 218 ; efforts of Philip VI. to gain, 234 ; ceded to Edward III., 253 ; the Black Prince made Duke of, 254 ; resistance to the Black Prince in, 256 ; almost wholly lost, 257 ; complete loss of, 320 Arabi, insurrection of, 971 Archers employed at Senlac, 96 ; armed with the long bow at Falkirk, 221 ; improperly employed at Bannockburn, 226 ; effect of, at Halidon Hill, 234 ; drawn from the yeomen, 236 ; win the battle of Crc9y, 242 ; are successful at Poitiers, 251 Architecture before the Conquest, 51 ; Norman, 89 ; under the Angevins, 170; Early English style of, 207.: Decorated and Perpendicular styles of, 247 : later development of, 358 ; Eliza- bethan, 465 ; Stuart, 631, 632 ; in the reign of Anne, 701 Arcot, siege of, 761 Areopagitica, 546 Argaum, ba* tie of, 859 Argyle, Archibald Campbell, Earl of, execution of, 636 Argyle, Archibald Campbell, Marquis of, opposed to Montrose, 547 ; execution of, 595 Argyle, Duke of, commands against Mar’s rising, 705 Arkwri.ght improves the spinning- machine 815 Arles, Council of, 23 Arlington, Henry Bennet, Earl of, secre- ASS tary to Charles II., 599 ; intrigues against Clifford, 607 Armada, the Invincible, sailing of, 458 ; destruction of, 462 Armagnac, the Count of, establishes a reign of terror, 303 ; murder of, 304 Armagnacs^ party of the, oppose the Burgundians, 296 ; relations of Henry IV. with, 299 ; make war with the Burgundians, 301 ; insurrection of the Parisians against, 304 Armed Neutrality, the, 792^ Army, the, the folk-moot in arms, 33 : yElfred’s organisation of, 60 ; under William L, 104, 106 ; re-organised by Henry II., 141 ; its condition under Edward III., 236 ; the New Model, formation of, 545 ; attempt of Parlia- ment to disband, 553 ; choice of Agita- tors in, 554 ; gains possession of the king’s person, 555 ; the heads of the proposals presented in the name of, ib. ; drives out the eleven mem- bers, ib. ; turns against the king, 556, 557 ; expels members by Pride’s Purge, ib. ; its inability to recon- struct society after the king’s exe- cution, 560 ; overthrows Richard Cromwell, restores and expels the Rump, 575 ; brings back the Rump, ib. ; receives Charles II. on Blackheath, 578 ; paid off. 584 ; parliamentary con- trol over, 650 ; reduction of, 667 ; abolition of purchase in, 964 Army, the Royal, beginning of, 584 Army plot, the, 531 Arnold, Benedict, plots to betray Ameri- can forts, 789 Arras, congress at, 313 ; Treaty of, 337 Art in the reign of Anne, 701 Arteveldt, Jacob van, 235 Arteveldt, Philip van, 278 Arthur, legend of, 33 Arthur, nephew of John, descent of, 173 ; murder of, 174 Arthur, Prince of Wales, marriage and • death ot, 356 Articles, the ten, 395 ; the six, 399 ; the forty-two, 420 ; the thirty-nine, ib. ; declaration of Charles L.piefixed to, 512 Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, banished, 282 ; his position under Henry IV., 292 ; deprived of the Chancellorship, 299 ; Oldcastle tried before, 300- Arundel Castle taken and lost by Hopton, 542 Arundel, the Earl of, opposes Richard II., 279; executed, 282 Aryans, the, 5 Ashley, Lord, see Shaftesbury, Earl of Ashley, Lord, can ies a factory act, 911 ; carries an act restricting l.ibou." in mines, and the labour of women and children in factories, 927 Aske heads the Pilgrimage of Grace, 397 Aspern, battle of, 865 Assandun, battle of, 83 1002 INDEX ASS Assaye, battle of, 859 Assembly of divines, proposal to refer church questions to, 534 ; meeting of, 540 ; declares for Presbyterianism, 543 Asser, life of iElfred by, 61 Assiento Treaty, the, 696 Assize of Arms, 154 Assize of Clarendon, see Clarendon Association, the, in defence of Elizabeth, 456 Association, the, in defence of William III., 666 Athelney, yElfred takes refuge in, 58 Aihlone taken by the army of William IIL, 656 Attainder, Bill of, against Thomas Crom- well, 401 ; nature of a, ib., note i. ; against Strafford, 531 Auckland, Lord, his policy in Afghan- istan, 949 Aughrim, battle of, 656 Augustine preaches to the men of Kent, 39 : becomes Archbishop of Canter- bury and founds other bishoprics, 40 ; fails to obtain the co-operation of the Welsh bishops, 41 Auldearn, battle of, 547 Aumale, Earl of, surrenders his castles to Hubert de Burgh, 187 Aurungzebe weakens the Mogul em- pire, 758 ; death of, 759 Austerlitz, battle of, 854 Australia, progress of the colonisation of, 967 Australasian colonies, the, 918 Austria, imprisonment of Richard I. in, 161 ; takes part in the Grand Alliance, 675 ; attacked by Frederick II., 733 ; joins a coalition against Frederick 11 ., 749 : French declaration of war against, 824 ; makes the treaty of Campo-Formio with France, 837 ; takes part in the second coalition, 838 ; joins the third coalition, 854 ; Francis II. adopts the title of Emperor of, > 856 : joins Russia and Prussia against Napolron, 871 ; acquires Lombardy and Venetia, 873 ; adoption of a con- stitutional system in, 934 ; at war with Hungary, 935 ; its army defeated at Magenta and Solferino, 956 : its army defeated at SaJowa, 963; acquires the protectorate over Bosnia and Herze- govina, 970 Austria > succession, war of, 732 ; end of the war of, 743 Avice of Gloucester divorced by John, 174 Avignon, the Popes at, 257 Babington plots the murder of Eliza- beth, 457 Bacon, Francis (Lord Verulam and Viscount St. Alban), scientific aspira- tions of, 474 ; advises Elizabeth as to the treatment of the Catholics, 475 ; BEA his conduct to Essex, 478 ; gives poli- tical advice to James L, 486 ; his jest on Montague’s promotion, 494 ; at- tacked about monopolies, 495 ; dis- grace of, 496 Badajoz, siege of, 869 Badby burnt as a heretic, 298 Badon, Mount, see Mount Badon Bagenal defeated by Hugh O’Neili, 475 Bakewell, improves the breed of sheep and cattle, 813 Balaclava, charges of the heavy and light cavalry at, 946 Ballard takes part in Babington’s plot, 457 Balliol, Edward, wins and loses the crown of Scotland, 232, 233 Balliol, John, descent of, 215 ; declared King of Scotland, 216 ; is defeated and surrenders the crown, 219 Ballot, the, introduced into parliament- ary elections, 965 Bamborough, Ida’s ^ fortress at, 36 ; Mowbray besieged in, 120 Bangor-iscoed, monastery at, 42 ; slaughter of the monks of, 43 Bank of England, the, foundation of, 660 Bannockburn, battle of, 226 Barbadoes, prisoners sent to, 564 ; dis- senters sent to, 588 Barcelona, surrender of, 682 ; failure of the French to retake, 684 Barebone’s Parliament, the, origin of the name of, 566 ; dissolution of, 567 Barnet, battle of, 334 Baronets, origin of the order of, 494 Barrosa, battle of, 869 Barrow, Henry, a separatist, hanged, 470 Barrow, Isaac, addresses his sermons to the understanding, 598 Basel, treaties of, 829 Basing House taken by Cromwell, 549 Basques, the, Iberian descent of, 5 Bastwick sentenced by the Star Cham- ber, 521 Bate’s case, 484 Bath, see Aquae Sulis Battle Abbey, site of, 96 Baug6, battle of, 306 Baxter, imprisoned by Jeffreys, 635 Bayeux Tajiestry, the, 98 Baylen, capitulation of, 863 Bayonne taken by the French, 320 Beachy Head, battle of, 657^ Beaconsfield, Earl of, insists on the Russians laying their agreement with the Turks before a congress, 969 ; end of the ministry of, 971 Bears, performing, 275 Beaton, Cardinal, burns Wishart, 412 ; is murdered, 414 Beaufort, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, becomes Chancellor, 299 ; invites Par- liament to support Henry V., 301 , opposes Gloucester, 308 ; becomes a cardinal, 309 ; continues his opposition INDEX 1003 BEC to Gloucester, 314 ; policy of, 317 ; death of, 318 Hec, Abbey of, 89, 117 Becket, see Thomas, Archbishop of Can- terbury Bede, Ecclesiastical History of, 52 Bedford, West Saxon victory at, 35 ; castle of Faukes de Breaut^ at, 187 Bedford, John, Duke of, brother of Henry V., sent to secure Harfleur, 303 : Regent of France, 307 : marries the Duke of Burgundy’s sister, ib.\ ■ defeats the French at Verneuil, 308 ; returns to England, 312 ; death of, 313 Bedfo’^d, Duke of, joins George Gren- ville’s ministry. 770 ; death of, 779 Bedingfield, Sir Henry, takes charge of Elizabeth, 423 Begums of Oude, Hastings forces to pay money to the Nawab, 805 Belgians land in Britain, 8 Belgium, independence of, 912 Belleme, see Robert of Belleme Benedict of Nursia establishes the Benedictine rule, 40 Benedictines, monasteries of the, 128 Benevolences invented by Edward IV. , 335 ; abolished by Richard III., 342 ; raised by James L, 497 Bengal, Surajah Dowlah’s overthrow in, 762 ; Clive returns to, 801 Bensington, Mercian victory at, 53 Benthani, principles of, 890 ; spread of the opinions of, 939 Bentinck, Lord George, nominal leader of the Protectionists in the House of Commons, 931 ; death of, 938 Berengaria marries Richard I-, 161 Berlin decree, the, 859 Berlin, treaty of, 969 Bernpd du Guesclin, see Du Guesclin Bernicia, formation of the kingdom of, 36; is merged for a time in North- humberland, 41 ; is untouched by the preaching of Paulinus, 46 ; is finally merged in North-humberland, 48 : maintains its independence after the Danish conquest, 59 Bertha obtains from ^Ethelberht a dis- used church, 38 Berwick, Duke of, opposed to Galway in Spain, 684 Berwick, Treaty of, 526 Bhonsla, the, a Mahratta chief, 802 ; reduced to sign a subsidiary treaty, 859 Bible, the, Henry VIII. authorises the translation of, 396 Bigod, Hugh, appointed justiciar by the barons, 199 Bigod, Roger, Earl of Norfolk, resists Edward I., 220 Bill of Rights, the, 656 Birmingham Political Union, the, 904 ; riot at, 924 Bishops, nominated by cong^ delire, 391 ; first Bill for removing from the House of Lords, 533 ; impeachment of BOS the twelve, 535 ; excluded from the House of Lords, 536 Bishops’ War, the first, 526 ; the second, 529 Black Death, the, 248, 259 Black Prince, the, fights at Cregy, 242 ; ravages the south of France, and de- feats the French at Poitiers, 251 ; his courtesy to King John, 252 ; is sent to Aquitaine, 254 ; his expedition into Spain, 255 ; ' taxes Aquitaine, 256 ; loses Aquitaine, 257 ; leads the Good Parliament, and dies, 262 Blackwater, the, defeat of Bagenal on, 475 Blake, defends Taunton, 548 ; appointed to command the fleet, 565 ; sent to the Mediterranean, 571 ; destroys Spanish ships at Santa Cruz, 573 ; death of, ib. Blanche Tache, ford of, 240 Blank eteers, the, march of, 877 Blenheim, battle of, 6«2 Bloody Assizes, the, 637 Blore Heath, battle of, 326 Boadicea, insurrection of, 15 Bocher, Joan, burnt, 419 Bohemia, outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in, 490 Bohun, Humfrey, Earl of Hereford, resists Edward L, 220 Boleyn, Anne, see Anne Boleyn Bolingbroke, Viscount, carries the Schism Act, 699 ; overpowered by the Whigs, 700: escapes to France, and becomes Secretary to the Pretender, 705 ; dismissed by the Pretender, ib. ; returns to England, 721 ; organises an opposition against Walpole, 722 ; stirs up public opinion against the Excise Bill, 724 ; returns to France, ib. ; see St. John, Henry Bombay acquired by Charles IL, 587 ; made over by Charles II. to the East India Company, 758 Bonaparte, Napoleon, distinguishes himself at the siege of Toulon, 826 ; his campaign in Italy, 834 ; signs the Peace of Campo-Formio, 837 ; his expedition to Egypt, ib. : invades Syria and returns to France, 838 ; becomes First Consul, 839 ; makes overtures to England, 840 : wins the battle of Marengo, and makes peace with Austria at Luneville, 840 ; con- tinued annexations by, 848 ; becomes Emper )r of the French, 858 ; see Napoleon I. Boniface VIII., 220 Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of Can- terbury, 197 Bonner, Bishop, deprived of his see, 416 Booth, Sir George, defeated at Winning- ton Bridge, 575 Bordeaux taken by the French, 320 Boroughbridge, defeat of Thomas of Lancaster at, 228 Boston, soldiers killed at, 780 ; tea ioo4 lMM)t BOS thrown into the harbour of, ib. ; opera- tions of the British force at, 783 ; evacuated by Howe, 784 Boston Port Act, the, 782 Bosworth, battle of, 343 Botany Bay, convict settlement at, 858 Bothwell, James Hepburn, Earl of, career of, 439 Bothwell Bridge, defeat of the Covenan- ters at, 620 Boulogne, taken by Henry VIII., 405 ; surrendered by Warwick, 417 ; pre- parations for the invasion of Eng- land at, 848 ; French army at, 851 Bourbon, the Duke of, revolt of, 371 ; death of, 374 Bouvines, battle of, 181 Boxley, destruction of the rood of, 398 Boyne, battle of, the, 656 Brabant, the I >uke of, captures Jacque- line of Hainault, 308 Braddock routed and killed, 748 Bradford-on-Avon, early stone church at, 51 Bramham Moor, defeat of Northumber- land on, 296 Brandreih, murder by, 879 Breda, declaration of, 576 ; treaty of, 593 Breed’s Hill taken by the Americans, 783 Brember hanged, 280 Brentford, Charles I. at, 537 Bretigni, Treaty of, 253 Bretwalda, title of, 44 Bridgenorth, Robert of Belleme’s castle at, 121 ; besieged by Henry I., 124 Bridges, making and repair of, 272, 273 Bridgman, Sir Orlando, declares that the king’s ministers are responsible, 581 Bridgwater taken by Fairfax, 549 ; Mon- mouth at, 637 Bridgewater Canal, the, 813 Brigantes, the, conquest of, 16 Bright, John, a leader in the Anti- Corn- Law League, 924; opposes a war with China, 955 Brihtnoth slain at Maldon, 79 Brihuega, surrender of Stanhope at, 692 Brill seized by exiles from the Nether- lands, 449 Brindley designs the Bridgewater Canal, 814 Bristol garrisoned by Robert of Glou- cester, 134 ; stormed by Rupert, 538 Britain, its name derived from the Britons, 6 ; tin trade opened to, 8 ; Gauls and Belgians in, ib. ; Caesar’s in- vasion of, II : trade of Gaul with, 12 ; beginning of the Roman conquest of, 13-17 : condition of the Roman pro- vince of, 19-22; emperors specially connected with, 22 ; Christianity in, 23 ; ravaged by the Piets and Scots, 23 ; and by the, Saxons, 24: military divi- sions of, ib. : end of the Roman govern- ment of, 25, 26 ; is deserted by the Romans, 26 ; its organisation after the departure of the Romans, ib. ; the Eng- lish conquest of, 27-29 BUR British Columbia joins the Dominion of Canada, 967 Britons, the, succeed the Goidels, 6 ; lan- guages spoken by the descendants of, 7 ; habits of, 9 ; religion of, 10 ; intro- duction of Roman manners amongst, 13 : increased civilisation of, 21 ; non- existence of a national feeling amongst, 22 ; ask Honorius in vain for help, 25 ; the groans of the, 26 ; treatment of, by the English conquerors, 29 ; are better treated in the West, 31 ; slight modi- fication of English language by them, 31 ; see Kymry Brittany, its relation with Henry II., 155 ; Edward III. sends forces to, 240 ; annexed to France, 349 Broad-bottomed Administration, the, 739 Browne, Archbishop of Dublin, destroys relics and images in Ireland, 402 Browne, Robert, founder of the Separat- ists, 470 Brownists, see Separatists Bruce, Edward, invades Ireland, 264 Bruce, Robert, claims the crown of Scot- land, 215 Bruce, Robert, grandson of the preceding, see Robert I. Brunanburh, battle of, 63 Brut, Layamon’s, 207 Brythons, see Britons Bucer, Martin, teaches in England, 416 Buchan, Countess of, imprisoned, 224 Buckingham, Edward Stafford, Duke of, supports Richard III., 338, 341 ; executed as a rebel, 342 Buckingham, George Villiers, First Duke of, becomes Marquis of Bucking- ham and Lord Admiral, 488 ; accom- panies Charles to Madrid, 497 ; be- comes Duke of Buckingham, and advo- cates war with Spain, 500; promises money for foreign « ars, 501 ; his ascendency over Charles L, 502 ; tries to pawn the crown jewels, 503 ; lends ships to fight against Rochelle, 504 ; impeachment of, 505 ; leads an expedi- tion to R^, 506 ; feeling of Wentworth towards, 508 ; murder of, 510 Buckingham, George Villiers, Second Duke of, in favour with Charles II., 599 ; his sham treaty with France, 603 : dismissal of, 608 Buckingham, Henry Stafford, Duke of, execution of, 369 Buildings, improvement in, in Elizabeth’s time, 465 Bulgaria, becomes a tributary princi- pality, 969 : annexation of Eastern Roumelia to, 970 Bunker’s Hill, 783 Bunyan writes Pilgrim's Progress^ 596^ Burdett, Sir P'rancis, advocates uni- versal suffrage, 879 Burford. West Saxon victory at, 53 Burghley, William Cecil, Lord, as Sir William Cecil becomes the chief adviser INDEX 1005 BUR of Elizabeth, 429 ; urges Elizabeth to assist the Scotch Protestants, 433 ; becomes Lord Burghley and discovers the Ridolfi plot, 445 ; death of, 480 Burgos, siege of, 869 Burgoyne, General, capitulates at Sara- toga, 786 Burgundians, party of the, opposed to the Armagnacs, 296, 299 ; are friendly to Henry V., 301 Burgundy, Charles the Rash, Duke of, marries the sister of Edvv^ard IV., 332 ; policy of, 336 ; is slain at Nancy, ib. Burgundy, John the Fearless, Duke of, has the IJuke of Orleans murdered, 296 ; all es himself with Henry V., 301 ; holds aloof in the campaign of Agin- court, 302 ; make ^ war upon the Armag- nacs, 303 ; imrder of, 305 Burgundy, Philip the Good, Duke of, join^ the English against the Dauphin, 306 ; allies himself with the Duke of Bedford, 307; forms a league with Charles VII., 313 ; inherits territories in the Netherlands, ib. Burhs erected by Eadward the Elder, 62 B. rke, Edmund, enters Parliament, 772 : his views on American taxation, 773 ; opposes parliamentary reform, 777 ; argues against taxing America, 780 ; his speech on economical reform, 789 : passes a bill for economical re- form, 795 : the author of the India Bill of the Coalition, 806 ; his part in the impeachment of Hastings, 811 ; publishes Reflections on the French Revolution, 822 Burley, Sir Simon, executed, 280 Burnet, Gilbert, his conversation with William of Orange, 645 Burns, poetry and opinions of, 887 Burton, sentenced by the Star Chamber, 521 Bury St. Edmunds, foundation of the monastery at, 58 ; death of Svend at, 82 ; meeting of barons at, 181 Busaco, combat at, 867 Bute, Earl of, becomes Prime Minister, 766 : resignation of, 768 Butler, author of H ttdibras, 597 Butler, Bishop, writes The Analogy, 745 Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, plead-^ for the abolition of slavery, 910 Byng, Admiral, fails to relieve Minorca, 749 : shot, 750 Byng, Sir George, defeats a Spanish fleet, off Cape Passaro, 709 Byron, Lord, poetry and death of, 888 Cabinet, the, its origin, 660 ; develop- ment of, >■ 87 ; strengthened by the withdrawal of Ge Tge I. from, 704 Cabul, taken by the Britisn, 949 ; re- treat of the British from, 950 ; Pol- lock r takes, tb. Cade, Jack, rebellion of, 322 CAN Cadiz, capture of, 464; Cecil’s expedi- tion to, 503 Caedmon, poetry of, 52 Caedwalla, allied with Penda, 46 ; is defeated by Oswald, 47 Caen, burial of William I. at, 114; stormed by Henry V., 303 Caerleon upon Usk, see Isca Silurum Caesar, Gains Julius, makes war in Gaul and Germany, 10 ; twice invades Britain, ii Caint, the, occupied by the Cantii, 8 Calais taken by Edward III., 243; besieged by the r>uke of Burgundy, 313 : loss* of, 427 ; Elizabeth’s hope of regaining, 436 ; the Armada takes re- fuge in, 462 ; Cromwell’s anxiety to recover, 571 Calcutta, grows up round Fort William, 758 ; the B'ack Hole of, 762 Calder, Sir Robeit, defeats a French fleet, 856 Caledonians, the, wars of Agricola with, 16. . Calvin, his work at Geneva, 430 Calvinism influences Elizabethan Pro- testantism, 430 Cambrai, league of, 363 ; treaty of, 383 Cambridge, the Earl of, execution of, 301 Camden, Lord, dismissed, 776 ; see Pratt, Chief lustice Campbell, Sir Co!' ;, suppresses the Indian mutiiis, the, demands of, 923 ; violence of, 924 ; meet on Kennington Common to present a monster peiiiion, 935 Chateau Gaillard built by Richard I., 165 ; lost by John, 354 Chatham, Earl of, Prime M nister, 773 ; illness of, ib. ; recovers his health, and takes up the cause of Wilkes, 776 ; resigns office, 774.; declares for Par- liamentary reform, 777 ; death of, 787 ; see Pitt, William (the elder) Chaucer, Geoffrey, his Canterbury T ale Sy 270 ; influences of the Renas- cence on, 367 Cherbourg expedition against, 753 Cheriton, battle of, 542 Chester {see Deva) submits to William I., 103 Cheyt Sing, Hastings demands a con- tribution from, 804 Chinon, Henry II. dies at, 157 Chippenham, treaty of, 59 Chivalry, 235 Chocolate, introduction of, 630 Ciirist t^h arch, at Canterbury, privileges ot, 177 ; expulsion of the monks of, 178 CLt Christchurch, foundation of, 377, 383 Christian IV., king of Denmark, Buck- ingham's overtures to, 501, 504 ; de- feated at Lutter, 505, 506 Christianity introduced into Britain, 23 ; into England, 39 ; character of early English, see England, the Church of Chronicle, the, begun under iElfred, 61 ; continued at Worcester, 68, 129 ; com- pleted at Peterborough, J29 Church of England, see England, Church of Churchill, Lord, see Marlborough, Duke of Cinque Ports, the, 218 Cintra, convention of, 864 Cirencester, see Corinium Cistercians, the, introduced' into Eng- land, 129 ; decline of asceticism amongst, 167 ; are fined by John, 179 City of the violated treaty, the, 657 Ciudad Rodrigo, siege of, 869 Clare, Gilbert de, see Gloucester, Earl of Clare, Richard de, see Strongbow Clare, Richard de, see Gloucester, Earl of Clarence, George, Duke of, brother of Edward IV., created a duke, 329; marries Warwick’s daughter, and quar- rels with Edward IV., 332 ; put to death, 336 Clarence, Lionel, Duke of, sent to Ire land 265 Clarence, Thomas, Duke of, brother of Henry IV., killed at Baug6, 306 Clarendon, F.dward Hyde, first Earl of, as Edward Hyde is one of the leaders of the Anti-Presbyterian part- in the Long Parliament, 533 ; becomes Lord Chancellor aiter the Restoration, 580 : character of, ib. ; created Earl of Clarendon. 587 : is falsely supposed to be bribed, ib. ; fall of, 594 ; escapes to France, 595 Clarendon, Henry Hyde, second Earl of, recalled from Ireland, 640 Clarendon, the Constitutions of, 144 ; the assize of, 146 Clarkson, publishes evidence against the slave trade, 823 Claudius, the Emperor, plans the con- quest of Britain, 13 Claverhouse, see Graham, John Clement VII., Pope, forms an Italian league a.:ainst Charles V., 3'*4; ap- points legates to try the divorce suit of Henry VIII., 382 ; revokes the cause to Rome, 383 ; gives sentence in favour of Catharine, 390 Clergy, the, see Ecclesiastical Courts, England, Church of Clergy, the country, 633 Cleri is Laicos, the Bull named, 220 Clifford, Lord, stabs the Earl of Rutland, 328 Clifford, Thomas, Lord, a member of the Cibal, 602 ; probable suggester of 1009 CLI COM the Stop of the Exchequer, 604 ; resig- nation of, 607 Clinton, Sir Henry, fails to co-operate with Burgoyne, 786 ; takes Charleston, 788 Clive, Robert, his career in Northern India, 761; subjugates Bengal, 762; is astonished at his own moderation, 764 ; his return to England and second visit to Bengal, 801 Clontatf, repealers prohibited from meet- ing at, 928 Closterseven, the Convention of, 752 Cluny, clerical celibacy inculcated at, 67; reforms originated at, 107 Cnui, reign of, 83-85 Coaches, iniprovement in, 633 Coalition Ministry, the, of Fox and North, 800; of Pitt and the Whigs, 828; of the Whigs and Peelites, 943 Cobbett, pajjiphlets of, 879 Cobden, a leader of the Anti-Corn-Law League, 924 opposes a war with China, 955 : suggests a commercial treaty with France, 958 Cobham, Eleanor, mistress and wife of the Duke of Gloucester, 315 ; does pen- ance for witchcraft, 316 Coffee-houses, introduction of, 630 Coinage debased by Henry VIII., 409 ; further debased by Somerset, 416 Coke, Sir Edward, takes part in drawing up the Petition of Right, 508 Colchester, execution of the Abbot of, 400 ; reduced by Fairfax, 567 Colet promotes the study of Greek, and founds St. Paul’s School, 367 Coligny, murder of. 449 College invents the Protestant flail, 615 ; condemned to death, 622 Colleges, first foundation of, at Oxford, 207 Colman disputes with Wilfrid, 50 Colonial expansion^ 966 Colonies founded in Virginia and New England, 489 ; in Caiolina, 629 Columba founds a monastery at Iona, 47 Columbus discovers the West Indies, 354 Combination laws, the, modification of, 886 Commerce between Britain and Gaul, 8, 12 ; between England and Gaul, 38 ; under the Angevin kings, 168 ; under Edward I., 211 ; under Edward III., 235, 236; under Henry VII., 351 . Committee of Both Kingdoms, formation of, 542 Common Pleas, establishment of a sepa- rate Court of, 212 Common Prayer, the Book of, beginnings of. 40Q, 410 ; the first, of Edward VI., 415 : the se ond, of Edward VI., 418 ; alterations in, in Elizabeth’s reign, 429 ; Strickland proposes to amend, 445 j generally accepted by the Par- liamentary Presbyterians, 586 Commons, the House of (s^e Parlia- ment), finally separated from the Lords, 243 ; struggle of, against unpar- liamentary taxation, 244 ; importance of the constitution of, 245 ; supported by the Black Prince, 261 ; influence over the elections of, 281 ; proposes to confiscate Church property, 294 ; ad- dressed by Edward IV., 729 ; Wolsey’s appearance in, 371 ; made use of by Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII., 389 ; Elizabeth’s relations with, 444 ; Puritanism of, 445 ; growing strength of, 468 ; its tendencies to Puritanism rather than to Presbyterianism, 470 ; attack on monopolies by, 478 ; quar- rels with James 1., 482 ; anxious to go to war for the Palatinate, 490 ; votes a small supply, 491 ; brings charges against Bacon, 495 ; is eager for war with Spain, 500 ; refuses sup- plies to Chples I., unless spent by counsellors in whom it confides, 502 ; impeaches Buckingham, 504, 505 ; insists on the Petition of Right, 508 ; claims Tonnage and Poundage, 510 ; religious ideas prevailing in, 51 1 : its breach with the king, 513 ; violent scene before the dissolution of, 514 ; formation of parties in, 532 ; scene in, at the passing of the Grand Remon- strance, 534; Presbyterian majority in, 546 ; new elections to, 551 ; a mob in possession of, 555 ; the Agitators pro- pose to purge, _ 556 : Pride’s purge of, 557 ; declares itself supreme, ; con- stitutes a high court of justice, 558 ; dis- solved by Cromwell, 566 inquires into the expenditure of the crown, and im- peaches Clarendon, 594 impeaches Danby, 616 ; the Exclusion Bill in, 617, 621 : Tory majority in, 636 ; James II. attempts to pack, 641 ; dis- cusses the abdication of James II., 646 ; attacks the Irish grants of William III., 670; imprisons the bearers of the Kentish Petition, 675 ; Walpole’s determination t<> rely on, 710 ; corruption in, 714 ; establishment of the freedom of reporting the de- bates of, 779 Commonwealth, the, establishment of, 561 Communion table. Laud’s wish to fix at the east end, 517 ; decision of the Privy Council on the position of, 519 ; removed by the soldiers, 529 Comprehension favoured by some of the clergy, 598 ; attempt of Charles II. to establish, 599 Comprehension Bill, the, is not passed, 651 Compton, Bishop of London, refuses to susnend Dr. Sharp, 639 Compton, Sir Spencer, thought of as Walpole’s successor, 720 : succeeds Walpole and becomes Earl of Wil- mington, 731 1010 INDMX COM Compurgation, system of, 32 ; set aside by Henry II., 146, 147 Corny n, John (the Red), slain by Bruce, 224 Con, Papal agent at the court of Henri- etta Maria, 521 Concord, attempt to seize arms at, 783 Confederate Catholics of Ireland, the, cessation of hostilities with, 541 Confederation of the Rhine, the, 856 Confirmatio Cartarum, 221 Conge d'elire, provision for the issue of, 391 Congress, of twelve colonies, 782 ; of thirteen colonies, 783 Connaught, proposed plantation of, 528 Conrad III,, Emperor, takes part in the second Crusade, 157 Conservative party, the, origin of the name of, 909 Constance of Brittany marries Geoffrey, ^55 Constantine takes an army from Britain, 25 . Constantine, king of the Scots, allies himself with Eadward, 63 Constantine the Great becomes sole Emperor, 22 ; acknowledges Chris- tianity as the religion of the Empire, 23 Constantinople taken by the Turks, 366 Constantius, the Emperor, 22 Constitutions of Clarendon, 144 ; re- nounced by Henry II., 153 Continental system, the, 859 ; failure of, 868 Conventicle Act, the, 588 Convention Parliament, the first, 577 ; the second, 646 ; the dissolution of the second, 656 Convocation of the province of Canter- bury offers money for a pardon, 385 ; agrees to the submission of the clergy, 386 Convocations of the clergy vote money, 219 Conway, Edward I. builds a castle at, 210 Coote, Colonel (afterwards Sir Eyre), wins a victory at Wandewash, 764 ; defeats Hyder Ali at Porto Novo, 805 Cope, Sir John, defeated at Preston Pans, 740 Copenhagen, battle of, 845 ; bombard- ment of, 860 Corinium {Cirencester), West Saxon conquest of, 35 Cornish, the, derivation of the old lan- guage of, 7 ; submit to Ecgberht, 55 Corn-law, the, passing of, 875 ; modifi- cation of, 926 Cornwall, insurrection in, 415 Cornwallis, Lord, drives Washington out of New Jersey, 784 ; defeats Yates at Camden, 788 ; routs Green at Guilford, 792 ; surrenders at York- town, 794 : Governor-General of India, 811 ; defeats Tippoo, 837 ; Lord-Lieu- tenant of Ireland, 841 CRO Corporation Act, the, 585 ; repeal of, ^5 Corporations, remodelling of the, 625 Corunna, battle of, 864 Cotentin, the, sold to Henry, 119 Cotton-famine, the, 959 Cotton-spinning, improvements in, 815 Council of State, the, appointment of, 561 County courts derived from the shire- moots, 141 Courtenay, Bishop of London, supported by the citizens against Lancaster, 263 Covenant, the Scottish National 525, see Solemn League and Covenant Covenanters, the rise of, 619 ; insurrec- tion of, 620 Coverdale translates the New Testa- ment, 396 Cowper, Lord, becomes Chancellor, 687 Craggs, Postmaster-General, poisons himself, 712 Craggs, Secretary of State, death of, 712 Cranfield, see Middlesex, Earl of Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, pronounces Catharine’s marriage to be null, 389 ; is forced to dismiss his wife, 400 ; composes the English litany, 409 ; character and position of, 413 : wishes to preserve the revenue of the chantries for the poor clergy, 415 ; tries to find common ground with the Zwinglian reformers, 416 ; leaves his mark on the Prayer Book, 418 ; supports Lady Jane Grey, 420 ; burnt, 426 CreQy, battle of, 241, 242 Crepy, peace of, 406 Cressingham, Sir Hugh, governs Scot- land in the name of Edward I., 219 Crimean War, the, origin of, 943 ; course of, 944-8 Crompton, invents ‘ the mule ’ for spin- ning, 815 Cromwell, Oliver, practical sagacity of, 539 : introduces discipline in the Eastern Asso<'iation, 540 : defeats the royalists at Winceby, 542 ; fights at Marston Moor, 543 : advocate's tolera- tion, ib. ; accuses Manchester, 544 ; becomes Lieutenant-' eneral of the New Model Army, 545 ; cuts off the king’s supplies, 547 ; wins the vi' tory at Naseby, 548 ; reduces Winchester and Ba«-ing House, 549 : proposes to leave England, 554 ; gives instructions to Cornet Joyce, 5S5; attempts to come to an understanding with Charles, ib. ; puts down a mutiny in the army,. 556 ; suppresses a rising in Wales and defeats the Scots at Preston, 557 ; sup- presses the Levellers, 562 ; his cam- paign in Ireland, ib, ; his victory at Dunbar, 563 ; his victory at Worces- ter, 564 : dissolves the Long Parlia- ment, 566 ; opens the Barebone’s Par- liament, 567 ; becomes Protector, 568 ; plots against, 569 ; ecclesiastical ar- rangements of, ib. ; convenes and dis- INDEX lOIl CRO solves his first Parliament, 570 : esta- blishes major-generals, ib. ; foreign policy of, 571 : calls a second Parlia- ment, 572 ; joins Fran e against Spain, ib. ; dissolves his second Parliament, 573 ; makes war against Spain, ib. ; death of, 574 Cromwell, Richard, succeeds to the Protectorate, 574 ; abdicates, 575 Cromwell, Thomas, advises Henry VIII. to rely on the House of Commons, 385 : becomes the king’s secretary, and vicar- general, 393 : attacks the monks of the Charterhouse, ib. ; inquires into the state of the monasteries, 394 ; attacks the greater monasteries, 397 ; execu- tion of, 401 Cropredy Bridge, battle of, 544 Crown, the, see King Crown Point taken by Amherst, 753 Crusade, the first, 120 ; the second, 157 ; the third, 161 ; against the Albigeois, 193 ; the seventh, 204 Cuba, reduction of, 766 Cumberland, origin of the name of, 37 ; annexed by William II., 119 ; left to David I., 133 ; regained by Henry II., 140 Cumberland. Duke of, heads the British column at Fonten<«y, 739 ; sent against the Young Pretender, 741 ; defeats him at Culloden, 742 ; his cruelty to the Highlanders, ib.\ being defeated at Hastenbeck, signs the Convention of Closterseven, 752 Cunedda, extensive rule of, 37 Cunobelin, government of, 12 Curia Regis, the, organised under Henry I., 127 ; strengthened by Henry II., 141 ; powers assigned by the Con- stitutions of Clarendon to, 145 ; orders the appointment of recognitors, 147 ; divided into three courts, 212 Customs on imports and exports under Edward I., 211, 221 Cutha, 35 Cymbeline, original of Shakespeare’s, 12 Cynric captures Sorbiodunum, 34 Cyprus ceded to England, 970 Dalhousie, Earl of, policy of, as Governor-General of India, 950 Danby, Thomas Osborne, Earl of, as Sir T. Osborne, becomes Lord Treasurer, 607 ; policy of, 610 ; fails to pass a Non-resistance Bill, 61 1 ; promotes the marriage of William of Orange, 613 ; impeachment of, 616 ; imprisonment of, 617 ; liberated, 626 ; rises in support of William, 645 : re- commends that the crown be given to Mary, 646 Danegeld, levy of, 81 ; abolition of, 143 Danelaw, the, formation of, 59 Danes, the, invade England, 58 ; make peace with iElfred, 59 ; extent of the settlements of, 62 ; are amalgamated DES with the English, 64 ; relations _ol Dunstan with, 67 ; reappear as in- vaders, 79 : conquer England, 81-83 5 settle in Ireland, 152 Dare, Jeanne, delivers Orleans, 310 ; conducts Charles VII. to Rheims, 31 1 ; martyrdom of, 312 Darien expedition, the, 671 Darnley, Henry Stuart, Lord, marries Mary, 43S ; murder of, 439 Darvel Gathern, burning of the wooden figure of, -igS Darwin, his Origin of Species, 940 David I., king of the Scots, invades England, 131 David II. (Bruce), king of Scotland, 232 ; takes refuge with Philip VI., 234 ; restoration of, 240 ; taken prisoner at Nevill’s Cross, 242; restored by Ed- ward III., 252 David, brother of Llewelyn, executed, 140 David, Earl of Huntingdon, 215 David, St., piety of, 42 Davison sends ihe warrant for Mary’s execution, 457 ; dismissal of, 458 De (irasse. Admiral, blockades York- town, 794 : defeated by H odney, 795 Declaration of Breda, see Breda, Decla- ration of Declaration of Independence, the Ame- rican, 784 Declaration of Indulgence issued by Charles II., 604 ; withdrawn by Charles II., 606 ; issued by James II., 640 ; reissued, 642 Declaration of Rights, the, 647 Declaration of Sports, the, ordered to be read in churches, 517 Decorated style, the, 247 Defender of the Faith, title of, 379 Degsastan, ^Ethelfrith’s victory at, 42 Deira, formation of the kingdom of, 36 ; is merged for a time in North-humber- land, 41 : accepts Christianity, 46 ; is finally merged in North-humberland, 48 : Danish kingdom of, 62, 63 Delhi, siege of. 953 ; recovery of, 954 Denain, battle of, 696 Deorham, battle of, 35 Derby, arrival of the Highlanders at, 740 Derby, Earl of (son of John of Gaunt), opposes Richard II., 279: defeats the Duke of Ireland, 280 ; becomes Duke of Hereford, and is banished, 283 ; suc- ceeds to the Duchy of Lancaster, 284 ; and forces Richard II. to abdicate, 285 ; see Henry IV, Derby, Earl of, becomes Prime Minis- ter, 938 ; resignation of, 939 ; Prime Minister for the second time, 956; Prime Minister for the third time, 961 ; resignation of 962 Dermot invites Strongbow to Ireland, 15a Derwentwater, Earl of, beheaded, 705 Desmond, Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of, insurrection and death of, 453 1012 INDEX DES Despensers, the, 228, 229 Deva, Roman colony of, 14, 19 Devizes, surrender of the castle of, 134 Devolution, thi war of, 593 Devonshire, insunection in, 415 Devonshire, Duke of, _ uecomes First Lord of the Treasury in succession to Newcastle, 749 Devonshire, William Cavendish, Earl of, rises in support of William of Orange,' 645 Dewai.ni of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa granted to the East India Company, 801 Dialogus de ScarcaHo, 167 Dickens, his Pirk-'-ick Papers, 940 Digby, John, Lord, his mission to Ger- many, 497 Diocletian reorganises the Empire, 22 Dispensing power, the claimed by Charles II., 604; acknowledged by the judges, 6 39 Disraeli, attacks Peel, 929, 930 ; the real leader o‘ the Protection sts in the House of Commons, 931 ; becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer and gives his approbat on to Fr e-trade, 938 ; resignation of, 939 ; is azai ' Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, and brings in a Bill for Parliamentary reform, 956 ; passes the second Reform B ll, 961 ; becomes Prime Minister, 962; resigna- tion of, ib. ; becomes Prime Minister a second time, 966 ; made Earl of Beaconsfield, 969 ; see Beaconsfield, Earl of Dissenters the, origin of their name, 585 ; Charles II. issues a declaration fo’* the toleration of. 587 : Conventicle Act against, s'^8 ; Five Mile Act against, 590 ; favour of Charles II. to, 599 : reception of the Declaration of Indulgence by, 640 ; Toleration Act passed in favour of, 651 ; attacked in the Sacheverell riots, 691 ; passing of the Occasional Conformity Act against, 695 ; the Schism Act passed against, 699 ; partial repeal of acts directed against, 710 ; repeal of the Test and Corporatio ■ Acts affecting, 895 Dissenting Brethren, the five, 543 Divine Right of Kings, doctrine of the, 619 Domesday Book, in Domestic life in Eadgar’s time, 75 Domfront occupied by Henry, 119 Dominic, St., 190 Dominicans arrive in England, 191 Donald Bane made king of the Scots by the Celts, 1 19 Dorchester, abandonment of the see of, 107 Dorset, Marquis of, his relations with Richard III., 338 Douai, College at, 453 Dover, treaty of, 600 Drake, Francis, lands at Nombre de Dios, 448 ; vows to sail on the Pacific DUT 449 ; his voyage round the world, 450 ; (Sir Francis) singes the king of Spain’s beard, 458 ; has a command against the Armada, 460 ; pursues the Armada, 462 ; sa ;ks Corunna, and fails before Lisbon, 464 ; death of, ib. Dramatic writers of the Restoration, 598 Dreux. battle of, 436 Drogheda, slaughter at, 562 Druids, character of the, 10 ; resist Suetonius, 14 Drumclog, skirmish at, 620 Drummond, Thomas, his career as Under-Sccretary in Ireland, 916 Dublin, Danish settlement in, 152 ; at- tempt to seize, 533 Du Chatel, Tannegui, murders the Duke of Burgundy, 305 Dudley, see En pson and Dudley Dudley, Lord Guilford, marries Lady Jane Grey, 420 ; executed, 423 Du Guesclin, Bernard,supports Henry of Trastamara, 255 ; his mode of fighting with the English, 256 Dunbar, Balliol defeated at, 219 ; battle of, 563 Duni an. Admiral, b'ockades the Dutch in the Texel, 836 : defeats the Dutch at Camperdown, 837 Duncan II., king of the Scots, 120 Dundee, Viscount, John Graham of Claverhouse, gathers the Highland cl ns lor James II., 652 ; killed at Killiecrankiv, 6-3 Dunes, the, battle of, 573 Dunkirk, Cromwell wishes Spain to place in his hands, 571 ; taken from Spain by Cromwell’s troops, 573 ; abandoned by Charles II., 587: France engages to destroy the fortifications of, 696 ; France regains the right of fortifying, 798. Dunkirk House, 587 Dunning carries a motion against the influence of the Cmwn, 789 Dume Law, Scottish army on, 526 Dunstable, marriage of Catharine of Aragon annul ed at, 389 Dunstan, character and work of, 65 ; banished by Eadwig, 67 ; becomes Eadgar’s Minister, ib. ; his attitude towards the monks, 68 : supports Eadward’s succession, 78 ; death of, 79 Dupleix, hostile to Le Bourdonnais, 760 : his career in India, 761 ; returns to France, 762 Dupplin, Edward Balliol’s victory at, 234 Durham, architecture of the choir and galilee of, 171 Durham, temporary suppression pf the see of, 418 : celebration of the mass in the cathedral of, 441 Durham, Earl of, his mission to Can- ada, 916 Dutch Republic, the, foundation of, 449 ; abolition of the Stadholderate in, 565 ; war between the English Common- INDEX 1013 EAD wealth and, ib. : peace with, 569 ; first v/ar between Charles 1 1, and, 589 ; military weakness of, 591 ; treaty of Breda with, 593 ; takes part in the Triple Alliance, 599 ; combination of England and France against, 600 ; towns to be taken from, ib. ; the second war between Char es II. and, 605 ; resists Louis XIV., ib. ; animosity of Shaftesbury against, 606 ; peace made by England with, 608 ; makes peace with France at Nymwegen, 614 ; Marl- borough’s relations with, 678 ; t fFect of the war of the Spanish Succession on, 697 ; resists the right of search, 792 ; makes peace with Great Britain, 798 ; receives the name of the Batavian Re- public, 835 ; its fleet defeated at Camperdown, 837 Eadgar, reign of, 67 Eadgar, king of the Scots, 121 Eadgar the ^theling, early years of, 90 ; chosen king, 98 ; is abandoned, 100 Eadgyth married to Eadward the Con- fessor, 87 Eadgyth married to Henry I., 122 ; is known as Matilda, 124 Eadmund Ironside, 83 Eadmund, king of East Anglia, killed by the Danes, 58 Eadmund, king of the English, 63 Eadred, king of the English, 64 Eadward the Confessor, his life in Normandy, 85 ; is chosen king, 86 ; his relations with Godwme, 87 ; makes William his heir, 88 ; dies, 91 Eadward the Elder, reign of, 62 ; his relations with the Scots, 63 Eadward the ^Etheling, death of, 90 Eadward the Martyr, 78 Eadwig, reign ot, 64 ; his quarrel with the lergy, 65 ; his marriage and death, 67 Eadwine, king of North-humberland, greatness of, 43 ; marries iEthelburh, 44 ; is converted and slain, 46 Eadwine, son of yElfgar, becomes Earl of the Mercians, 90 ; is present at Eadgar’s election, 98 ; submits to William, 102 ; is murdered, 103 Eadwinesburh, s/’e Edinburgh Ealdhelm as a builder and teacher, 51 Ealdormen, the, are the leaders of the English conquerors, 30 ; preside over the folk-moot, 33 ; growing power of, 73 ; their position under ^thelred the Unready, 79 Ealdred, Archbishop of York, crowns William I., 100 Earl, title of, derivation of, 64 Earldoms under Cnut, 83 ; diminished after the Norman Conquest, 105 Early English architecture, 171 East Anglia, fiist settlement of, 28 ; growth of, 36 : comparative weakness EDW of, 41 ; its relations with Ecgberht, 55; overrun by the Danes, 58 East India Company, the, charter granted to, 758 , early acquisitions of, ; receives the zemindary of the district round Calcutta, 764 ; receives the dewanni ol Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, 8 i; North’s Regulating Act organising the powers of, 802 ; bill directed by Fox and Burke against, 806 ; Pitt’s restrictions on, 808 ; com- plete overthrow of the authority of, ^ 954^ East Saxons establish themselves to the north of the Thames, 28 ; capture London, 35 ; see Essex Easter, dispute on the mode of keeping,5o Eastern Association, the, formation of, 539 : Cromwell’s activity m, 540 ; Manchester in command ot the army of, 542 Ebbsfleet, landing of the Jutes at, 27 ; landing of Augustine at, 39 Eccles astical Commission, the, esta- blishe 1 by James II., 639 ; abolition of, 644 Ecclesiastical courts, jurisdiction of, 106: conflict of Henry II. with, 142 ; attacks on, 385 Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, the, 937 Ecgberht, at the court of Charles the Great, 53 ; becomes king of the West Saxons, and over-lord of the other kingdoms, 55 Economical Reform, bill for, 789 ; pass- ing of a bill for, 795 Edgehill. battle of, 537 Edinburgh, Eadwine builds the castle of, 43 : occupied by the Scots, 68 ; burnt by Hertford, 409 ; treaty of, 433 ; riot in St. Giles’s m, 525 ; Montrose executed at, 563 : surrenders to L rom- we 1. ib. ; the Duke of Gordon holds out in the castle of, 652 ; the Young Pre- tender welcomed at , 740 Edmund Crouchback, second son of Henry III., named king of Sicily and Naples, 196 ; supposed primogeniture of, 286 Education in the time of iElfred, 61 ; in the time of Dunstan, 65 ; carried on at Oxford, 167, 207 ; public action of the Melbourne ministry -n providing for, 920; Forster introduces a new system of, 963 Edward L, appeal of the Knights Bache- lors to, 199 : taken prisoner at Lewes, 201 ; defeats Earl Simon at Evesham, 203 : takes part in the seventh Crusade, 204 : becomes king, 208; constitutional position of, 209 *, his dealings with Wales, 210; finance of, 21 1 ; judicial reforms and legislation of, 212 ; ar- ranges for a personal union between England and Scotland, 214; erects the Eleanor crosses, 215 ; awards the Scot- tish crown to John Balliol, 216 ; his relations with Philip IV., 218 ; sum- 1014 INDEX EDW mons the Model Parliament, 218 ; his first conquest of Scotland, 219 ; grants the Confirniatio Cartarum, 220 ; his second conquest of Scotland, 221 ; in- corporates Scotland with England, 222; his third conquest of Scotland, and death, 224 Edward II., birth of, 210; succeeds to the crown, 224 ; marriage of, 225 ; re- sistance of the barons to, ib. ; defeated at Bannockburn, 226 ; overthrows Lancaster and effects a constitutional settlement, 228 ; -deposed and mur- dered, 229 Edward III., accession and marriage of, 231 ; does homage to Philip VI., 232 ; sets up Edward Balliol in Scotland and begins war with F ranee, 234 ; allies himself with the Emperor and the cities of Flanders, 235 ; encourages trade, 236 ; is named Imperial Vicar, 237 ; claims the crown of France, 239 ; wins the battle of Sluys, ib, ; marches through the north of France, 240 ; wins the battle of Cre9y, 241, 242 ; takes Calais, 243 ; constitutional pro- gress under, ib. ; restores David Bruce, 252 ; makes peace with F ranee, 253 ; enters on a fresh war with France, 256 Edward IV., as Earl of March, takes part ill the battle of Northampton, 326 ; wins the battle of Mortimer’s Cross, and is acknowledged by the Londoners as king, 328 ; wins the battle of Tow- ton, and is crowned, 329 ; marries Elizabeth Woodville, and promotes her kindred, 331 ; allies himself with Burgundy, 332 loses and recovers the crown, 334 ; invents benevolences, 335; invades France, 336; puts Cla- rence to deaih, 336 ; death of, 337 Edward V. succeeds to the throne, 337 ; lodged in the Tower, 340 ; deposed, 341 ; murdered, 342 Edward, Prince of Wales, see Black Prince, the Edward, Prince of Wales,_ son of Henry VI., birth of, 323 ; slain at Tewkes- bury, 334 Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Richard III., death of, 342 Edward VI., birth of, 397; accession of, 412 ; precocity of, 419 ; death of, 420 Egypt, Bonaparte’s expedition to, 837 ; the French compelled to evacuate, 844 ; Mehemet All’s rule of, 884 ; sub- jected to the dual control of France and England, 970 ; England assumes a protectorate over, 971 Ejectors, Commission of, 569 Eldon, Lord, holds that meetings in support of Radical reform are treason- able, 880 Eleanor of Aquitaine marries Henry II., i3_7 ; imprisonment of, 155 ; takes part with John against Arthur, T74 ELI Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I., accompanies her husband on the Cru- sade, 204 ; death of, 21^ Eleanor of Provence marries Henry III., 192 Eleanor, sister of Henry III., marries Simon de Montfort, 193 Election petition, the Chippenham, 730 Eleven Members, the, excluded from the House of Commons, 555 Eliot, Sir John, attacks Buckingham, 504 : compares Buckingham to Sejanus, 505 ; his policy compared with that of Wentworth, 508 ; vindi- cates the privileges of the" House, 512 ; imprisonment and death of. 514 Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV., proposed marriage of the Dauphin, to, 336 ; proposed marriage of Richard III. to, 342 ; marries Henry VII., 345 Elizabeth, daughter of James L, inten- tion of the Gunpowder plotters to crown, 483 ; married to the Elector Palatine, 488 Elizabeth, Queen, birth of, 392 ; her succession ackn owledged, 41 1 ; sent to the Tower and afterwards removed to Woodstock and Hatfield, 423 ; acces- sion of, 428 ; character and policy of, ib. ; modification of the title of, 429 ; plays off France and Spain against one another, 431 ; hesitates to assist the Scotch Protestants, 432 ; assists the Lords of the Congregation, 433 ; her ill-treatment of Catherine Grey, 435 ; contrasted with Mary, Queen of Scots, ib. ; hopes to recover * alais by assist- ing the Huguenots, 436 ; appoints com- missioners to examine the case against Mary, 440 ; detains Mary a prisoner, and suppresses a rising in the North, 441 ; excommunicated by Pius V., ib. : negotiates a marriage with the Duke of Anjou, 443 ; her attitude to- wards the Puritans and towards Parlia- ment, 444 : the Ridolfi plot against, 445 : proposes to marry the Duke of Alenqon. 446 ; intervenes in Scotland on behalf of James VI., 450; refuses to restore Drake’s plunder, 451 ; her treatment of Ireland, 452 ; kisses the Duke of Alengon, 454 : plot of Allen and Parsons to murder, ib. ; Throg- morton’s plot to murder, 456 ; Ba- bington’s plot to murder, 457 ; hesitates to allow the execution of the Queen of Scots, ib. ; dismisses Davison, 458 ; her triumph at the defeat of the Armada, 462 ; allies herself with Henry IV., 464 ; shows favour _ to Essex, ^ ib. ; erects the Court of High C-ommission, 470 ; sends Essex to Ireland, 475 ; turns against Essex, 476 ; withdraws monopolies, 478 ; nature of the work of, 479 ; death of, 480 Elizabethan architecture, 465 INDEX 101 feLL £llenborough, Lord, sends Sir Charles Napier to conquer Sindh, 950 Elmet conquered by Eadwine, 43 Emma marries ^Eihelred, 81 Empire, the Western, revived by Charles the Great, 55 Empson and Dudley, exactions of, 357 ; execution of, 363 Encumbered Estates Act, the, 934 Engagement, the, between Charles I. and the Scottish Commissioners, 556 _ England, early social and political insti- tutions of, 29- 32 ; contrasted with Gaul, 37 ; commerce with Gaul re- newed by, 38 ; Christianity introduced into, 39 : growing power of three kingdoms in, 41 ; character of the later conquests in, 44 ; iiolitical changes in, 45 ; spread of Christianity in, 49 ; in- fluence of Church Councils on the political unity of, 52 ; Ecgberht’s over- lordship in, 55 ; attacks of the North- men and Danes on, 56 ; its condition under iElfred, 60 ; its relations with Scotland, 63, 68 ; development of the institutions of, 69 ; Danish conquest of, 79-83; Norman conquest of, 96-103; Norman constitution of, 113 ; civil war in, 134 ; pacification oi, 137 ; adminis- trative reforms of Henry II. in, 140 ; made tributary to the Papacy, 180 ; military reforms in, 154 ; effect of the reign of Henry II. on, 158 ; constitu- tional result of the administration of Hubert Walter in, 163 ; growth ot learning in, 167 ; growth of commerce in, 168 ; architectural changes in, 170 ; the Barons’ Wars in, 200-203 ; archi- tectural and literary growth in, 206, 207 ; complete national unity of, 208 ; completion of the Parliamentary con- stitution of, 218, 220, 228, 243; relieved of tribute to the Papacy, 258 ; social and moral condition of, during the Wars of the Roses, 330 England, the Church of, Wilfrid’s in- fluence on, 50 ; parochial organisation of, ib.\ its close connection with the State, 52: councils of, ib. \ organisation of, after the Norman Conquest, 106 ; its relations with Stephen, 134 ; and with Henry II., 149 ; result of the Angevin reigns on, 166 ; Papal exac- tions resisted by, 194 ; payments ex- acted from, 197 ; temporary Parlia- mentary representation of the clergy of, 219 ; taxation resisted by the clergy of, 220; social condition of, 236; supports Henry IV., 291 ; members of noble families in the episcopate^ of, ib. ; procures a statute for burning here- tics, 292 ; proposal to confiscate the property of, 294 ; relations of Henry VIIL with, 377 ; dealings of Henry VIII. with,_ 386 ; the clergy acknow- ledge the king supreme head of, 386 ; becomes more national, 391 ; Parlia- ment acknowledges the king to be C. EXC supreme head of, 393 ; Cranmer’s position in, 413 ; ecclesiasti al changes in. 414 ; issue of the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. fur. 415 ; Zwinglian teaching in, 416; issue "f the se ond Prayer Book of E ward VI. for, 418 ; reconcileil to the see of Rome, 424 ; Elizabeth’s settlement of, 429 ; pusiaon of, during Parker’s archbishopric, 430; Presbyterian moveme t in, 446 ; Pres- byterianism adopted by ihe Assemb y of Divines for, 543 ; restoration of episcopacy in, 583 ; proposal to esta- blish a mi.dified episc pacy in, ib.\ promise of James II. to protect, 634 English, the, origin of the name of, 28 ; nature of their conquest of Britain, 29 ; village settlements of, ib. ; division o< ranks among, ib. ; effect of the con quest of Britain on the language 01, 31; early political organisation of, ih. : early judicial system of, 32 ; position of, un ler William I., 104 ; support William II., 115 ; support Henry I., 124 ; cease to be distinguished from Normans, 155 ; reappearance of their language in literature, 207 ; predomi- nance of their language, 258 Eorls, distinguished from Ceorls, 29 ; ttieir relation to Gesiths, 30 Erse, a Goidelic language, 7 Eskimos, compared with palaeolithic men, 3 Essay on Woman, 770 Essex, Arthur Capel, Earl of, suicide of, 625 Essex, Frances, Countess of, divorce and remarriage of, 486 Essex, Robert Devereux, second Earl of, joins in the capture of Cadiz, 464 ; sent to Ireland, 475 ; placed in confine- ment on his return 476 ; insurrection of, 477 : trial and execution of, 478 Essex, Robert Devereux, third Earl of, divorce of 486 : appointed general of the Parliamentary army, 537 ; com- mands at Edgehi'l, ib. ; takes Reading, 538 : relieves Gloucester and commands at the first battle of Newbury, 539 ; escapes from Lostwithiel, 544 ; resigns, 545 Essex, Saxon settlement in, 28 ; is de- pendent on Kent, and accepts Chris- tianity, 40 ; relapses into heathenism, 41 ; comparative weakness of, ib. Eugene, Prince, fights in Italy. 680 ; combines with Marlborough at Blen- heim, 682; raises the -iege of Turin, 684 : attacks Toulon, 689 : combines with Marlborough at Malolaquet, 690 ; recalled by the Archduke Charles, 695 ; defeated at Denain, 696 Eustace, Count of Boulogne, visits Eadward the Confessor, 87 Eustace, son of Stephen, death of, 137 Evesham, battle of, 203 Exchequer, the, organised by Roger of Salisbury’, 127 ; disorganised under 3U ioi6 INDEX EXC Stephen, 134; reorganised under Henry II., 140 ; establishment of a se- parate Court of, 212 Excise Bill, the, brought in by Walpole, 722 : withdrawn, 724 Exclusion Bill, the, brought in, 617 ; rejected by the House of Lords, 621 ; lost by dissolution, ib. Exeter taken by William I., 102 ; be- sieged by Fairfax, 549 Exeter, Henry Courtenay, Marquis of, executed, 399 Exhibition, the Great, 937 Expenditure of the Crown, parliamentary inquiry into, 593 Factory Act, the first, 911 ; extension of the, 927 Factory sy-tem, the, 876 Faddiley, battle of, 35 Fairfax, Ferdinando, second Lord, defeated at Adwalton Moor, 538 Fairfax, Thomas, third Lord Fairfax, as Sir Thomas Fairfax, is defeated at Adwalton Moor, 538 ; wins a victory at Nantwich, 542 ; appointed General of the New Model army, 545 ; re- lieves Taunton, 547 ; commands at Naseby, 548; follows up his successes, 548, 54.9; reduces the king’s army in Cornwall, 550 ; proposed as com- mander of the forces retained after the disbandment of the army, 553 ; as Lord Fairfax, puts down the rising in Kent and takes Colchester, 557 ; absents himself from the High Court of Justice, 559 : refuses to command in the war against Charles II., 563; joins Monk, 576 Falaise, Treaty of, 154 ; abandoned by Richard I., 159 Falkirk, Wallace defeated at, 222 Falkland, Lucius Cary, Viscount, one of the leaders of the anti-Presbyterian pai ty in the Long Parliament, 533 ; death of, 539 Family Compact, the, signature of, 725 ; renewal of, 737 : second renewal of, 766 Faukes de Breaut6, banishment of, 187 Fawkes, Guy, takes part in the Gun- powder Plot, 483 - Felton, John, affixes the Pope’s ex- communication to the door of the Bishop of London’s house, 442 Felton, John, murders the Duke- of - Buckingham, 510 Fenians, the, 962 Ferdinand I., Emperor, inherits the German terri to lies of Charles V., 426 Ferdinand II., Emperor, loses and re- gains the crown of Bohemia, 490 Ferdinand V., king of Aragon, marries Isabella of Castile, 349 ; Italian wars of,:' 363 f conquers Navarre, 364 ; death of, 366 Ferdinand VII^ king of Spain, restored to power by a French army, 882 FOU Ferdinand of Brunswick, Prince com- mands in Hanover, 752 ; defeats the French at Minden, 756 Ferry Bridge, skirmish at, 429 Feudal dues, bargain offered by James I. for, 484 ; abolition of, 582 Feudality, early forms of, 81 ; after the N orman Conquest, 104 ; organised by William L, 113 ; Flambard’s further organisation of, 116; ideas of Edward I. on, 214 Field of the Cloth of Gold, the, 369 Fielding, writes Tom Jones, Fifeh-Monarchy men, 567 ; oppose Cromwell, 569 Finchley, the march to, 740 Fire of London, the, 592 First of June, battle of the, 828 Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, opposes the divorce of Henry VII I., 382 ; sent to the Tower, 392 ; execution of, 394 Fitzgerald, Flogging, 840 Fitzmaurice, Sir James, lands in Ireland, 452 Fitz-Osbem, William, oppresses the English, 102 Fitzwilliam, Earl, enters Pitt’s cabinet, 828 ; his mission to Ireland, 832 Five Articles of Perth, the, 525 Five Boroughs, the, 62 Five Knights’ case, the, 507 Five Members, the, 535 ; brought back to Westminster, 536 Five Mile Act, the, 590- Flambard, Ranulf, t>Tanny of, 116 ; im- prisonment of, 122 ; escapes, 124 Flamsteed, astronomer, 632 Flanders, commercial intercourse with, 211 ; Edward I. in, 221; alliance of Edward III. with, 235 ; falls under the control of France, 278 Fleetwood named General by the army, 575 . Flemings emigrate to Wales, 128 ; in- troduced as weavers by Edward III., 236 Fleurus. Luxembourg’s victory at, 657 Fleury, Cardinal, ministry of, 718 Flodden, battle of, 364 Florida, ceded by Spain to England, 766 ; restored to Spain, 798 Folk-moot, functions of the, 33 Fontenoj', battle of, 739 Forest, Friar, burnt, 398 Forests, the, fines for -encroaching on, 523 ; the king’s claims on, limited, 531 Forster, introduces a new system of education, 964 ; introduces a bill for the use of the ballot, q66 ; Irish policy of, 971 : -resignation Tof, tb\ Fort Duquesne, built by the French, 748 ; taken by the British, 753 FortSt. George built, 758 F ort William built byEast India Com- pany, 758 Fotheringhay, execution of Mary Stuart at, 458 Fountains Abbey, 129 INDEX 1017 FOX Fox, Charles James, supports Parlia- mentary reform, 789 : character of, 790; refuses to serve under Melbourne, 798; coalesces with North, 800; sup- ports Pitt’s motion on Parliamentary reform, 801 ; brings forward an India Bill, 806 ; his ‘ martyrs,’ 808 ; his con- duct in the debates on the Regency Bill, 811 : sympathises with the revo- lutionists in France, 822 ; continues in opposition, 828 ; excluoed from Pitt’s second ministrjr, 848 ; Secretary of S ate in the ministry of All the Talents, 855 ; death of, ib. Fox, Henry, becomes leader of the House of Commons, 747 ; resigns office, 749 ; accepts a lucrative ap- pointment, 751 Fox, Richard, Bishop of Winchester, minister of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., 363 France, social condition of, 235 ; niiser- able state of, 251, 252 ; friendship of Richard II. with, 282 ; reign of Louis XII. in, 363; attack of Hen^ VIII. on, 364: in alliance with England, 366; invaded by Henry VIII., 371 ; peace with, 374 ; Mary at war with, 426 : recovery of Calais by, 427 ; civil wars in, 436-443; Philip II. supports the League in, 464 ; allied with James L, SOI ; Charles I. breaks with, 506 ; Charles I. makes peace with, 514 ; allied with Cromwell against Sjiain, 572 ; Danhy’s policy directed against, 610: war of William ILL with, 657; peace made at Ryswick with, 667 ; grat'd alliance formed against, 675 : war conducted by Marlborough against, 678 : decline in the military ;jower of, 682 : peace made at Utrecht with, 696 ; pacific policy of the Whigs towards, 707 ; recovery of military strength 725 : takes part in the war of the Austrian succession, 733 ; peace of Aix-la-Chapelle with, 743 ; her posses- sions in North America, 747 ; embarks on the Seven Years’ War, 749 ; peace with, 766 ; secretly assists the Ameri- cans, 786 ; openly allies herself with America, 787 ; her navy master of the sea, 788 ; her fleet compels the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, 794 ; makes peace with Great Britain, 798 : commercial treaty with, 810 ; antecedents of the revolution in, 820 : calling of the States-General in, 821 : progress of the revolution in, ib. ; rise of a warlike feeling in, 824 : declares war against Austria and Prussia, 824 ; esiablishrnent of a republic in, 825 ; victorious in the Austrian Netherlands, ib. ; at war with England and the Dutch republic, 826 ; Reign of Terror in, ib. ; end of the Reign of Terror in, ib. ; makes peace with Prussia and Spain, 829 ; establishment of the Directory in, FRE 830 ; Malmesbury sent to negotiate a peace in, 834 ; establishment of the Consulate in, 839 ; Treaty of Amiens with, 846; renewed war with, 848; establishment of the Empire in, 850 ; restoration of Louis XVlIl. in, 871 ; restoration of Napoleon in, 874 ; second restoration of Louis XVI II. in, 875 ; establishment of Louis Philippe in, 89S ; supports Mehemet Ali, 922 ; the entente cordiale with, 927 ; establish- ment of the se ond Republic in, 934 ; Louis Napoleon President of the Re- public in, 955 , commercial treaty with, 959 ; German invasion of, 964 ; third Republic established in, ib. Francis L, king of France, his rivalry with Charles V., 366-369; nieets Henry VIII. on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, 369 ; goes to war with Charles V. about Milan, 371 ; captured at Pavia, 372 : liberated, 374 Francis II., king of France, married as Dauphin to Mary Queen of Scots, 413 ; accession and death of, 433 Francis II., king of Hungary, after- wards emperor, at war with France, ^24 . Francis of Assisi, St., 190 Francis, Philip, the probable author of Junius, 775 ; his opposition to Hast- ings, 803 Franciscans, the, constitution of, 190; arrive in England, 191 Frederick L, Barbarossa, Emperor, sup- ports an anti-pope, 145 Frederick II., Emperor, excommunica- tion of, 194 : death of 195 Frederick II., king of Prussia, claims Silesia, 733 ; defeats the Austrians at Mollwitz, 734; obtains the cession of Silesia, 735 ; enters on the second Silesian war, 737 ; fights in Saxony and Bohemia, 752 ; defeats the French at Rossbach and the Austrians at Leuthen, ib. ; fights at Zorndorf and Hochkirch, 753: continues the stru gg le. 756 ; complains that England has abandoned him, and makes peace at Hubertsburg, 767 Frederick V., Elector Palatine, marries Elizabeth, daughter of James I., 488 ; elected King ot Bohemia, -90 ; driven out of Bohemia, ib. ; diplomatic efforts of James L, in favour of, 496; loses the Palatinate, 497 Frederick, Prince of Wales, quarrels with his father and puts himself at the head of the opposition, 725 Free-trade, Adam Smith promulgates the doctrine of, 810 ; Pitt’s measures in support of, ib. ; steps taken by Huskisson and Robinson in the direc- tion of, 886 Freemen, gradual disappearance of, 69 French, the, Dukes of, 63 ; Hugh Capet; king of, 80 French Revolution, the ; see France loi8 INDEX FRl Friars, the, orders of, 190; arrive in England, 191 Friedland, baitle of, 858 Frith b rnt, 90 Frobisher ho'ds a command against the Armada, 460 Fuentes d'Onoro, battle of, 869 Furniture, improvement of, in Eliza- bethan houses, 465 Fyrd, the, a general army of the villagers, 30 ; iElfred reforms, 60 ; comparative disuse of, 69-; retained after the Nor- man Conquest, 106 ; see Assize of Arms Gaelic a Goidelic language, 7 Gage, General, sent as Governor of Massachusetts, 782 ; recalled, 784 Gajnas, the, settlements of, 28 Gainsborough, origin of the name of, 28 Galway, County, Wentworth punishes the iury of, 528 Galway, Earl of, occupies Madrid, 684 ; retreats to Valencia, 685 ; defeated at Almanza, 689 ; see Ruvigny, Marquis of Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, sent to Rome by Henry VIII., before he is a bishop, 382 ; opposes far her in- novations, 41 1 ; excluded from the Council, 412 : sent to the Tower, 414 ; deprived of his see, 416 ; made Lord Chancellor by M«ry, 421 Garter, the order of the, institution of, 246 Gascoigne, Chief Justice, 299 Gates, General, defeated at Camden, 788 Gaul, trade of Britain with, 8, 12 ; per- sistency of Roman civilisation in, 37 ; renewal of trade with, 38 Gauls arrive in Britain, 8 Gaveston, Piers, favoured by Edward II., 224 ; execution of, 226 General warrants declared illegal, 769, 770 Geneva, establishment of Calvin’s system at, 430 Gentry, the country, 633 GeolFrev, Count of Anjou, marries the Empress Matilda, 131; conquers Nor- mandy, 136 Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, Justiciar, 163 Geoffi-ey, son of Henry II., marries the heiress of Brittany, 155 ; dies, 156 George I. proclaimed king, 701 ; places the Whigs in office, 702 ; effect of his withdrawal from cabinet meetings, 704 ; becomes unpopular, 705 *, dis- misses Townshend, 709 ; death of, 718 George II., accession of, 718 ; keeps Walpole in power, 719 ; supports Marxa Theresa, 735 ; defeats the French at Dettingen, 737 ; laments the death of Henry Pelham, 746 ; in- sists on the execution of Byng, 750 ; death of, 764 George III., accession and aims of, 765 ; forces Pitt and Newcastle to resign, 766 . puts himself at the head of the new T^ry party, 767 ; his GLA method of governing, 768 ; his struggle with Grenville, 770; dismisses Rock- ingham, and places Chatham in office, 773 : makes Lord North Prime Minis- ter, 776 ; has public opinion on his side against the Americans, 777 ; resolves to put down resistance in Boston, 780 ; refuses to admit Chatham to office except as North’s subordinate, 787 ; declares against dividing the empire, 787 ; attributes the dissipations of his eldest son to Fox, 800 ; obtains the re- jection of Fox's India Bill, 806; his relations with Pitt, 808 ; mental de- rangement of, 811 : thanksgiving for the recovery of, 812 : attacked by a mob, 830 : protests against Catholic emancipation, 833 ; refuses his con- sent to Pitt’s proposals on behalf of the Irish Catholics, 842 ; short mental derangement of, 843 ; abandons the title of King of France, 846 ; insi>ts on the exclusion of Fox from Pitt’s second ministry, 848 ; expels from office the ministry of All the Talents, 857 ; his remark on the bombardment of Copenhagen, 862 ; becomes per- manently insane, 868 ; death of, 880 George IV,, accession of, 880; separated from his wife, 881 ; his interview with Goderich, 893 ; death of, 898 George, Prince of Wales (son of George III.), dissipated life of, 800; b'll for conferring the regency on, 81 1 ; his misconduct towards his father, 812 ; becomes Regent, 868 ; becomes King, 880 ; see George IV. George of Denmark, Prince, deserts James II., 645 Geraldine rebellion, the, 402 Gerard murders William of Orange, 456 Gerard and Vowel’s plot, 369 German confederation, the, 873 German empire, foundation of a new, 964 Germany, attempt of the Frankfurt parliament to unite, 934 ; dissolution of the Frankfurt parliament in, 936: formation of a North German Confede- ration in, 963 ; goes to war withFrance, 964 Gesiths, the, personal devotion of, 30 ; their relation to the Ceorls, ib. ; their name changed to that of Thegns, 31 Gewissas, the, combine with Jutes, 28 ; see West Saxons Ghent, Jacob van Arteveldt at, 235 ; Philip van Arteveldt at, 278 ; pacifica- tion of, 450 ; peace of, 873 Gibraltar, surrenders to Sir G. Rcoke, 682 : assigned to England by the Treaty of Utrecht, 696 : siege of, by the French and Spaniards, 798 Ginkell, General, commands in Ireland, ‘ Give us our eleven days ! ’ 744 Gladstone, as a minister under Peel, 926 ; becomes Chancellor of the INDEX 1019 GLA Exchequer in the Aberdeen ministry, 943 ; opposes a war with China, 955 ; Chancellor of the Exchequer in Palmerston’s second ministry, 956 : supports the commercial treaty with France, 958 ; becomes Prime Minister, 962 ; disestablishes the Protestant Church of Ireland, ib. ; passes an Irish Land Act, 963 ; abolishes pur- chase in the army, 964 ; foreign policy of the ministry of, 965 ; resignation of, 966; Prime Minister for the second time, 970 ; resignation of, 972 Glamorg n, Edward Herbert, Marquis of, his secret mission to Ireland, 549 Glanvile, Ranulf de, captures William the L on, 154 ; writes the first English law-book, 167 Glasgow, the Assembly of, 526 Glastonbury, Dunstan, abbot of, 65 ; proceedings of Dunstan at, 106 Glastonbury, the Abbot of, executed, 400 Glencoe, massacre of, 654 Glendower, Owen, heads the Welsh, 293 ; decline of the power of, 296 Glevum (Gloucester), Saxon conquest of, 35 Gloucester, Duke of (brother of Edward IV.), see Richard III. Gloucester, Duke of, Humphrey(brother of Henry_ V.), appointed Protector, 307 ; marries Jacqueline of Hainault, 308 ; quarrels with Cardinal Beaufort, 309, 314; his relations with Eleanor Cobham, 315 ; advocates a war policy, 317 ; death of, 318 Gloucester, Duke of (son of Queen Anne), dea?h of, 671 Gloucester, Duke of, Thomas, son of Edward III., heads the opposition to Richard II., 279; driven from power, 280 ; murdered, 282 Gloucester, Earl of (Gilbert de Clare), allies himself with Earl Simon, 200 ; becomes one of the three Electors, 201 ; joins Edward against Simon at Eves- ham, 203 Gloucester, Earl of, see^ Robert Gloucester, Earl of (Richard de Clare), quarrels with Earl Simon, 199 ; joins Earl Simon, and dies, 200 Gloucester, raising of the siege of, 539 Gloucester, see Glevum Goderich, Viscount, becomes Prime Minister, 892 ; resignation of, 893 ; see Robinson, Frederick J., and Ripon, Earl of Godfrey of Bouillon, 12 1 Godfrey, Sir Edmund Berry, murder of, 615 ‘ Godly party,’ the, 544 Godolphin, Lord, connected with Marl- borough, 677 ; his financial ability, 678 ; turns to the Whigs, 684 ; sup- ports the Union with Scotland, 685 Godwine becomes Earl of the West Sgxons, 84 ; supports Harthacnut, 85 ; GKE charged with the murder of /Elfred, 86 ; governs under Eadward, 87 ; out- lawed, 88 ; return and death of, 89 Goidels, the, a branch of the Celts, 6 ; languages spoken by the descendants of, 7 Gondomar, Count of, negotiates a Spanish alliance with James I., 488, 490 Good Parliament, the, 262 Gordon, General, murder of, 972 Gordon riots, the, 792 Goring, George (Soring, Lord, defeated at Langport, 548 Gough, General, d< feats the Sikhs on the Sutlej, 951 ; becomes Lord CJough, is checked at Chillianwalla, and defeats the Sikhs at Gujerat, ib. Grafton, Duke of. First Lord of the Treasury, 773 ; resignation of, 776 Graham of Claverhouse, John, attempts to suppress the Covenanters, 620 Graham, Sir James, resigns office, 912 ; a member of Peel’s cabinet, 926 Grammar-schools, foundation of, 419 Granada, conquest of, 349 Grand Alliance, the, signed by William 111., 675 Grand Remonstrance, the, 534 Grattan leads the movement for the legislative independence of Ireland, 795 ; resists the Union, 842 Graupian Hill, the, battle of, 17 Gray, his Elegy quoted by Wolfe, 755 Great Contract, the, 484 Great Council, the, composition of, 113; urges William to name an archbishop, 117 ; summoned to Rockingham, 118 ; becomes unimportant under Henry I., 126 ; frequently consulted by Henry 11., 141 ; meets at Clarendon, 144 ; remonstrates with Henry III., 188, 192 ; refuses money to Henry III., 194 ; begins to be known as Parlia- ment, 195 ; meets at York, 529 ; see Parliament Great Mogul, the break-up of the empire of, 758 Greece, national uprising in, 884 ; battle of Navarino fought for the liberation of, 893 ; acquires Thessaly, 970 Greenwich Hospital, foundation of, 663 Greenwood hanged, 472 Gregorian calendar, the, introduced into England, 743 Gregory I., Pope, finds English slave- boys at Rome, 28 ; sends Augustine to England, 39 Gregory VII,, Pope, his relations with William I., 107 Gregory IX., Pope, demands money from England, 194 Grenville, George, character of, _ 768 ; becomes Prime Minister, 769 ; issues a general warrant, ib. ; offends George 111., 770; carries the Stamp Act, 771 ; dismissal of, ib. ; asserts that the House of Commons has no right to 1020 INDEX GRE HAS incapacitate Wilkes, 774 ; death of, 779 Grenville, Lord, reolies to Bonaparte’s overt re for peace, 840 ; refuses to join Pitt’s second ministry, 848 ; be- comes Prime Minister, 855 Grey, advocates Parliamentary reform, 827 : continues in opposition, 828 ; see Grey, Earl Grey, Arthur, T-ord, slaughters foreign soldiers at Smerwick, 453 Grey, Earl, becomes Prime Minister, 901 ; resignation of, 912 Grey, family of, favoured by Edward IV., 331 Grey, John de, nominated Archbishop of Canterbury by John^ 177 ; unpopu- larity of, 178 Grey, Lady Catherine, marriage and imprisonment of, 4^5 Grey, Lady Jane, is proclaimed Queen, 420 ; executed, 423 Grey, Lord Leonard, becomes Lord Deputy of Ireland, 402 ; conquers a great part of Ireland, 404 Grey, Sir Thomas, execution of, 301 Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury, suspension of, 450 Grocyn encourages the study of Greek at Oxford, <67 Grossetete, Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, opposes Henry IIL, 194, 195 ; death of, 197^ Grote, his History of Greece^ 941 Gualo, legate of Honorius III., 183 Guerillas, ihe Spanish, 869 Guiana, Raleigh’s voyage to, 489 ; British, conque t of, 859 Gnicowar, the, a Mahratta chief, 802 Guinegatte, battle of the Spurs at, 364 Guise, Francis, Duke of, takes Calais, 427 ; murder of, 436 Guise, Henry, Duke of, heads the French Catholics, 443: con-pires to murder Elizabeth, 454 *, heads the League, 456 ; murdere 1, 464 Guisnes, taken by the French, 427 Guizot becomes Prime Minister in France, 922 Gunpowder Plot, the, 483 Guthrum defeats Alfred, 58 ; makes peace at Wedmore, 59 ; cedes London to iElfred, ib. ; extent of the kingdom of, 62 Gwledig, British title of, 26 ; title thought to have been assumed by Eadwine, 44 Gwynedd under Caedwalla, 46 Gyrth, Earl of East Anglia, 89 Habeas Corpus Acty 617, suspension of, 877 ; end of the suspension of, 879 Habeas corpus, writ of, dispute whether it ought to show the cause of imprison- ment, 507 Hadrian, the Emperor, wall of, 17 Hague, the, conference at, 6qo Hales, destruction of the phial at, 398 Hales, Sir Edward, holds an appoint- ment by the dispensing power, 639 Halidon Hill, the Scots deeated at, 234 Halifax, George Savile, Earl, afterwards Marquis of, supports the Duke of York’s succession, 618; persuades the House ot Lords 1 o reject the Exclusion Bill, 621 ; advises Charles II. to summon Parliament, 626 ; dismissed by James II., 638 Hailey, astronomer, 632 Hamilton, Janies Hamilton, Duke of, as Marquis of Hamilton dissolves the Assembly of Glasgow, 526 ; is defeated at Preston, S57 Hamilton family support Mary, 440 Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh assassinates the regent Murray, .^41 Hampden resists ship-money, 524 ; calms the House of Commons after the passing of the Grand Remon- strance, 534 ; one of the five members, 535 : death of, 538 Hampton Court Conference, the, 482 Hanover, George I. anxious to secure, 709 ; Pitt attacks Carteret for his devotion to the interests of, 738 ; New- castle provides for the defence of, 748 ; Pitt asks for a grant for the protection of, 750 ; overrun by the French, 752 ; Pitt s measures for the defence of, ib. *, seized by Bonaparte, 848 ; offered alternately to England and Prussia, 855 Harfleur taken by Henry V., 302 ; se- cured by the Duke of Bedford, 303 Hargreaves invents the spinning-jenny, 815 Harlech Castle, surrender of, 550 Harley, Sir Robert, comes into office as a moderate Tory, 681 ; obtains the re- jection of an Occasional Conformity Bill, 682 ; turned out of office, 687 ; is a member of a purely Tory ministry, 691 : recommends the creation of twelve peers, 695 ; becomes Lord Treasurer and Earl of Oxford, 696 ; see Oxford, Earl of Harold^ Hardrada invades England, 94 ; is slain at Stamford Bridge, 96 Harold, son of Cnut, chosen king by the Mercian", 85; death of, '86 Harold, son of Godwine, earl of the West Saxons, 89 ; rules England under Eadward, 90 ; chosen king, 91 ; his oath to William, 93 ; marches into the North, 94 ; defeats Harold Hardrada at Stamford Bridge, 95 ; defeated and slain at Senlac, 98 Harthaenut, chosen king of the West Saxons, 85 ; comes to England, and dies, 86 Hastings, battle of, see Senlac Hastings, John, claims a third of Scot- land, 215 . TV- 1. J Hastings, Lord, turns against Richard III., 339; execution of, 340 INDEX 102 T HAS Hastings, Marquis of, Governor-General of India, 048 Hastings, Warren, appointed Governor of Bengal, 801 ; his authoiity dimin- ished b^y the Regulating Act, 803 ; the execution of Nuncomar happened at an opportune time for, ib. ; engages in a struggle with the Mahrattas, 804 ; demands a large contribution from Cheyt Singh, ib. ; enforces the pay- ment of money by the Begums of Oude, 805 ; character of his rule, ib. ; resignation of, 808 ; impeachment of, 3 n Havelock relieves Lucknow, 953 Havre occupied and abandoned by Elizabeth, 436 Hawke, Admiral, sent out against the French, 748 ; defeats the French in Quiberon Bay, 756 Hawley, General, defeated at Falkirk, 740 Hazlerigg, Sir Arthur, one of the five members, 535 Heads of the Proposals., the, 555 Heathfield, battle of, 46 Heavenfield, battle of, 47 Hedgeley Moor, battle of, 331 Helie de la Fleche opposes William II., 121 Hengist, traditional leader of the Jutes, 27 Henrietta Maria, Queen, negotiations for the marriage of, 500 ; marries Charles L, 502 ; a papal agent at the Court of, 521 ; carries abroad the crown jewels, 536 ; urges Charles not to abandon the militia, 552 Henry 1 . receives no land at his father’s death, 114 ; his wars with his brothers, 1 19 ; accession and marriage of, 122 ; puts down insurrections, 124 ; conquers Normandy, 125 ; his dispute with Anselm, zA; judicial reforms of, 127; makes war in Normandy, 129 ; loses his only son, 130 ; death of, 131 Henry II., early career of, 136 ; marries Eleanor, 137 ; character of, 138 ; ad- vances Thomas of London, 140; ad- ministrative system of, 140- 142 ; ap- points Thomas archbishop,and quarrels- with him, 143 ; draws up the Consti- tutions of Clarendon, 144 ; persecutes Thomas, 145 ; issues the Assize 01 Clarendon, 146 ; renews the itinerant justices, and inquires into the conduct of the sheriffs, 148 ; has young Henry crowned, 149 ; uses strong language against Thomas, 150 ; goes to Ireland, 151 ; renounces the Constitutions 01 Clarendon, 153 ; does penance, 154 ; issues the Assize of Arms, ib.\ his domestic troubles, 155 ; takes the cross and dies, 157 ; his weakness on the Continent and strength in England, 158 ; literary vigour under, 167 Henry II., king of France, allied with Scotland, 413 ; his attitude towards Elizabeth, 432 ; death of, 433 HEN Henry III., minority of, 185 ; favours Poitevins under the influence of Peter des Roches, 187 ; marries Eleanor ot Provence and favours Provencals, 192 ; frequently renews the Great Charter, 192 ; quarrels with Simon de Mont- fort, 193 ; surrenders Poitou, 194 ; is opposed by Parliament, 195 ; hopes to make his second son King of Sicily, 196 ; misgovernment of, 197 ; consents to the Provisions of Oxford, 198 ; recovers power, 200 taken prisoner at Lewes, 201 ; last years of, 204 ; progress of the country in the reign of, 206 Henry III., king of France, proposes, as Duke of Anjuu,to ma>ry Elizabeth, 443 ; accession of, 450 ; murder of, 464 Henry IV. {i,ee Derby, Earl of) claims the throne, 286 ; meets with difficulties, 289 ; leans on the Church, 291 ; rebel- lion of the Percies against, 293 ; keeps James I. as a hostage, 295 ; suppresses a rebellion in the North, 296 ; quarrels with the Prince of Wales, 298 ; death of, 299 Henry IV., king of France, his succes- sion to the French crown disputed, 456 ; overpowers the League, 464 Henry IV., Emperor, resists Gregory VII., 108 Henry V., career of, as Prince of Wales, 297-299 ; domestic policy of, 299 ; claims the crown of France, 300; defeats the F rench at Agincourt, 302 ; conquers Normandy, 303 ; forms an alliance with the Duke of Burgundy, and is declared heir to the French throne, 306 ; marriage and death of, ib. _ Henry V,, Emperor, marries Matilda, 131 Henry VI., accession of, 307 ; crowned at Westminster and Paris, 312 ; mar- riage of, 317 ; supports Somerset, 323.; insanity of, ib.\ recovery and renewed insanity of, 324 ; second recovery of, ib. ; attempts to reconcile the parties, 325 ; declared a traitor by Edward IV., 329 ; restoration of, 333 ; murder of, 334 Henry VI., Emperor, his relations with Richard I., 161, 162 Henry VII., as Earl of Richmond, genealogy of, 334 ; invades England, 343 ; defeats Richard III, and be- comes king, ib. ; supported by the middle classes, 345; suppresses - Lord Lovel’s rising, 346 ; his relations with Brittany and F ranee, 348 ; assailed by Perkin Warbeck, 350 ; sends Poynings to Ireland, 352 ; restores Kildare to the Deputyship, 352 ; secures Warbeck, ib. ; effects an alliance with Scotland, 356 ; encourages maritime enterprise, 356 ; fills his treasury, 357 ; his alliance with the Archduke Philip, 358 ; last years and death of, 358 1022 INDEX HEN Henry VIIT., character of, 3^1 ; marries Catharine of Aragon, 363 ; foreign policy of, lb. ; promotes Wulsey ib. ; favours More, 368 ; meets Franc s I. on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, 369 : has Buckingham executed, ib. ; lnvade•^ France, 371 ; his views on his relations with the Church, 377 ; is named Defender of the Kaith, 379 ; thinks ot obtamii g a divorce, ib. ; urges Clement VII. to div irce him, 382 ; demands a sentence > nullity, 3s <; makes a victim of Wolsey, ib. ; gains the s pport of the House of Commons, .185 ; c nsults the uni- versities, and charges th clergy with being under a pr emunire, ib. ; obtains from Convocat on the title of Supreme Head, j86 ; ha^ n • tenderness towards heresy, 388 ; obtains the Act of An- na' es, ib. ; marries Anne Boleyn, and is divorced, -89 : attempts to suppress heresy, and obtains fresh powers trom Parliament, 390 ; sends More and F isher to the Tow er, 3 2 *, Act of Supremacy in favour of, 393 ; dissolves the sma ler monasteries, 394 ; marries J.ne Seymour, 39-; issues the ten article-, and authorises the translation of the Bible. 396 ; > leals hardly with the Pilgrimage of Grace, 397 ; begins the confiscation of the greater monaste'ies, ib. ; attacks relics and images, 398 ; presides at Lambert’s trial, 395 ; obtains from Far iament the six articles, 39 . ; marries and divorces Anne of Cleves, 400-401 ; marries and beheads Cath rine Howard, 401 ; marries Catheiine Parr, ib. ; his government of Ireland, 401-404 ; takes Boulogne, 403 ", makes war ^ wiih Scotland, 406 ; debases the coinage, 409 : death of, 41 1 Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester, 131 ; declares against Stephen, 134 Henry of Trastamara, 255 Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James I., intention of theGunpowd r plotters to blow up, 48 { ; death of, 488 Henry, son of Henry II., coronation of, 149 ; rebellion of, 153 ; death of, 156 Henry the Fowler, his mode of warfare, 79 Hereford, besieged by the Scots, 549 Hereford, Duke of, see Derby, Earl of Hereford, Earl of, see Bohun, Hum- frey Heresy held to be punishable by the Common Law, 419 Heretics, Statute for burning, 292 Hereward, rising of, 103 Herrings, battle of the, 309 Hertford, Earl of, see Somerset, Edward Seymour, Duke of Hexham, battle of, 331 High C mmission, the Court of, erection of, 470 ; its activity in the reign of Charles I., 520; abolition of, 531 HRO High Court of Justice, the, pronosal to constitute rejected by the Lords, 557 ; constituted by the Commons, 558 Highland Host the, 619 Hii, see Iona Hill, Rowland, post-office reform advo- cated by, 918 Hlaford, see Lord Hoche attempts to invade Ireland, 834 Hogarth, paintings of, 746 Hohenhnden, battle of, 840 Holkar, a • ■ ahratta chief, 802 ; induced to Sign subsidiary treaty, 859 Holland, province of its influence in the Dutch Republic, 89 Holies takes part in holding down the Speaker, 514; one of the five members, 535 Holmby House, Charles I. at, 553?; Charles L, removed from, 555 Holmes, Admiral, attacks the Dutch fleet, 605 Holy Alliance, the so-called, 883 H ly League, the, 363 Homiidon Hill, battle of, 293 Honorius IIL, Pope, protects Henry III., 185 Hooker, his Ecclesiastical Polity, 472 Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, refuses to wear vestments, 417; receives the bishopric of Worcester, 4'8; speaks of his dioceses as the king’s, 420 ; burnt, 424 Hopton, Sir_ Ralph, commands the Royalists in Cornwall, 537, 538 ; fights on Lansdown, 538 ; takes and loses Arundel Castle, 542 ; is defeated at Cheriton, ib. Horne Tooke, Hardy, and Thelwall, acquittal of, 829 Horsa, a traditional leader of the Jutes, 27 Horses used to carry warriors to battle, 75 Horsley, Bishop, saying of, 830 Hotha>n, Sir John, shuts the gates of Hull ai^ainst Charles I., 537 Hough, chosen Piesident of Magdalen College, 641^ Houghton, prior of the Charterhouse, execution of, 394 Hounslow, James II. reviews regiments at, 643 House-carls, 83, 93 Howard of Effingham, Charles Howard, Lord, commands the fleet against the Armada, 46 : ; takes ^ art in the capture of Cadiz, 464 Howard of Escrick, Edward Howard, Lord, informs against the Whigs, 625 Howe, Lord, defeats the French fleet on the first of June, 828 ; persuades the mutineers at Spithead to return to i heir duty, 836 Howe, Sir William, commands the British army in America, and occupies New York, 784 Hrolf, Duke of the Normans, 80 INDEX 1023 HUB Hubert de Burgh holds Dover Castle, 185 ; administration of, i86*i88 Hubert Walter, administration of, 163 ; death of, 177 Hubertsburg, peace of, 767 HudibraSy 597 Hudson’s Bay territory assigned to England, 696 Hugh Capet, 80 Hugh of Lusignan risesagainst John, 174 Hugh the Great, Duke of the French, 63 Huguenots, the, >upporied by Elizabeth, 436 ; Buckingham lends ships to fight ag in, 802 ; the Ke>^ulaiing Act alters the government of, ib . ; Pitt’s Bill for the government of, 808 ; defeat of I ippoo in, 837 ; overthrow of Tippoo in, 838 ; Wellesley’s policy of subsidiary treaties in, 859 ; the Mar- quis of Hastings in, 948 ; the north- western frontier of, ib. ; Afghanis' an invaded from, §49 ; conquest of Sindh in, 950 ; the ikh wars in, 951 ; Dal- housie’s annexations in, ib. ; the Se- poy army in, 952 ; mutiny of the Sepoy army in, 953 ; end of the authority of the East India Company m, 953 ; the Queen’s proclamation to the princes and people of, 954 India Bill, the, of tox and Burke, 806 ; of Pitt, 808 Ine, his rule in Wessex, 53 Infanta, the, see Maria, the Infanta Inkerman, battle of, ^46 Innocent IIL, Pope, influences the elec- tion of Stephen Langton, 177 ; puts England under an interdict, and re- duces John to submission, 178-180 ; declares against the barons, 181-184 5 establishes the Friars, 190 Innocent IV. becomes Pope, 195 ; wins over Henry IIL, 196 Inquisition of the Sheriffs, the, 148 Instrument of Government y they 568 Intercursus Magnus y the, 351 Interdict, England under, 178 Inverlochy, battle of, 547 Investiture, William I. claims the right of granting, 108 ; Anselm’s position with regard to, 125 ; compromise on, 126 Iona, missionaries sent forth from, 47 Ipswich, Wolsey’s college at, loum ed, 377 ; sold by Henry VIIL, 383 Ireland, ancient language of, 7 ; Druids in, 10; Christianity introduced into, 47; state of civilisation in, 151 ; partially conquered by Henry II., 152; results of the conquest of, 264 ; weakness of the English colony in, 265 ; under Lan- caster and Y ork, 346 ; under Henry VII., 350, 351: under Henry VllL, 40T ; legislation of Henry VIH. in, 402 ; 1024 INDEX IRE destruction of relics and images in, ib, ; conquest of a great part of, 404 ; Henry VIII. named king of, ib. ; under Edward VI. and Mary, 451; intro- duciion- of English colonists into, 452 ; landing of .. Sir James Fitzmanrice in, ib. ; the slaughter at Smerwick, and the Desmond rising in, 453 ; O’Neill’s rising in, 475 ; Essex’s invasion of, ib,’, Mountjoy’s conquest of, 478 ; planta- tion of Ulster in, 484; Wentworths government of, 527, 528 *, army coh lected by Strafford in, 529 ; insurrec- tion in, 533 ; massacre -in, 534; the confederate Catholics in, 541 ; Gla- morgan’s mission to, 549 ; Rinuccini in, 550, soldiers asked to volunteer for, 553 ; Cromwell in, 562 ; Ireton and Ludjow in, 567 ; act of settlement in, 595 : James II. supported by the Celtic population of, 640 ; struggle between James II. and William III. in, 654 ; penal laws in, 686 ; destruction of thecommerce of,"Z^. ; restrictions on commerce in, ib. ; volunteers in, 796 ; legis ative independence conceded to, ib. ; Pitt’s scheme for a commercial union with, 810 ; defective constitu- tional arrangements in, 831 ; rise of the United Irishmen in, 832 ; votes given to the Catholics of, ib. ; mission of Lord Fitzwilliam to, ib. ; revolutionary out- break impending in, 833 ; Hoche at- tempts to invade, 834 ; -outrages in, 840 ; rebellion in, 841 ; parliamentary union with, 842 ; struggle for Catholic emancipation in, 895 ; policy of Lord Grey’s government towards, 909 ; 'Thomas Drummond’s management of, 916: failure of O’Connell’s repeal movement in, 928; Peel’s legislation for, ib.; famine in^ 931 : Peel’s bill for the protectinn of life in, ib.; public wo'ks in, 932 : emigration from, 933 ; relation between landlord and tenant in, ib.; Encumbered Estates Act in, 934 ; Smith O’Brien’s attempted rising in, 935 ; Fenian rising in, 962 ; dis- estabii'hmei't of the Protestant Church of, ib. : Land Act of the first Gladstone ministry in, 963 ; rejection of a bill on university education in, 966 ; demand of Home-Rule for, 970; Land Act of the second Gladstone ministry in, ib. ; bill for the protection, of life and pro- perty in, ib. ; murders by the Invin- cibles in, ib. - Ireland, Duke of (see Oxford, Earl oO> supports Richard II., 279 ; is con- demned to death, but escapes, 280 Ireton draws up The Heads of the Pro- posals, 555 ; in Ireland, 563 Irish grants of William III. attacked by the Hou=e of Commons, 670 Irish Parliament, the, summoned by James II., 655; represents, under William III., only the English colony, 657 r passes a bill for the relief of JAM Catholics, 795 ; legislative independ-! ence granted: to, 796 ; sources of. the weakncss'of, Isabella of Angouleme marries John, 174 : : ■' ■; Isabella of Bavaria, Queen of France, takes part against her son, 306 Isabella of France marries Edward II., 225 ; obtains the deposition of her husband, 229; gives power to Mortimer, 231 ; is placed in seclusion, 232 Isca Silurum, Roman colony of, 14; martyrdom of Aaron at, 23 Isle of Wight, Jutish settlements in, 28; plundered by the French, 234 . . Italy, the French wars in,- 3% ; . the v French driven from, 364 - - Italy, Charles- Albert fails: to drive the Austrians out of,r934, 936 ; war for the liberation of, 956 ; , formation of the kingdom of, 957 ; Venetia ceded to, ; 963 Rome'uriited:to, 964 Itinerant justices under Henry I., 127 ; under Henry II., 148 Jacobites, the, their action in the last months of Anne’s reign, 699 ; attempt arising against George. I., 705; form part of the opposition against Walpole, 722 ■ Jacquerie, the, 252 Jacqueline of Hainault, marriage of, 308 Jamaica, conquest of, 572 James I., king of Great Britain (see James VI., king of Scotland), becomes icing _ of England, 481 ; imprisons Raleigh, ib. ; attacks the Puritans at Hamptxm Court,- 482 ; quarrels with his first House of Commons, ib. ; obtains a legal decision in the case of the Post-nati, 483 ; his government of Ireland, 484 ; his financial diffi- culties, ib. : makes Somerset his favourite, 486 ; offers to bargain with the Addled Parliament, 487 ; negoti- ates a Spanish marriage -for his son, 488 ; makes Buckingham a favourite, ib. ; sends Raleigh to execution, 489 ; watches the development of the Thirty Years’ War, and summons Parliament to vote supplies, 490 ; his views -on the prerogative, 49 ? ; sells peerages, 494 ; improvement of the finances of, ib. ; revokes monopf)lies, 495 j sends D'gby to Germany and dissolves Parliament, 496 ; raises a benevolence, 497 ; his last Parliament, 500 ; seeks to marry his son to a French princess, 501 ; death of, ib. James I., king of Scotland, kept in custody by Henry IV., 295 ; liberation of, 307 James II., as Duke of York, declares himself a Roman Catholic, 600 ; his conversion knowir, 607 ; resigns the Admiralty, ib. ; marriagi^s of, 608 ; INDEX 1025 JAM attempt to exclude from the throne, 617 ; his cruelty to the Scottish cove- nanters, 620 ; is present at his brother’s death, 627 ; accession of, 634 ; first acts of the reign of, 635 ; marches against Monmouth, 637 ; violates the Test Act and prorogues Parliament, 638 ; claims the dispensing power and establishes an ecclesiastical commis- sion, 639 ; his government of Scotland and Ireland, 640 ; issues a declaration of indulgence, ib. ; expels the Fellows of Magdalen and tries to pack a Par- liament, 641 ; issues a second declara- tion of indulgence, 642 ; hears of the acquittal of the seven Bishops, 643 ; birth of a son of, 644; makes con- cessions on hearing of William’s approach, ib. ; attempts to escape, 645 ; embarks for France, 646; alleged virtual abdication of, ib. ; lands in Ire- land, 654 : is defeated at the Boyne, and takes refuge in France, 656 ; death of, 675 _ James IV., king of Scotland, invades England, 352 ; marries the daughter of Henry VII,, 356 ; killed at Flodden, 364 James V,, king of Scotland, policy of, 404 ; death of, 405 James VI., king of Scotland, birth and accession of, 439 ; assisted by Eliza- beth, 450 ; becomes the tool of Lennox, 454 ; is captured by Protestant lonls, 455 ; becomes king of England, 481 ; see James I., king of Great Britain James (the Old Pretender), birth of, 644 Jane Seymour marries Henry VIII., 395 ; death of, 397 Jaureguy tries to murder William of Orange, 454 Jeffreys enforces the surrender of char- ters, 625 ; sends Baxter to prison, 635 ; is made Chief Justice, ib.\ conducts, the Bloody Assizes, 637 ; becomes Chancellor, 638 Jena, battle of, 857 Jenkins’s Ear, 729 Jerusalem captured by the Crusaders, 121 ; captured by Saladin, 157 ; Richard I. refuses to look at, 161 Jervis, Sir John, c >mmindsat the battle of 't. Vincent, 835 Jesuits, the, origin of, 436 ; land in England, 453 ; Act of Parliament against, 456 Jews, the, encouraged by William II., 115 ; protected by Henry I., 128 ; massacre of, 160 ; persecuted by John, 179; banished by Edward I., 212 Tews’ House, the so-called, 170 John, king of England, his misconduct in Ireland, 156 ; leads the opposition to William of Longchamps, 161 ; joins Philip II. against Richard, 162 ; ac- cession of, 173 ; loses Normandy and Anjou, 174 ; appoints an Archbishop of Canterbury', 177 ; quarrels with the KIL Pope, 178 ; submits to the Pope, 180 ; uarrels with the barons, 18 1 ; con- rms Magna, Carta, 182 ; makes war with the barons, 184 ; dies, 185 John, king of France, defeated at Poitiers, 251 ; brought to England, 252 ; is liberated, but returns to England and dies, 254 John Ball, 268 Jones, Ernest, leads the Chartists, 924 Jones, Inigo, buildings by, 632 Jones, Michael, commands in Dublin, 562 Joseph I., Emperor, succeeds Leopold I., 684 ; death of, 693 Joseph Bonaparte, becomes King of Naples, 856 ; becomes King of Spain, 863 Joyce, Cornet, carries off Charles I. from Holmby, 555 Judicial system of the early English, 31 ; of Eadgar, 72 ; of William I., 107 ; of Henry I., 127 ; of Henry II., 146 Judith accuses Waltheof, no Julius IL, papacy of, 363 ; character of, 375 yunius' Letters, probable authorship of, 775 Junto, the Whig, formation of, 659; break-up of, 669 Jury of presentment, 147 Jury system, the, germ of, 147 ; com- pleted, 321 Justices of the peace, the, origin of, 277 Justiciar, institution of the office of, 116 ; his position under Henry I., 127 Jutes, probably ravage Roman Britain, 24 ; subdue Kent, 27 ; settle in the Isle of Wight and the mainland oppo- site, 28 Keble, his Christian Year, 94a Kemp, Bishop of London, becomes Lord Chancellor, 309 Kenilworth, Earl, Simon’s castle at, 199 Kenneth, king of the Scots, receives Lothian from Eadgar, 68 Kenneth MacAlpin unites the Scots and Piets, 63 Kenmure, Lord, beheaded, 705 Kent, foundation of the J utish kingdom of, 27 ; its inhabitants driven back by the West Saxons, 35 ; Gaulish traders in, 38 ; accepts Christianity, 39 ; is kept by Lawrence from relapsing, 41 ; comparative weakness of, ib. ; rising in, suppressed by Fairfax, 557 Kent, Earl of (brother of Edward 1 1.), execution of, 231 Kentish Petition, the, 675 Keroualle, Louise de, see Portsmouth, Duchess of Ket’s reoellion, 415 Kildare, Earl of, supports the Yorkists, 347 ; supports Lambert Simnel, ib. ; is deprived of the Deputyship for sup- 1026 INDEX KIL porting Warbeck, 350 ; restored to the Deputyship, 352 Kildare, Earl of, imprisonment of, 402 Kilkenny, meeting of the Confederate Cattiolics at, 541 Kilkenny, Statute of, 265 Killiecrankie, battle ..f, 653 Kilsyth, battle of, 549 Kimbolton, Lord, see Manchester, Earl of King, authority of the, origin of, 33 ; effect of the enlargement of the king- doms on, 45 ; increased importance of, 69 ; limitations imposed by Magna Carta on, 182; proposed administrative restrictions on, 195 ; effect of the revo- lution of 1399 upon, 289 King’s Bench, Court of, 212 King’s Friends, the, 767 Kinsale, Spanish expedition to, 478 Knights Bachelors, the, appeal to Edward, 199 Knights of the shire first admitted to Parliament, 196 ; later elections of, 200, 201 ; importance of their conjunc- tion with borough members, 245 Knighthood fines, 5x5 ; prohibited, 531 Knox, John, opinions of, 41S ; urges on the Lords of the Congregation, 432 ; writes T/te Monstrous Reg. men of Women, ii. organises the Presby- terian Church 434 ; his treatment of Mary, 438 Kymry, the, origin of the name, 37 ; share in the defeat of the Scots at Degsastan, 42 ; are defeated by iEthel- frith near Chester, 43 ; geographical dismemberment of, tb . ; in alliance with Penda, 46 ; weakness of, 49 ; see Welsh La Bourdonnais takes Madras, 760 La Hogue, battle of, 658 Labourers, Statute of, 248, 268 Lafayette goes as a volunteer to Ami-rica, 786 Laibach, congress of, 882 Lake, Gene al, defeats the Irish insur- gents at Vinegar Hill, 841 ; his victo- ries in India, 859 Lambert burnt as a heretic, 399 Lambert, Major-General, defeats Booth at Winnington Bridge, 575 Lambeth, ford over the Thames at, 20 Lancaster, Duke of (John of Gaunt), makes unsuccessful war in France, 257 ; heads the anti-clerical party, 260 ; opposes the Black Prince, 262 ; reverses the proceedings of the Good Parliament, ib. ; supports Wycliffe, 263; takes the lead at the accession of Richard II., 266 ; goes to Spain, 279 ; marries Catherine Swynfprd, 282 Lancaster, Earl of (Thomas), opposes Edward IL, 225 ; execution of, 228 Lanfranc trusted by William I., 88 ; becomes Archbishop of Canterbury’; LEO 106; crowns William II. , 114; death of, 117 Langland, William, 259 Langp.irt, battle of, 548 Langs ide, defeat of Mary at, 440^ Langton, Stephen, chosen Archnishopof Canterbury at Rome, 177 ; allowed by John to come to hngland, 180; pro- duces a charter of Henry L, 181 ; his part in obtaining the Great Charter, 182 Lansdown, battle of, 538 Latimer, made Bishop of Worcester, 390 ; driven from his see, 400 ; ser- mons preached at Court by, 417 ; bu’nt, 42I5 Latimer, Lord, impeached, 262 Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, cha- racter and opinions of, 516 ; becomes Archbishop of Cantei bury, and advises the republication of the Declaration of Sports, 517 ; wishes that the com- munion table shall stand at the East end, ib. ; conducts a metropolitical visitation, 520 ; unpopularity of, 521 ; imprisonment of, 530; execution of, 546 Lauderdale, John Maitland, Earl of, strengthens the king’s authority in Scotland, 602 ; his management of Scotland, 619 Lawrence, Archbishop of Canterbury, keeps Kent Christian, 41 Lawrence, Sir Henry, governs the Pun- jab, 951 ; besieged in Lucknow, 953: killed, ib. Lawrence, Sir John, governs the Pun- jab, 951 ; sends Sikh troops to Delhi, 953 , ^ Layamon s Brut^ 207 Le Mans sieges of, 121 League, the, formed against Henry of Navarre, 456 •Legge, dismissal of, 748 Leicester, Anglian settlement at, 36 ; earldom of, inherited by Simon de Montfort, 193 Leicester, Earl of, shares the Justiciar’s office with Richard de Lucy, 140 Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of, favoured by Elizabeth, 435 ; made Earl of Leicester, 438 ; commands an army in the Netherlands, 457 Leighton punished by the Star Chamber, 514 Leith, surrender of the French garrison of, 433 . , Lely, Sir Peter, portraits by, 631 Lennox, Esme Stuart, Duke of, favourite of Jam s VI., 455 Lennox, Matthew Stuart, Earl of. Regent of Scotland, 443 Lenthall, Speaker of the Long Parlia- ment, 536 Leo IX., Papacy of, 88 Leo X., Pope, character of, 375 Leofric, Earl of the Mercians, 85, 90 Leofwine, Earl of the Mercians, 84 INDBX 1027 LEO Leofwlne, son of Godwine, earl of the shires about the Thames, 90 Leopold 1., Emperor, marries the da gliterof Philip IV. ol Spain, 592; death of, 684 Leopold 11.. Emperor, his attitude to- wards France, 824 Leopold, Duke of Austria, imprisons Richard L, 161 Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, chosen King of the Belgians, 912 Leslie, David, overthrows Montrose, 54Q : is defeated at Dunbar, 563 Levellers, the, 561 Lev-n, Alexander Leslie, Earl of, as Alexander Leslie, commands the Scots on Dunse Law, 526 ; becomes Earl of Leven, and invades England, 542 Lewes, battle of, 201 Lew.s 111. (the Bavarian), Emperor, supports Edward 111., 235 Lexington, skirmish at, 783 Leyden, relief of, 449 ; congregation of English Separatists at, 489 Liberals, the introduction of the name of, 909 Lichfield H ouse Compact, the, 913 Lilia gives his life for his lord, 44 Lille, taken by Marlborough, 690 ; negotiations with the French Direc- tory at, 837 Limerick, siege and capitulatioii of, 656 Limoges taken by the Black Prince, 257 Linacre, promotes the study of Greek at Oxford, 367 Lincoln {see Lindum), settlement of the Lindiswaras round, 28 ; establish- ment of the see of, 107 ; Stephen taken prisoner at, 135 ; cathedral at, 171, 207 ; stormed by Man hester, 542 Lincoln, Abraham, chosen President of the United States. 958 Lincoln, Earl of, killed at Stoke, 347 Lindiswaras, settlement of, 28 ; possible advance of, 36 Lindsey, Robert Bertie, Earl of, fails to relieve Rochelle, 510 Lindum, Roman city at, 20 ; Anglian settlers round, 28 Lisle, Alice, execution of, 637 Litany, the English, composed by Cran- _mer, 409 Literature in the reign of Anne, 692 Liveries, see Maintenance and Liverv Liverp ol, Earl of, becomes Prime Minister, 868 ; end of the ministry of, 886 Llewelyn, career of, 140 Loch Leven Castle, Mary imprisoned in, 410 Locke, John, his Letters on Toleration, 652 Locomotive engines, introduction of, 906 Loidis conquered by Eadwine, 43 Lollards, the, rise of, 269 ; Oldcastle’s leadership of, 300 Londininm, see London LOU London, early importance of the position of, 20 ; loundation 01 tne bishopric of, 40 : its commercial position under the kings of Essex, ib. ; acquired and fortified by /Ellred, 62, 63 ; attacked by Olaf 1 rygvas^on and Svend, 79 ; after the Conquest, 127 ; supports Stephen, 131, 134 ; submits for a time to Matilda, 135 ; municipal organisa- tion of, 109 ; sends troops to the battle of Lewes, 201; Wat lyler in, 269; Jack cade in, 323: Edward IV. in, 328 ; Lady Jane Grey unpopular in, 420 ; provides ships instead of money for the ship-money fleet, 523 ; wel- comes Charles I. on his return from Scotland, 534, 535 : declares against Charles I., 536 ; sends out trained bands to Gloucester, 539 ; attaches itself to the Presbyterian party, 555 ; influences _ the Whigs in, 622: lory elections in, 623 ; forfeiture of the charter of, 624 ; grovrth of, 629 ; con- dition of the streets of, 631 ’, restora- tion of the charter^ of, 644 ; support given to Wilkes in, 776 ; upholds the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their contest with the Commons, 779 London Bridge, building of, 272 Londonderry, siege of, 654 Long bow, the, see Archers Longchamps, William ol, appointed a justiciar in the absence of Richard I., 159 ; is banished, 161 Lord, devotion of Gesiihs to their, 30 : is expected to marry, ib. ; growth of his jurisdiction, 72 Lords, House of, names the Duke of York Protector, 324 : decides on his claim to the crown, 329 ; results of the disappearance of the abbots from, 400 ; a bill thrown out for removing the bishops from, 533 ; bishops excluded from, 536 ; refuses to join in constitut- ing a High Court of justice, 557 ; dis- solution of, 561 ; imprisons shaftes- bury, 612 ; discusses the abdication of James II., 646 : creation of twelve peers to reverse the majority in, 695 ; Peerage Bill introduced to give inde- pendence to. 710 Lords of the Congregation, rise against Mary of Guise, 432 ; are helped by Elizabeth, 4^53 Lorraine' ceded to Stanislaus Leezinski, 725 Lose-coat Field, 332 Lothian, cession of, to Scotland, 68, 84 Loudon, Earl of, fails to take Louisburg, 752 Louis of Baden commands German forces, 682 Louis VI., king of France, makes war with Henry I., 129 Louis VII., king of France, divorces Eleanor of Aquitaine, 137 ; supports youn.! Henry’s rebellion, 153 ; takes part in the second Crusade, 157 1028 INDEX LOU MAI Louis (afterwards Louis VIIL, king of France) opposes John, 184 ; expelled from England, 185 Louis IX., Saint, king of France, sur- renders territory to Henry III., 200 ; mediates between Henry III. and the barons, ib. Louis X., king of France, succeeded by his brother, 232 Louis XI., king of France, succeeds his father, 332 ; buys off Edward IV., 336 Louis XII., king of France, invades Italy, 354; Italian wars of, 363; marriage and death of, 364 Louis XIII., king of Fran e, negotiates for his sister s marriage, 501 : resist- ance of Rochelle to, 504 : besieges Rochelle, 506 Louis XIV., king of France, buys Dun- kirk from Charles II., 587; gives a slight support to the Dutch against England, 591 ; his designs on the Spanish inheritance, 592 ; signs the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 599 ; obtains the treaty of Dover from Charles II., 600 ; invades the Dutch territory, 605 ; pensions Charles II., 611 ; is successful in the Netherlands, 613 ; sends money to Charles II. to prevent the summon- ing of a parliament, 627 ; offers finan- cial help to James II., 635 ; revokes the Edict of Nantes, 658; offers to send his fleet to help James II., 644 ; accepts the peace of Ryswick, and acknowledges William III., 667 ; refuses to make war against his grand- son, 690 : death of, 70H Louis XV., king of France, sickly in his childhood, 707 Louis XVI., kina of France, improves the French navy, 788 ; summons the States-General, 821 ; distrusted by the National Assembly, 822 ; dethrone- ment and execution of, 825 Louis XVIII., king of France, first restoration of, 871 ; second restoration of, 875 : attempts to mediate in favour of the Neapolitans, SSa Louis Napoleon, President of the French Republic, 936 ; named President for ten years, 938 ; see Napoleon III., Emperor Louis Philippe, king of the French, Charles X. overthrown in favour of, 898 ; promotes Belgian independence, 912 : dismisses Thiers, 922 ; visits Queen Victoria, 927 ; dethronement 934 . Louisbourg, Loudoh fails to take, 752 ; taken, 753 Louisiana, possessed by France, 747 ; ceded by France to Spain, 766 Lovel, Lord, insurrection of, 345 ; sup- ports Simnel, and is defeated at Stoke, 346. 347 Lowestoft, battle oflf, 590 Loyalists, the. American, conjectural number of, 782 Loyola, Ignatius, founds the Jesuit Society, 437 Lucknow, siege of, 953 Lucy, Richard de, joint justiciar with the Earl of Leicester, 140 ; makes head against young Henry s rebellion, 153 Ludlo'^v, Edmund, in Ireland, 563 Ludlow, break-up of the Yorkists at, 326 Lun^ville, peace of, 840 Lunsford, Thomas, Lieutenant of the Tower, 5^5 Luther, Martin, opposes the Papacy, 377 : has a controversy with Henry VIIL, 379 Lutheranism, character of, 376, 377 ; its influence in England, 396 Lutter, Christian IV. defeated at, 506 Luxembourg, Marshal, defeats the allies at Fleurus, 657 Lyell, his Principles of Geology, 940 Lynn supports Stephen, 134 Lyons, Richard, impeached, 262 Macadam, improvement of roads by, 905 Macaulay, Thomas _B., supports the Reform Bill, 903 ; History of Eng- land, 941 Macaulay, Zachary, pleads for the aboli- tion of slavery, 910 Maclan of Glencoe tenders his oath to William III. too late, 653 Mackay, Andrew, defeated at Killie- crankie, 653 ; serves in Ireland, 656 Mackintosh, Sir James, advocates the reform of the criminal law, 885 Mad Parliament, the, 198 Madras, building of, 758 ; taken by the French, 760 ; restored to the Eng- lUh and secured by Clive, 761 Madrid, journey of Prince Charles to, 497 Magdalen College, Oxford, expulsion of the Fellows of, 641 ; Restoration of the Fellows of, 644 Magna Carta, 182 ; partially renewed at the accession of Henry III., 185 ; attitude of Edward I. to, 288 Magnus, king of N orway , 85 Mahdi, the, destroys an Egyptian army and captures Khartoum, 971 Mahmoud, Sultan, asks Mehemet Ali to assist him against the Greeks, 884 ; death of, 922 Mahrattas, the, rise of, 759 ; Hastings defends himself against, 802, 804 ; reduced to submission by Wellesley, 859 ; reduced to complete dependency by the Marquis of Hastings, 948 Maiden Castle, 4 Maine conquered by William I., 91 ; failures of William H. in, 121 ; con- quered by Philip II., 176 ; surrendered to Ren6 by Henry VI., 317; the English driven out of, 319 INDEX 1029 MAI Maintenance arid livery, Statute against, 381 ; increase of, 321 ; measures of Henry VII. against, 345 Maitland of Lethington, William, op- pose-. the Presi.yterian clergy, 434 Major-generals, the, 571 Malcolm, king of the Scots, his alliance with Eadmund, 64 Malcolm III., Canmore, ravages Eng- land, 103 : submits to William I., 104 ; death of, 119 Malcolm IV. loses North-humberland and Cumberland, 140 Malmesbury, Karl of, sent to negotiate peace in France, 834 Malplaquet, battle of, 690 Malta, seized by Bonaparte, 837 ; sur- renders to the English, 844 ; England engages to surrender, 846 ; England refuses to surrender, 848 Man, Isle of, subdued by Eadwine, 43 Manchester, Edward Montague, Earl of, impeached, as Lord Kimbolton, 535 : brought back to Westminster, 536 : becomes Earl of Manchester and is placed in command of the Eastern Association, 542 ; attacked by Crom- well, 544 resigns his command, 545 ‘ Manchester massacre,’ the, ^79 Manfredj king of Sicily and Naples, 195, 197 Manhood suffrage, the Duke of Rich- mond advocates, 789 Manilla, reduction .of, 766 Manitoba, joins the Dominion of Canada, ,,967 Manor courts, 141 Mansfeld, Count, failure of his expedi- tion, 501 Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, 749 Mantes burnt by William L, 114 Mantua, siege of, 834 Manufactures, social changes resulting from the growth of, 817 Manufacturers, the distress amongst, 876-879 Manwaring, Roger, impeached, 511 ; receives a good living from Charles I., 512 . ^ . Manx, a Goidelic language, 7 Mar’s rising, 705 ..... March, Earl of, see Edward IV. March, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of, his claim to the crown, 287 ; imprisoned by Henry IV., 291 ; freed by Henry V. ,. 299 . . . March, Roger,. Earl of, grandson of the Duke of Clarence, named heir by Richard II., 287 Marengo.,. batUe.of, 840 . Margaret, daughter of Henry.. VII. , . married, .to. James IV., 356 ; excluded from the succession, 41 1 Margaret of Anjau marries Henry’ VI., .317 ;gives birtkto a son, 323 ;.puts her- self at the. head o.f tTjeLNorthern forces, 326; defeats the Duke of .Yorkat Wake- field, and Warwick at the second battle MA-R of St. Albans, 328 ; is defeated at Tow- ton, 329 ; is defeated at Hedgeley Moor and Hexham, 331 ; reconciled to Warwick, 333 ; defeated at Tewkes- bury, 334 Margaret, sister of Edward IV., married to Charles the Rash, 332 ; protects Lord Lovel, 346 Margaret, the Lady, 334 Margaret, the Maid of Norway, 214 Margaret, first wife of Malcolm Canmore, 119 Margaret 'Theresa, daughter of Philip IV.. marries Leopold I., and renounces the Spanish succession, 592 Maria, the Infanta, proposal to marry her to Prince Charles, 488 ; shrinks from marrying a heretic, 497 ; is courted oy Charles, 498 Maria Theresa, dauehter of Philip IV., marries Lo.uis XIV., and renounces the Spanish succession, 592 Maria Theresa- (Empress), constituted heiress of her. father’s hereditary do- minions, 732 ; attacked on all sides, ; cedes Silesia to Frederick II., 735 Marignano, battle of, 366 Marlborough, Statute of, 204 Mar'borough, Duchess of, her influence over Anne, 677 . Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of, as Lord Churchill, deserts James II., 645 ; becomes. Eiarl of Marlborough, 657 ; disgraced by William III., 658 ; betrays Talmash, 664 ; placed by Wil- liam III. at the head of an army, 675 ; his influence over Anne, 677 ; his first campaign in the Nether- lands, 678 : created a Duke, and votes for the Occasional Conformity Bill, 680 ; obtains the dismissal of Rochester and Nottingham, and pro- cures the entry of Harley and St. John into the ministry, 68i ; defeats Tallard at Blenheim, 682 ; turns to the Whigs, 684 ; his victory at Ramillies, ; h's victories at Oude- narde and Malplaquet, 690 ; blamed for prolonging the war, 691 ; sent to Flandeis with inadequate means, and dismissed from his offices, 695 Marprelate Tracts, the, 470- Marriages of. heiresses arranged by the lord, 117 Marshal, Richard the, 188, 189 Marshal, William, the, guardian of Henry III., 185 Marston.Moor, battle of, 543 Martin, Master, his exactions, 195 Mary L, daughter of Henry VIII., as princess,, successively engaged to Francis I. and his second son, 374 ; her place, in the. succession acknow- lelged by statute, 411 ; protected by Charles^ y., 414 ; popularity- of, 420 ; .is proclaimed queen,. 421 ; her feelings^ and opinions, ; wishes to restore the Church land.s, 422 ; is married to WDMX to^o MAR Philip II., 423 ; obtains the reconcilia- tion of England to the Roman see, 424 ; supports the persecution of Protes- tants, ib. ; resolves to put Cranmer to death, 425 ; reserted by her husband, 426 : declares war with France, 427 ; death of, ib. Mary II., birth of, 608 ; her hand offered to William of Orange, 609 ; marriage of, 613 ; finds fault with Danby, 646 ; the crown offered to, 647 ; receives the Scottish Crown, 652 ; illness and death of, 661 ; Greenwich Hospital founded by, 663 Mary, daughter of Henry VII., marri- ages of, 364 : her place in the succes- sion acknowledged in exclusion of her sister Margaret, 41 1 Mary, heire-s of Burgundy, 336 ; marries the Archduke Maximilian, and dies, 337 Mary of Guise, Regent of Scotland, her contests with • the Protestants, 432 ; death of, 433 Mary of Modena marries the Duke of York, 608 Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, birth of, 405 ; taken to France and married to the Dauphin, 413 ; assumes the style of Queen of England, 433 ; returns to Scotland, 434, 435 ; character of, 437 ; marries Lord Darnley, 438 ; being charged with the murder of I 'arnley, marries Bothwell, 439 ; imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle, 440 ; escapes to England, ib. ; is retained as a prisoner, 441 ; marriage with the Duke of Nor- folk, proposed for, ib. ; Ridolfi’s plot on behalf of, 445 ; trial of, 457 ; execu- tion of, 458 Maserfield, Oswald slain at, 48 Masham, Mrs., obtains influence over Anne, 687 Massachusetts Government Act, the, 782 Massalia, tin-trade of, 8 Massena, Marshal, invades Portugal, 867 Massey, Roman Catholic Dean of Christchurch, 639 Matilda, daughter of Henry I., married to the Emperor Henry V., and to Geoffrey of Anjou, 131 ; claims the crown, 134 ; fails to maintain her claim, 135 Matilda, wife of Henry I., see Eadgyth Matthias, the Emperor, resistance of the Bohemians to, 490 Maximilian I., Emperor, as Archduke, marries Mary of Burgundy, 337 ; marries Anne of Brittany by proxy, 348 ; Italian wars of, 363 ; death of, 369 Maximus leads an army out of Britain, 25 Mayflower, the, voyage of, 490 Maynard, Sergeant, his answer to Wil- liam III., 646 Mayne, Cuthbert, execution of, 453 MIL Maynooth taken by Skeffington, 402 Mazarin, Cardinal, makes an alliance with Cromwell, 572 Meanee, battle of, 950 Meaux besieged uy Henry V., 306 Medina Sidonia, Duke of, commands the Spanish Armada, 460 : is received by Philip II. after his defeat, 462 Medway, the, the Dutch in, 593 Meheraet Ali, makes himself indepen- dent, and sends aid to the Suitan, 884 ; ai tacks the Turks, and possesses himself of Syria, 921 ; deprived of Syria, 922 Melbourne, Viscount, is a member of Lord Grey’s Ministry, goi ; becomes Prime Minister and is nismissed by the King, 912 , becomes Prime Minister a second time, 913 ; resigns and re- sumes office, 918 ; final resignation of, 925. Melville, Andrew, insults James VI, , 525, Melville, Lord, impeachment of, 851 Menai Suspension Bridge, the, 905 Mendoza sent out of England by Elizabeth, 456 Mercenaries employed on the Continent by Henry II., 142 ; temporarily brought to England, 153, 155 ; em- ployed by John, 182 Merchant Adventurers, the, 356 Merchant Gild, the, 169 Mercia, first settlement of, 36 ; com- parative smallness o , 41 ; unites with other districts under Penda, 46 ; accepts Christianity, and rejects the ppremacy of North-humberland, 48 ; its relations with Ecgberht, 55 ; its relations with iElfred, 60 ; under Leofwine, 84: under I.eofric, 85, 87 ; under iElfgar and Eadwine, 90 Mercians, the, distinguished from the Middle English, 36 Merciless Parliament, the, 280 Merton College, foundation of, 207 Metropolitical Visitation, the, 520 Metternich, holds it to be the duty of the great powers to suppress revolu- tions, 882 Middle English, the, first settlements of, 36 Middle Saxons a branch of the East Saxons, 35 Middlesex election, the, 775 Middlesex, Lionel Cranfield, Earl of, improves the finances of James I., 494 ; impeachment of, 500 Middlesex, Saxon settlement in, 35 Milan, struggle between Charles V. and Francis I. for, 371 Milan, the Duchy of, assigned to Charles VI., 696 Milan Decree, the, 860 Militia, the, struggle for the command of, 536 ; the Scots urge Charles I. to abandon, 552 Millenary Petition, the, 482 INDEX 1031 MIL NAP Milton writes Comus, 519 : writes Areopagitica, 546: writes a sonnet on the Vaudois, 572 ; publishes Fara- disc Lost, 596 Minden, battle of, 756 Mines, lestrictioii of labour in, 927 Ministerial responsibility, proposal to establish, 195 Ministers excluded from the House of Commons by the Act of Settlement, 673 ; readmitted, 684 Minorca, taken by Stanhope, 690 ; assigned to England by the treaty of Utrecht, 696 ; re-taken by the French, 749 ; regained at the end of the Seven Years’ War, 766; taken by the Spaniards, 795 ; ceded by England to Spain, 798 Mirebeau, Eleanor besieged in, 174 Mise of Amiens, the, 200 Missoloiighi, sieges of, 884 ; death of Byron at, 888 Mohammedanism, origin and spread of, 54 Molynes, Lord, ill-treats John Paston, 321 Mompesson, Sir Giles, flies from the kingdom, 495 Mona (Anglesey) conquered by Sue- tonius, 14 ^ Monasteries, dissolution of the smaller, 394 . surrender of some of the greater, 397 ; completion of the suppression of, 400 Monasticism, character of early, 39 ; conxerts made in England by, 40; character ot Irish, 47 ; benedictine, 128 Monk, see Albemarle, Duke of Monks contrasted with Friars, 191 Monmouth, Imke of, proposed as heir to the crown, 618 ; defeats the Cove- nanters at Bothwell Bridge, 620 : re- fuses to take part in acts of violence, 624 : implicated in a Whig plot, 625 ; rebt-llion and execution of, 637 Monopolies, the, Elizabeth recalls some of, 478 : attacked by Parliament in the reign of James I., 494 ; revocation of, 495 ; Act of, 500 Monro, Ma or-General Robert, holds Carrickfergus, 541 Montague, Charle-, one of the Whig Junto, 659 ; restores the currency, 664 ; resigns office, 670 Montague, Chief Justice, becomes Lord Treasurer, 494 Montague, I ord, made Earl of North- humberland, 331 : is deprived of the earldom, 333 : turns aeainst Edward IV., and is killed at Barnet, 332 Montague, Ralph, accuses Danby, 616 Montague, Richard, impeached, 511 ; made a bishop, 512 Montf-negro, enlargement of, 969 Montfort, de, see S'mon de Montfort Montrose, James Graham, Marquis of, his campaign in the Highlands, 547, 549 ; execution of, 563 Moore, Sir John, killed at Corunna, 864 More, Sir Thomas, writes Utopia, 367 ; in favour with Henry VIII. 36^; is Speaker of the House of Commons, 371 ; becomes Chancellor, 387 ; his displeasure with the Protestants. 388 ; resigns tl e chancellorship, ib. ; is sent to the Tower, 392 : execution of, 394 Morkere ecomes Earl o North-humber- land, 90 ; is present at Eadgar’s elec- tion, 98 ; submits to William, 102 ; is banished, 103 Mori y. Bishop, sermons of, 548 Moiningion, Lord, Govfrnor-CJeneral of India, 838 ; becomes Marquis Welles- ley. 859 : S(e Wellesley, Marquis Mortimer, Edmund, see March, Earl of Mortimer, Roger, paramour of Queen Isabella, 229 ; governs in the name of Edward III., 231 ; is hanged, 232 Mortimer, Sir Edmund, imprisoned by Glendower, 203 Mortimer’s Cross, battle of, 328 Mortmain, Statute of, 212 Morton, Thomas, bishop of Ely, after- wards Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury, gives advice to Bucking- ham, 341, 342 ; his ‘ lork,’ 349 Moscow, burning of, 870 Mount Badon, British victory at, 28 Mountjoy, Charles Blount, Lord, con- quers Ireland, 478 Mountnorris, Francis Annesley, Lord, court-martial on, 528 Mowbray, Robert of, rebellion of, 120 Muir, sentenced to transponation, 828 Municipal Corporations Act, 913, 914 Munster, attempt to colonise, 475 Munster, the Bishop of, overruns two Dutch provinces, 591 Murray desires to become Chief Justice, 747; becomes Chief Justice as Lord Mansfield, 749 Murray, Earl of, is driven into England, 438 : returns to Scotland, 439 ; becomes Regent, 440 ; produces the Lasket let- ters, ib. : assassinated, 441 Mutinies at hpithead and the Nore, 836 Muiiny A< t, the, 650 Mysore-, Hyder Ali in, 804 ; Tippoo succeeds his father in, 805 Namur, surrender of, 663 Nana Sahib, grievances of, 952 ; his conduct at Cawnpure, 953 Nantwich, battle of, 542 Napier, Sir Charles, Admiral, takes Acre, 922 Nao’er, Sir Charles, General, conquers Sindh, 950 Naple , assigned to Charles VI., 696; ceded tc the son of Philip V., 755 ; Joseph Bonaparte, king of, 856 ; revo- lution sui pressed by Austria m, 882 Napoleon 1 , Emperor of the French, his C. 3 X 1032 INDEX NAP NOR plan for the invasion of England, 851 ; offers Hanover alternately to England and Pruss a, 855 ; defeats the Pru'Mans at Jena, 857 ; makes peace with Russia at Tilsit, 858 ; his designs against Spain, 862 ; pi ices Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne, 863 ; invades .. Spain, 864: fights at Aspern and ■Wagram, 865 ; countries annexed by, 868 ; invades Russia, 869, 670 ; defeat and abdicarion if, 871 ; returns to France and fights at Waterloo, 874 ; dies at St. Helena, 875 Napoleon III., Emperor, becomes Emperor, 939 ; attempt to murder, 955 ; goes to war for the lii eration of Italy, 956; annexes Savoy and Nice, 957 ; fall of, 964 Nasehy, battle of, 548 Natal, colonisation cf, 969 Navarino, battle of, 893 Navarre conquered by Ferdinand of Aragon, ,6> Navarr^te, battle of, 251; Navigation Act, the, passing of, 565; re enactment of, 589 repeal of, 936 Navy, Alfred s, 60 ; the English, defeats the Spanish Armada, 460-464; equipped by means ofshi -money, 523 ; de.-.crtion of part of, to the Prince of Wales, S57 ; Blake i i omm nd of, 56, ; its contests with the Dutch, 591 ; dc terioration in the dEcipline of, 605 Nelson, his exploits at the battle of St. Vineent, 835; oefiats the French at the battleof the Nile, 838 ; defcath the ] anes at the t attle of Copenhagen, 845; pursues the French fleet t ■ the We-t Indies, 853 ; killed at Trafalgar, 854 Neolithic man, 3 Nethrrlands, the, inherited by Philip II., 426; A 1 a’s government of, 4-13 ; be inni' g of the Dutch Republic in, 4 9 : division into two t arts, 450 ; see Nethi-rUi.ds, the Spanish, and Dutch Republic Neih Hands, the Austrian, occupied by the H'rench, 825 : ceded to Fram e, 837 Nethi- rill d", the Spanish. Alexander of P rma in, 450 ; a signed to Charles VI., 6g6 ; see Netherlands, the Austri in Nevill, influence of the family of, 324 Nevill, George, Archbishop of York, depriv ed of the Chancellorship, 332 Nevill’s Cross, battle of, 242 N w Amsterdam captured by the English, 589 New Brunswick joins the Dominion of C-vnada, 967 New Kn' land, colonisation of, 489 ; war- like preparations in, 782 ; beginning of resi- tance in, 783 New Forest, the, making of, no ; death of William 1 1 in. 122 New Jersev , Washington driven out of, 784 ; Washino^ton recovers, 786 New Model Army, see Army, the New Model New Orleans, the British repulsed at, 873 New South Wales, progress of, 968 New Yorv-, named after the Duke of York, 589; secured to England, 593; occupied by Howe, 784 New Zealand, progress of colonisation in 968 Newark, death of John at, 185 ; sur- ren fers to the Scots, 551 Newburn, rout of, 529 N ewbury, first battle of, 539 ; second battle of 544 New castle, Charles I. at, 551 Newcistle, Duke of, character of, 732 ; S’lcceed' his brother as first Lord of the Treasury, 746 ; his inefficiency in providing fo ho.stilitits with France, 748 ; resigns, 745 ; coalesces with Htt, 751 ; resignation of, 766 Newcastle, William Cavendish, Earl, afterwards Marquis of, commands a Royalist army in Yorkshire, and de- feats the Fairfaxes at Adwabon Moor, 5 ; IS created Marquis, and be- sieges Hull, 542; besieged in Yoik, ib. ; defeited at Marston Moor, 543 Newcastle-on-Tyne, foundation of, 120 Newfo ndland, retained by England, 695 ; refuses to join the Dominion of Canada, Newgate, burning of, 792 Newman, a leader of the Oxford move- ment, 940 New port (Monmouthshire), Chartist riot at, 924 Newport, the treaty of, 5^7 Newton, Sir Isaac, f 32 ; assists in restonng the currency, 664 Nicholas, the Tzar, comes t > agreement witn England on li ->eration of Greece, 884 . prop )ses to par ition t e TurkLh- d -minions, 943 ; goes 1 1 war wi h the Suban, 944 ; ar declared by Engl nd and France aga n-t, ib. ; deat 1 of, 947 Nigel, Bishoo of E y. Treasurer of i-e-iry b, S ephe-i’s mtack on, 134 ; is r -a -pointed Tre surer, 140 Nig !• ingala, Mi-s Ijre ce, 947 Nile, h- battleof 838 Nithsdale, Earl of, es apes from prison, 705 N > Address s, vote of, 556 Non u-ors, t -e '52 Non-resistance Bill, ihe. 61 1 Noi-e, he, mutiny at, 836 Norfolk, or-.gi-i of cue ame o^, 28 Norfolk, Duke of, bani bed by Kichard 1 1., 283 Norfolk, Earl of, s‘'e Bigod, Roger Nort iiK, resista-ice t) the Ani-cable Loan ill 372 : K t’sie ellion in, 415 No fjl ,Tii mas Ho ard ,s< cono Duke of • --.I ats t e Sc, ts, as Earl of Surr, y, ai Flodden, 464 Norfolv, I homas Howard, th rd Duke of, opp.^ses Wolsey, 383 ; charges INDEX 1033 NOR f!roin veil with treason, 401; wastes the Sco tish Borders, 405 ; condemned to death, 411 Norfolk, Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of, sent to the 1 ower, 441; is 1 berated and proposes to marry Ma>y Stuart, 444 ; arrested, 445 : executed. 446 Norham, award ol the crown of Scotland at, 2 i6 Norman Conquest, the, 96-103 Normandy, early dukes of, 80 ; institu- tions of, 81 ; its condition under Robert, 118 ; pledged to William II., 12 1 ; recovered by Robert, 124 ; con- quered by Henry I., 125 ; conquered by Geoffrey, 136: Henry, Duke of, 137 : conquered by Philip II., 174, 176 ; invaded by Edward III., 240; con- quered by Henry V.,303; re-conquered by the French, 320 Normans favoured by Eadward, 87; their style of architecture, 8q Norris, Sir John, joins Drake in sacking Corunna, 464 North iiriton, the, 769 North Foreland, battle off. 591 North, Lord, becomes Prime Minister, 776 ; takes advantage of the division of opinion between Burke and Chat- ham, 777 ; feels strongly against the conduct of the Americans, 778 ; ob- tains the repeal of all the American duties except that on tea, 779 ; resolves to put down r sistance in Boston, 780 ; tries to conciliate the Americans, 783 ; offers to resign office, 787 ; resignation of, 795 ; coalesce s with Fox, 800 ; opposes Pitt’s motion for Parliamen- tary reform, 801 ; passes the Regu- lating Act, 832 Northampton, Archbishop Thomas called to account at, 145 : battle of, 326 Northern confederacy, the. 844 North-humberland, component parts of, 36 : united by /Ethelric, 41 ; divided by Penda. and re-united under Oswald, 47 : is again divided, but re-united under Oswiu, 48 ; its relations with Ecgberht, 55 ; overrun by the Danes, 58 : Danish kingdom in, 62, 63 ; is amalgamated with England, 64 ; its condition under Cnut, 84 ; under Siward 84, 87 Northmen, their attacks on England, 56 : religion of, S" : s'e Danes Northumberland invaded by Malcolm Canmore, 119 : given to Henry, son of David I., 133 ; recovered by Henry II., 140 Northumberland, John Dudley, Duke of, as Earl of Warwick, overpowers Ket’s rebellion, 416; leads the govern- ment after Somerset’s fad. ib. ; be- comes Duke of Northumberland, 4 8 ; .supports Lady Jane Grey, 420; execution of, 42' Northumberland, the Earl of, assists Henry IV., 284 : quarrels with Henry ORF IV., 293 : imprisoned and pardoned, 294 ; defeated and slain, 296 Northumberland, Thomas Percy, Earl of, takes pait in the rising of the North, 441 Norw ich, establishment of the see of, 107 Nottingham, Ai.glian settlement at, 36 ; seizure of Mortimer at, 232 ; Charles I. sets up his standa'd at, 537 Nottingham, _ Earl of, opposes Richard II., 279 ; is made Duke of Norfolk and banished, 283; cl smissed through the influence of Marlborough, 681 ; coalesces with the Whigs, 695 Nova Scotia, assigned to England, 696 ; abandonment of the French claim to, 766 ; joins the Dominion of Canada, 967 Nuncomar, execution of, 803 Nymwegen, peace of, 615 Oates, Titus, tells the story of the Popish Plot, 615 O’Brien, Smith, heads a rising in Ireland, 935 Occasional Conformity Bill, failure of the Tories to pass, 680 ; defeat of an attempt to tack it to a land tax bill, 682; passed. 695 ; repealed, 710 O’Connell, Daniel, demands Catholic emanciiiation, 895 ; refused a seat in the House of Commons, 896 : asks for a repeal of the Union, 910: combines with the Whigs to overthrow Peel, 913 : drops for a time his demand for repeal of the Union, 916 ; shrinks from a conflict with Peel, and dies, 928 O’Connor, Feargus, 1 -ads the Chartists, 924 ; summons a meeting on Kenning- ton Common, 935 Oda, Archbishop, advocates the celi- bacy of the clergy, 65 ; separates Eadwig and ^Elfgifu, 67 Odo oppresses the English, 102 ; is banished by William H., 115 O’ Donne 1 , Rory, flight of, 484 Ofla, king of the Mercians, defeats the West Saxons at Bensington, 53 ; his dyke, 54 Olaf Trygvasson, 79, 80 Oldcastle, Sir John, burnt as a Lollard, 300 Old Sarum, earthworks of Sorbiodunum at, 4 Olive Branch petition, the, 783 O’Neill, Hugh, defeats Bagenal at the Black water,- 475 ; submission of, 478 ; flight of, 484 O’Neill, Shan, defeat of, 452 Orange River Free State, the founda- tion of, 968 Ordainers, the Lords, 226 Ordeal, system of, 32 ; continued by Henry II., 146 Orders in Council, the, 860 : repeal of, 872 Ordovires, the, resist the Roina.ns, 14 Orford, Ead of, attacked by the Com- mons, 670 resigns office, ib.\ see Russell, Admiral 1034 INDEX ORL Orleans, siege of, 309 Orleans, Duke of (the Regent), is on friendly terms with England, 707 ; guarantees the Hanoverian succes- sion, 708 Orleans, Duke of, Charles, captured at Agim ourt, 303 ; ransomed, 315 Orleans, Duke of, Louis, makes an alli- ance with Glendower, 295 ; murdered, 2q6 Orleans, Henrietta, Duchess of, negoti- ates the Treaty of Dover, 600 Ormond, Earl of, supports the Lancas- trians, 346 Ormond, second Duke of, commanuo in Flanders, 696 ', escapes to France, 705 Ormond, Thoma^ Butler, Marquis of. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 542 ; abandons Ireland to Parliament, 562 ; returns to 1 1 eland, ib. Osric governs Oeira, 48 _ Ostorius Scapula arrives in Britain, 13 ; conquests of, 14 Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, 68 Oswald, King of North humberland, his greatness and piety, 47 ; is slain at Maserfield, 48 Oswini, his relations with Aidan, 48; is murdered, ib. Oswiu unites North-humberland, 48 ; defeats Penda, ib. ; decides for Wilfrid against Colman, 50 Otho, Cardinal, legate of Gregory IX., 194 Otto I., Emperor, 63 Otto IV., Emperor, supports John, 179 ; defeated at Bouvines, 181 Oude, Hastings seeks its alliance against the Mahrattas, 802 ; annexation of, 951 Oudenarde, battle of, 690 Outram, Sir James, waives his rank in Havelock’s favour, 954 Overbury, Sir Thomas, poisoned, 488 Over-lordship, character of, 38 Oxford, growth of the University of, 167 : the so-called Mad Parliament meets at, 198 : thronged with scholars, 207 ; study of Greek in the University of, 367 ; Parliament idiourned to, 502 ; headquarters of Charles I. at, 5^7; Parliament held at, during the Plague, 590 ; the third Short Parliament meets at, 6?i ; Roman Catholic propaganda of James II. in, 639 Oxford, Earl of, quairels with Boling- broke, 699 ; dismissed, 700 ; im- peached and imprisoned, 704, 705 ; see Harley, Sir Robert Oxiord, Earl of (Robert de Vere), made Duke of Ireland, 278 ; see Ireland, Duke of Painting, mainly in the hands of foreigners, during the Stuart period, 631 Palaeolithic man, x Palatinate, the, Spinola’s invasion of, PAR 490 ; Imperialist invasion of, 496 ; loss of, 497 ; failure of the negotiation to induce the king of Spain to obtain the restitution of, 500 ; attempt to send Mansfeid to recovrr, 501 Palmerston, Vise unt, foreign Secre- tary in Lord Grey’s ministry, 891 ; supports the independence of Belgium, 912 ; maintains an alliance w'ith France, 913 ; Spanish policy of, 920 ; in erferes in Syria, 922 ; dismissed, 938 ; saves the Derby ministry from defeat, 939 ; is a member of the Aber- deen ministry, 945 ; becomes Prime Mini-ster, 947 ; the elections (after his entering on a war with China) in favour of, 955 ; defeated on the Con- spiracy to Murder Bill, and resigns, 956 ; becomes Prime Minister a second time, ib. ; death of, 960 Pandulf receives John s submission, 180 Papacy, influen e of, in the time of Gregory I., 39; strength of, in the eleventh century, 88; its position in the time of Gregory VI I., 107; in the time of Innocent III., 178; Babylonian captivity of, 257 ; England relieved of tribute to, 258; great schism o ', 266 ; immorality of, 375 ; legislation against the payment of annates and Peter’s pence to, ^88, 390 Papal jurisdiction in England abolition of, 3 '9. 391 Paradise Lost, publication of, 596 Paris, the capital of Hugh Capet’s duchy, 80 : rising against the Ar- magnacs in, 304 ; Henry VI. crowned at, 312 : lost to the English, 313 ; sub- mits to Henry IV., 4*^4 Paris, Peace of. at the end of the Seven Years’ War, 766; at the end of the American War, 798 Parker, Matth w, becomes Archbishop - of Canterbury, 429 ; ch racter and position of, 430 Parker, Samuel. Bishop of Oxford, a secret Roma-' Cath >lic, 630 ; intrusive Pr sident of Magdalen t ollege, 641 Parliament {sfe Great Council, the),eerm of representation in, ■ 80: first u.se of the name of, i 5 : scheme of administra- tive reform proposed in, ib. ; knights of the shire ele ted to, 196 ; relations between the clergy and the barons, 197 : insists on the Provisions of ' Ox- ford, 197 : representatives of towns admitted by Earl .''imon to, 201 ; growth of, under Edward I., 21 , 218 ; Scottish representatives in, 222 : ac- knowledgment of the legislative power of the Commons in, 228 : finally se- parated into two Houses, 244 opposi- tion to the clergy in. 259 ; Ri' hard II. invites comp'aints in, ; relations of Henrv VIII. with, 385; relations of Elizabeth W'ith, 444 ; the Addled, 48^ ; the Shorr, 528 ; the Long, 5^9 ; lorma- tion of parties in, 532 ; struggles with INDMX 1035 FAR Charles I. for the militia, 536 ; raises forces against the king, 5^7 ; tries to disband ihe army, 553 ; its speakers take refuge with the army, 555 ; dissolution of, by Cromwell, 566 ; the Barebone’s, ib. ; the first, of the Protectorate, 570 ; the second, of the Protectorate, 572 ; Richard Crom- well’s, 574 ; restoration of the Long, 575 ; final dissolution of the Long, 576 ; the first convention, 577-584 ; the Cavalier, 585 ; supports the Church more than the king, 586 ; rejects the declaration of Charles II. in favour of toleration, 587 ; Albemarle resists the dissolution of, 599 ; opposes James II. , 638 ; James II. attempts to pack, 641 Parliamentary reform, views of Chatham and Burke op, 777 ; supported by Fox, 789 ; advanced views of the Duke of Richmond on, ^90 ; Pitt asks for a committee to inquire into, 799; Pitt brings forward a motion for, 801 ; Pitt’s Bill for, 808 ; advocated by Grey, 827 ; Hunt and Burdett ask for a sweeping measure of, 879 ; Lord John Russell supports a moderate measure of, 894 ; granted by the first Reform Act, 905 ; Russell proposes to carry farther, 943 ; Disraeli brings in a bill for, 956 ; Russell brings in a bill for, 957 ; Russell’s ministry brings in a bill for, 961 Disraeli carries a bill for, ib.; a third bill for, carried by agreement between Liberals and Conservatives, 972 ; st-e Reform Bill Parma, Alexanuer Farnese, Prince of, governor of the Spanish Nether- Lnds, 45 ; gains ground in the Netherlands, 4^4-456 ; takes Antwerp, 456; takes Zuiphcn, 457: hopes to transport an army to England, 459 ; blockaded by the Dutch, 462 ; sent to aid the League, 464 Parnell leads the Irish Home Rule party, 970 Parris, Van. burnt, 419 Parsons, Robert, lands in England, 453 ; escapes, 454 Parsons, Sir William, one of the Lords Justices in Ireland. 533 Parties, Parliamentary, formation of, 532 ; development of, 610, 628 Partition treaty, the first, 668 ; the second, 671 Paston, John, attacked by Lord Molynes, 321 ; domestic life of, 330 Patay, battle of, 31 1 Paterson, William, suggests the founda- tion of the Bank of England, 660 ; originates the Darien expedition, 671 Patrick, St., introduces Christianity into Ireland, 47 Paul, the Tzar, withdraws from the coalition against France, 840 ; murder of, 845 I'ET Paulet, Sir Amias, refuses to put Mary Stuart to death, 457 Paulinus effects conversions in Deira, 46. Pavia, battle of, 372 Peasants’ Revolt, the, 268 Pedro the Cruel, 255 Peel, Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert), re- commends the resumption of cash payments, 879 ; becomes Home Secre- tary, 884 ; passes bills for the reform of the criminal law, 885 ; is Home Secretary in Wellington’s ministry, 893 ; agrees to the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 895 ; defeated at Oxford, 896 ; carrie.-> a bill for Catholic emancipation, ib . ; introduces the new police, 900 ; Prime Minister for the first time, 913 ; refuses to take part against the Municipal Corpora- tions Bill, 914 ; fails to form a Minis- try, 918 ; becomes Prime Minister a second time, 925 ; first free-trade budget of, 926 ; Irish policy of, 928 ; second free-trade budget of, 929 ; at- tacked by Disraeli, 930 ; abolishes the Corn I.aw, 931 ; being d^ feated on a bill for the protection of life in Ire- land. resigns office, 932 ; pui lic works established in Ireland by, ib.\ death of, 936 Peerage Bill, the, rejection of, 710 Peers, creation of twelve, 695 Peishwah, the, rules over the Mahratta confederacy, 760; driven from Poonah 859 ; abdicates, 948 Pelham, Henry, becomes First Lord of the Treasury. 739 ; death of, 744 Peltier, tried for libelling Bonaparte, 848 Pembroke, Earl of, see William the Marshal Penda defeats Eadwine at Heathfield, 46 ; splits up North-humberland, 47 ; is defeated and slain, 48 Penitential system, the, introduced by Theodore, 50 Penjdeh, seized by the Russians, 972 Penn and Venables, expedition of, to the West Indies, 571 Pennsylvania, cob nisation of, 629 Penruddock captures the judges at Salisbury, 571 Penry, John, hanged, 472 People’s Charter, the, 923 : see Chartists Pepys pities dissenters, 588 Perceval, Spencer, becomes Prime Minister, 865 : murdered, 868 Percies, the, territorial influence of, 293 Percy, Henry (Hotspur), 293, 294 Perpendicular style, the, 247 Perrers, Alice, 260, 262 Perth, the five articles of, 525 Peter Martyr teaches in England, 416 Peter des Roches influences Henry III. 1S8 ; is dismissed, 189 Peter the Great, sends troops to Meck- lenburg, 709 INDEX 1036 I’ET Peter the Hermit, 120 Peter’s Pence, abolition of, 391 Peterborough, Earl of, his campaign in Spain, 684, 685 Petition of Kight, the, 508 Petitioners, party name of, 620 Pevensey, landing of William at, 96 Philadelphia, congress of twelve colonies meets in, 782 ; congress of thirteen colonies meets in, 783 ; occupied by Howe, 786 ; evacuated by the British, 787 Philip I., king of France, makes war with William 1 ., 114 Philip 11 ., king of France, stirs up enmity between Henry 1 Land his sons, 156: quarrels with Richard 1 ., 161 ; stirs up John against Richard, 162; supports Arthur against John, 174 ; wins Normandy and Anjou from John, 175 : prepares an invasion of England, 179 ; wins a victory at Bouvines, 181 Philip II., king of Spain, marries Mary, 423 ; abdication of Charles V. in favour of, 426 ; deserts Mary, ib. ; induces Mary to declare war against France, 427; makes peace with France, 431 ; proposes to marrv Eliza- beth, 432 ; persecutes ihe Protestants in the Netherlands, 443 ; annexes Portugal, and shares in a plot for the invasion of England and the murder of Elizab^ th, 454 ; undertakes the invasion of England, 456 ; claims the English crown. 45 ; appoints a commander for the Armada, 460 ; supports the League in France, 464 Philip HI., king of Spain, James I. seeks an alliance with, 488 _ Philip IV., king of France, his relations with Edward I. and with Scotland, 218 •Philip IV., king of Spain, receives Prince Charles, and negotiates with the Pope about his sister’s marriage, . 497 ; consults tbeologians, 498 ; in- forms Charles of his terms, 500 ; death of, 592 Philip V., king of France, succeeds in virtue of the so-called Salic law, 232 Philip V., king of Spain, the Spanish inheritance bequeathed to, 671 ; at- tachment of the Spaniards to, 682 ; his claim to the French throne, 707 Philip VI. , king of France, succeeds in virtue of the so-called Salic law, and receives the homage of Edward II L, 23 ; protects David Bruce, 234 ; de- feats the Flemings at Cas.sel, 235 ; avoids fighting the English, 239 ; is defeated at C recy, 242 ; death of, 251 Philip, the Archduke, birth of, 337 ; marries Juana, 352 ; dies, 358 Philip’s Norton, Monmouth at,' 637 Philiphaujdh, battle of, 549 Philippa of Hainault marries Edward III., 231 : begs the lives of the bur- gesses of Calais, 243 PIT Phoenicians, the, supposed visits to Britain of, 7 Piets, the, ravages of, 23, 26 ; unite with the Scots, 63 Piers the Plowman, 259 Pilgrim Father , the, 489 Pilgrim's Progress, publication of, 596 Pilgrimage of Grace, the, 396, 397 PinKie Cleugh, battle of, 413 Pippin becomes king of the Franks, 54 Pitt, William (the elder), oppo^es Wal- pole, 728 : attacks Spain, 729 ; de- claims against Carteret, 738 ; his rivalry with Henry Fox, 747 ; dis- missed, 748 ; becomes Secretary of State, and takes vigorous measures to cariy on the war with France, 750 ; enlists Highland regiments, ib. ; dis- missal and popularity of, ib. : political position of. 751 ; coalesces with New- castle, ib.-, encourages men of ability and vigour, 752 ; enters into an alliance with Frederick, ib.-, resignation ol, 766 ; refuses to join the Rockingham M higs, 771 ; his views on American taxation, 773 ; created Earl of Chat- ham, ib. ; see Chatham, Earl of Pitt, William (the younger), early career of, 799 ; asks for a committee on Par- liamentary reform, and becomes Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, ib.’, brings forward a motion for Parliamentary reform, 801 ; becomes Prime Minister, 807 ; his struggle again.st the coalition, ib. ; obtains a majority in a new Par- liament, 808; his financial measures, ib.‘, his India Bill, and his Bill for Parliamentary reform, ib. ; failure of his scheme for a commercial union with Ireland, 810 ; consents to the impeachment of Hastings, 811 ; his conduct in supporting the Regency Bill, ib.-, strengthened by the growth of manufacturers, 819 ; thinks that France will be weakened by the Re- volution, 823 ; speaks against the slave-trade, ib. : adopts a war policy, 825 ; fears the spread of French revo- lutionary principles in England, 828; admits Whigs into his Cabinet, ib. ; assists Fr< nch royalists to land in Quiberon Bay, 830; carries the Trea- son Act and the Sedition Act, ib.-, his views on the relations between Eng- land and Ireland, 831; gives votes to the Catholics in Ireland, 832 ; sends Fitzwilliam to Ireland, ib.-, recalls Fitzwilliam, 833 ; his first negotiation with the Diiectory, 834; imposes an income-tax, 840 ; brings about the Irish Union, 842 ; proposes Catholic emancipation and resigns office, ib.-, assures the king he will never again support Catholic emancipation, 843 ; becomes Prime M inLster a second time, 848 : weak in Parliamentary sup- port, 851 ; death of, 855 INDEX 1037 PIU Pius V., Pope, excommunicates Eliza- beth, 441 Place Bill, the, 661 Plague, the, d vastations of, 590 Plasscy, battle of, 762 Plautius, Aulus, subdues south-east Britain, 13 Plymouth held by a Parliamentary gar- rison, 538 Poiievins, favour of Henry III. to, 187, 194 Poitiers, battle of, 251 Poitou, John’s attack on the barons of, 174 . submission to Philip 11. of part of, 176: John attempts to recover, 180 : Henry HI. surrenders, 194 Poand, partition of, 827 ; assigned to Russia, 873 Pole, Reginald, opposes Henry VIII. and becomes a cardinal, 399 ; as Papal legate reconciles England t > the see of Rome, 424 ; becomes .orchbishop of Canterbury, 426 ; death of, 427 Police, the new, introduction of, 900 Polish succession, the war of, 725 Poll-taxes, 267, 268 Ponet mavle Bist;op of Winchester, 416 Poor, the, condition of, 922 Poor Law, ihe new, 911 Poor priests sent out by Wycliffe, 268 Pope, character of the poetry of, 726 Popish Plot, the, 615 Population, growtn of, 813 Port Mahon, excellence of the harbour at, 690 : taken by the French, 749 Portland, Duke of, Prime Minister in the Coalition Ministry, 801 : enters Pitt s cabinet, 828; becomes Prime Minister a second time, 857 ; death of, 8^5 Portland, Earl of, William III. attached to, 6 4 Portland, Richard Weston, Earl of, as Lord Weston, becomes Lord I’reasurer, 514 ; made Earl of Portland and dies, 5 I Porto Novo, battle of, 805 Portsmouth, Louise ^de Keroua’le, Duchess of, betrays the secrets of Charles II., 602 ; extravagance of, 603 Portugal subdued by Philip II., 454; French invasion of, 863 ; Wellesley’s first landing in, 864 : return ( f Welles- ley to, 866 ; the French driven out of, 867 ; secured ny Canning, 884 Posidonius visits Britain, 8 Post Oilice re'orm, 918 Post-nati\ the, 483 Power- oom, the, invented by Cart- wrigh', 816 Powick Bridge, si irmish at, 537 Poynings’ Acts, 350 Poyntz, Ma or Cleneral, defeats Charles I. at Rowton He.ith, 549 Prsemumre. Statute ot, 258 ; re-enacted, 282 Pragmatic Sanction, the, 732 PRO Pratt, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, discharges W ilkes, and dec ares against general warrants, 776 ; be- comes Lord Chancellor and Lord Camden, 776 ; see Camden, Lord Prayer Book, the, see Common Prayer, Book of Prayer Book, the Scottish, introduced by Charles I., 525 Prerogative, the, opinion of James I. about, 492 Presbyterian clergy, the, prepared to accept a moditied episcopacy, 583 ; expell d irom their livings, 585 ; pro- posal ot Ctiarles II. to obtain compre- . hension for, 599 Presbyterian party, the, in a majority in the House of Commons, 546 ; attempts to disband the army, 553 ; negotiates with the Scots for a fresh invas on of England, 554 ; generally accepts the Piayer Book, 586 Presbyterianism emanates from Geneva, 430 ; its organisation completed in France, 431 ; adopted in Scotland, 434 ; attempts to establish, in England, 470 ; feeling in the Long Parliament about, 532 ; adopted by the Assemtjly of Divines, 543 ; Charles I. urged to esta lish in England, 551 Press, the liberty of the. 663 Preston, Cromwell’s victory at, 557 Prest >n P.m-, batile of, 740 Pretender, the Old, acknowledged King of England by Louis XIV., 675 ; a fraction of the Tory party favours the claims of, 699 : appears in Scotland to suppo t Mar’s rising, 70s Pretender, the Young, his fleet shattered by a storm, 737 ; lands in the High- lands, 739; defeats Cop.e at Pieston Pans and marches to Derby, 740 ; re- turns o S otland and defeats Hawley at Falkirk, 741 ; defeated at Culloden, 742 ; t scapes to the continent, 743 Prii hard, Lord Mayor, 624 Pride’s Purge, 557 Prime Minister, gradual development of the o fi^ e of, 716 Prince Edward Is and, joins the Do- mini )n of Canada, 968 Printing-press, the, 358 Prisons, condition of, 275 Privilege of Parliament, Strickland’s case of, 445 ; Eliot’s vindication of the, 512 Privy Council, the. Temple’s scheme for reform ng, 617 Prophesyings, the, 450 Protection! ts, the, led by Stanley, 931 ; vote against Peel’s bill for the pro- tection of life in Irelard, ib. Protectorate, establishment of the, 568 Protestants, the English, feeling of Henry VIII. and More towa-ds, 388 : parties amongst, 413 ; the Harian per- secution of, 424 : local distribution of, 426 ; their position at Elizabeth’s acces- 1038 INDEX PRO RIC sion, 428; influence of Calvinism on, 430 Provencals favoured by Henry III., 192 Provisions of Oxtord, the, 198 Provisors, Statute of, 258 ; re-enacted, 282 Prussia, Frederick I. receives the title of King of, 678 : succession of FrederLk II. in, 732 ; annexation of Silesia, 735 ; attacked in the Seven Years’ War, 749 ; takes part in the struggle with revolutionary France, 824 : t ikes part in the partition of Poland, 827 ; makes peace with France at Basel, 829; overthrown at Jena, 857 ; ill-treated by Napoleon, 858 ; joins Russia against Napoleon, 87^ ; gains territory at the Congress of Vienna, 873 ; adoption of a constitutional s>stem in, 934; repression of the revolutionists in, 936 ; makes war with Austria, 963 ; at the he td of the North German Confederation, ib. ; see German Empiie, tne Prynne, character and writings of, 519 ; his sentence in the Star chamber, ib. ; second sentence on, 521 Public Meetings, origin of, 789 Puiset, Hugh de, appointed a justiciar in the absence of Richard I., 159 Pularoon, re usal of the Dutch to sur- render, 589 ; abandoned by the Eng- lish, 593 Pulteney, leads a section of the opposi- tion against Wal.-ole, 722 ; stirs tip puK’C opinion against the Excise Bill, 724 : refuses office and becomes Earl of Bath, 730, 731 Punishments, early English, 32 ; medi- aeval, 27s Puritans, the, aims of, 444 : gain influ- ence in the House o' Commons, 445, 468 ; the Court of High Commission direct d against, 470: opinions of, at the Hampton Court Conference, 482 ; unpopular after the Resi oration, 586 Purveyance, abolition of, 582 Purveyors, 274 Pu-ey, a letder of the Oxford move- ment, 940 Pym differs from Eliot on the method of dealing with the question of Tonnage and Poundage, 512 ; addresses the Short Parliament on grievances, 529 ; proposes in the Long Parliament the impea hmeni of Strafford, ib. ; his view of S rafford's case, 530 ; discloses the army plot, 531 ; is erne of the leaders of the party of the Grand Remon- strance, 534 : accused as one of the five members, =35 ; urg^-s the House of Commons to resist Charles I., 540 ; death of, 5 12 Pytheas opens a trade-route to Britain, 8 Qu ‘DRUPi E Alliance, the, 709 Quebec, Wolfe sent to take, 753 ; sur- render of, 756 Queen Anne’s Bounty, 693 Queensland, established as a separate colony, 969 Quia emp ores y Statute of, 212 Quiberon Bav, Hawke s victory in, 756 ; landing of French royalists in, 830 Quo warranto y writs of, 624, 625 Radcot Bridge, the Duke of Ireland defeated at, 280 Radicals, the demand for reform made by, 877 Raedwald, king of East Anglia, 41 ; Eadwine takes refuge with, 43 Raglan, Lord, commands the English army ii va ling the Crimea, 945 Railways, introduction of, 906 Raleigh, Sir Walter, takes part in the capture of Cadiz, 464 ; sentenced to death and imprisonment, 481 ; loses Sherborne, 486 ; voya.ge to Guiana and execution of, 499 ; his colony in Vir- ginia, ib. Ralph de DIceto, 167 Ralph of Wader takes part in the Rising of the Earls, no Ramillies, battle of, 684 Ranulph Fiambard, see Flambard R6, Buckingham’s expedition to, 506 Reading taken by Essex, 538 Reading, the abbot of, executed, 400 Recognitions, 147 Recusancy laws, the, penalties inflicted by, 454 Reform Bill, the first, introduced and withdrawn, 902 ; re-introduced and rejected by the Lords, 903 ; brought in a third time and passed, 905 ; pass- ing of the second, 961 ; passing of the third, 972 ; see Parliamentary Re- form Regency Bill, the, 811 Regicides, the, execution of, 582 Reginald elected Archbishop of Canter- bury by the monks, 177 Regni, the, join Aulus Plautius, 13 Regular clergy, the, 65 Regulating Act, fbe, 802 Reign ■ f Terror, the, 826-828 Reims, College at, 453 Relics, destruction of, 398 Renascence, the, character of, 366 ; its influence on Eng'and, 367 ; immorality of, 374, 575 Rent, land let for, 321 Reporting, fr edom of, established, 779 Representative institutions, see Parlia- ment Requesens, governor of the Netherlands, 449 . Retainers substituted for vassals, 281 ; increase of the number of, 321 Revenue of the crown fixed after the Restoration, 582 Revolution of i638 9, 646-648 Rich, Edmund, Archbishop of Canter- bury, 189 INDEX Ki39 RIC ROM Richard I., as Duke of Aquitaine, 155 ; takes the cross, 157 ; becomes King of England, 159 ; sells the homage of Scotland ib. ; his Crusade and im- prisonment, 161 ; is lil>erated, 162 ; his ' short visit to England, ib. ; death of, 165 Richard II., proposal to set aside, 261 ; his minority, 266 ; meets the insur- gents, 268 ; offers to head them, 269 ; marries Anne of Bohemia, 278 ; his favouritism, ib. ; superseded in his authority by a Commission of Regency, 279 : regains power and governs con- stitutionally, 280 ; makes an alliance with France, and marries Isabella, 282: makes himself absolute, ib. ; banishes Norfolk and Hereford, 283 : goes to Ireland, 284 ; forced to abdicate, 285 ; murdered, 291 . alleged re-appearance of, 293 : buried at Westminster, 299 Richard III. (see Duke of Gloucester) is created a duke, 329 ; character of, 337 ; becomes Protector, ^ 338 ; has Hastings executed, 340 ; is crowned king, 341 : his government, 342 ; de- feated and slain, 343 Richard, Earl of Cornwall, leads the barons against Henry III., 192 ; deserts the barons, 195 ; takes part in summoning knights of the shire to Parliament, 196 ; is chosen king of the Romans, 198 ; hides himself after the battle of Lew es, 201 Richard Fitz-Nigel writes the Dialogus de Scaccario, 167 Richard the Fearless, Duke of the Normans, 80 Richard the Good, Duke of the Normans, 81 Richmond, Duke of, asks for manhood suffrage and annual parliaments 790 Richmond, Earl of, see Henry VII. Riding on horseback, 273 Ridley made Bishop of London, 416 ; burnt, 425 Ridolfi plot, the, 444 Rinuccini, Archbishop, arrives in Ireland, 550 ; leaves Ireland, 562 Ripon, architecture of the choir of, 171 Ripon, Earl of, resigns office. 912 ; Robinson, Frederick J.,ana Goderich, Viscount Ripon, treaty of, 529 Rising in the North, the, 441 Rising of the Earls, the, no Rivers, Earl, becomes Lord Constable, 331 : imprisoned, 338 ; executed, 340 Rizzio, David, murder of, 439 Roads, making and repair of, 272, 273 ; improvement in, 633 Robert I. (Bruce), king of Scotland, allied with Edward L, 223 ; slays Comyn, and is crowned King of Scot- land, 224 ; defeats Edward IL at Ban- nockburn, 226 ; leprosy of, 231 ; death of. 232 obert IL, king of Scotland, 295 Robert III., king of Scotland, 295 Robert, Earl of Gloucester, his power in the West of England, 133 ; declares for Matilda, 134; taken prisoner, and ex- changed for Stephen, 135 ; death of, ib. Robert, Duke of the Normans (father of William the Conqueror), 88 Robert, Duke of the Normans (son of William the Conqueror), incapacity of, 114; tebellion in England in favour of; 115 ; goes on the first Crusade, 121 ; fails to overthrow Henry I., 124 ; de- feat, imprisonment, and death of, 125 Robert of Belleme, cruelty of, 119 ; be- .comes Earl of Shrewsbury, 121 ; ex- pelled by Henry L, 124 ; imprisonment of, 125 Robert of Jumieges, Archbishop of Can- terbury, 87 Robin Hood, legend of, 2^5 Robinson, Sir Thomas, fails as leader of the House of Commons, 747 Robinson, Frederick J., buogets of, 886 ; see Cioderich, Viscount, and Ripon, Earl of Rochefort, failure of an attempt against. Rochelle, Buckingham lends ships to fight against the Huguenots of, 504 ; siege of, 506 ; expedition to the relief of, 510 Rochester, foundation of the bishopric of, 40 ; Odo besieged in, 115 Rochester, Lawrence Hyde, Earl of, advises against the summoning of Par iament, 626: dismissal of, 640; dismi sed through the influence of Marlborough, 681 Rockingham, Council at, 118 Rockingham, Marquis of, leads one of the three fractions of the Whig party, 768 ; first ministry of, 771 ; dismissal of| 773 ; second ministry of, 795 ; death of, 796 Rockingham Whigs, the, Pitt’s dislike of, 771 ; Burke’s influence with, 772 ; take the view that the House of Com- mons has no right to incapacitate Wilkes, 774 ; oppose Parliamentary reform, 777 ; support economical re- form, 789 Rodney, Admiral, bombards Havre, 756 ; defeats De Grasse, 795 Roger, Archbishop of York, crowns the young Henry, 149 Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, Minister of Henry L, 126; quarrels with Stephen, Roger, Earl of Hereford, takes part in the Rising of the Earls, no Roger of Hoveden, 167 Roger, son of Roger of Salisburj^, 134 Rogers, John, burnt, 424 Rohillas, the, Hastings assists the Nawab of Oude to subdue, 802 Roman Empire, the, establishment of, 12 ; continuance of, in the East after its destruction in the West, 27 1040 INDEX ROM Romans, the, invasion of Gaul by, lo ; invasion of Britain by, 1 1 ; commence- ment of the conquest of Britain by, 12 ; massacre of, 15 ; complete con- quest of the greater part of Britain by, 17 ; civilisation introduced into Britain by, 21 : end of their rule in Britain, 26 ; persistency of their civilisation in Gaul, 37 Rome taken by the Duke of Bourbon, 374 Romilly, Sir Samuel, advocates the reform of the criminal law. 885 Romney Marsh divides Jutes from South Saxons, 27 Rooke, Sir George, takes Gibraltar, 682 Roosebeke, battle of, 278 Root and Branch Bill, the, 533 Roses, Wars ofihe, see Wars of the Roses Rothesay, Duke of, death of, 295 Rouen occupied by Hrolf, 80 ; surren- ders to Henry V., 304; retaken by the French, 320 Roumania becomes an independent king- dom, 969 Rounds ay Down, battle of, 538 Rowton Heath, battle oF, 549 Royal Assent, the, refused for the last time, 706 Royal Socie y, the, foundation of, 598 Rump, the name given 10 the remnant of the Long Harliament, 565 ; dis- solved by Cromwell, 566 ; brought back, expelled and brought back again, 575 : final oissolution of, 576 Runje t bingh, a lies himself witn the British, 949 ; death of, 951 Rujiert, Prince, commands the cavalry at Edgehill, 537 ; storms Bristol, 538 ; is defeated -at Marston Moor, 543 ; takes part in the battle of Naseby, 548 : s rrenders Bristol, 549 ", holds a command in the battle off the North Foreland, 592 : defeated off the Texel, 608 Russ 11, Admiral, afterwards Earl of Orford, commands the fleet at La Hogi.e, 658 ; is o e of the Whig I unto, 659 ; created Earl of Orford, 669 ; see Orford, Earl of Russell, Etrl, becomes Prime Minister a second time, 961 ; resignation of, ib. ; see Russell, Lord John Russell, Lord John, advocates Parlia- mentary reform, 894 : obtains the re- peal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 895 ; holds a 'Subordinate office in Lord Gr>-y’s ministry, 901 ; in'roduces the first Reform Bill, 902; becomes Home Se'-retary and Leader of the House of Commons, 913; is unable to form a minist y, ami supports Peel's afiolition of the Corn Law, 931 ; ob- jects to Peel’s Iri'h p In y, ih. : be- comes Prime Minister, 932 : his deal- ings with Irish distress, ih. ; attempts to improve the condition of tenants in SAI Ireland, 933 : passes the Encumbered Estaies Act, 934: passes the fcccle- siastical Titles bill, 937; resignation of, 938; joins the Aberdeen Ministry, and promises a new Reform Bill, 943 ; is Foreign Secretary in Palmerston's second ministry, 956 ; brings in a Reform Bill, 957 : s^.e Russell, Earl Russell, William Russell, Lord, sup- ports the Exclusion Bill, 617 ; refuses to take part in acts of violence, 624 ; trial of, 625 ; execution of, 626 Russia, int rfcres for the fir^t time in Western Europe, 709 ; establishes the ‘ Armed Neutrality,’ 792; tak.s part in ihe second coalition, 839 ; withdraws from the alliance, 840 ; joins the Northern Confederacy, 844 ; with- draws from the Northern Confederacy, 845: joins the third coalition, 854 ; invaded by .Napoleon, 869 ; offers aid to the Sultan, 921; joins Eng and, Austria, and Prussia in supporting the Sultan, 922 ; propo'^ed partition of the Turkish dominions in agreement with, 943 ; goes to war with the Sultan, 944 ; war decLred by England and Fran;e against, ib. ; m.ikes peace with the allies, 948 : alliance of I >ost Moham- med with, 949 ; refuses to be bound by the treaiy of 1856, 965; overpowers the Turkish army, and submits to the Treaty of Berlin, 969; acquires Penj- deh, 971 Rutland, Earl of (son of the Duke of York), accompanies his father to Ire- land, 326 : murdered, 328 Ruvigny, Marquis of, serves in Ireland, 656 : ste Oalway, Earl of Ruyter, De, captures English forts in Guinea, 589 Rye House Plot, the, 625 Ryswick, peace of, 667 Sa, Dom Pantaleon, execution of, 569 Sacheverell, Dr., sermon preached by, 690 : impeached, 691 Sackville, Lord George, misconduct of, 756 Sadowa, battle of. 963 St. Albans (? e Verulam), architec- ture of the nave of the abbey of, 171 ; meeting of a national jury at, 180 ; the first battle of, 324 ; the second battle of, 328 St. Andrews captured by the French and recaptured, 413 St. Arnaud, Marshal, commands the French army in the Crimea, 945 ; death of, 946 St. Bartho omew, massacre of, 449 St. Bartho'omew’s day, election of the Presbyterian clergy on, 585 St. Cass failure of an expedition to the Bay of, 753 ^ St. Christopher’s, England receives the French part of, 696 INDEX 1041 SAI St. John, Henry, becomes minister as a moderate l ory, 68i ; obtains the re- jecti m uf an Occasional Conformity Bill, 682: turned out of ofirice, 687 ; is a member of a purely Tr>ry ministry, 691 : orders Ormond not to fijiht, 695 ; created Viscount Bolingbroke, ib.\ see Boling'iroke, Viscount St. John, Knights of, 157 St. Malo, expedition against, 753 St. Michaels Mount, Henry besieged at, 1 19 St. Paul’s, Old, burnt, 592 ; rebuilt, 677 St. Vincent battle of, 845 Saladin takes Jerusalem, 157 Saladin tithe, the, 157 Sal imanca, battle of, 869 Salic law, the so-called, 232 Salisbury, great Gemot at, 113; cathe- dral at, 207 ; Penruddock captures the judges at, 571 Salisbury, Marquis of, becomes Prime Minister, 971 Salisbury Richard, Earl of, his connec- tion with the Duke ot York, 324; takes part in the battles of Blore Heath and Northampton, 326 ; be- headed, 328 Salisb iry, Kobert Cecil, Earl of, as Sir Robert Cecil, secretary to Elizabeth and James I., 480, 481 : becomes Earl of Salisbury and Lord Treasurer, 484 orders the levy of new impositions, ib . ; death of, 486 Salisbury, Countess of, executed, 401 San Doningo, Penn and Venables attack, 572 San Stefano, trf"aty of, g6g Sancroft, William, Ar hbLhop of Can- terbury, deprived for refusal to take oaths to William, 651 Sandwich, Earl of, informs against Wilkes, 770 Santa Cruz, Blake destroys Spanish ships at, 573 Sar itoga capitulation of, 786 Sardinia, Kingdom of, conferred on the Duke of Savoy, in lieu of the Kingdom of Sicily. 710 Sarum, Old, 34 Savile Sir Cieorge, presides over a meeting in support of economical re- form, 789 : passes a Bill in relief of Roman Catholics, 792 Savoy, the, burnt, 269 Savoy Confere .ee, the, 585 Savoy, Duke uf, persecutes theVaudois, 572 Sawtre, William, burnt as a heretic, 292 Saxon shore, the defence of, 25; over- run by the lutes, 27 Saxons, the ('■ee East Saxons, South Saxons, West Savons), ravage Roman Britain, 24 ; settle in Britain, 27 ; merge their name in that of English, 28 : are known by the Celts as Saxons, 29 Say, Lord, beheaded by Jack Cade, 323 SCO Scheldt, the, opening of, 825 Schism Act, the, passed, 699 ; repealed, 710 Schomberg, Marshal, lands in Ireland, 655 ; killed at the Boyne, 656 Schwartz, Martin, defeated at Stoke, 347 Scotland, kingdom of, formed by a union of Scots and Piets, 63 ; its rela- tions with England under Eadmund, 64 : its relations with Cnut, 84 ; with William I., 104 ; with William II., 119; with Stephen, 133; w ith Henry II., 154 ; with Richard I., 159 ; dis- puted succession in, 214 ; Edward I. acknowledged Lord Paramount of, 216: its league with France, 218; twice conquered by Edward L, 219, 221 ; incorporated with England, 222 ; conquered a third time by Edward I., 224 : independence of, 226 ; first war of Edward III. with, 231; struggle between Edward Balliol and David Bruce in, 233, 234 ; accession of the St'iarts to the throne of, 295 ; assists France in its wars with England, ? o7 ; power of the nobles in, 404 ; lertford’s invasion of, 409 ; Protestant missionaries in, 412 ; Somerset's inva- sio 1 of, 413 : the Reformati.m in, 432: the intervention of Elizabeth in, 433 ; Presbyterianism in, 434 ; Mary lands in, 435 j Mary’s govern ent of, 437- 440 ; civil war in, 443 ; projected union with, 482 ; Episcopacy and Presbyterianism in, 524 ; introduc- tion of a new prayer book in, 525 ; national covenant signed n, ib. ; first Bishops’ war with 526 ; episcopacy abolished i>y the Assembly and Parlia- ment of, 527 ; the second Bishops’ war with, 529; vidt of Charles I. to, 532 ; solemn league and covenant with, 540 ; sends an army into Eng- land, 542 : its army recalled, 553 ; pro- posal of a new invasion of Eng and by, 554 ; engagement signed with Charles I. by Commissioners of, 556 ; Charles II. and Cromwell in, 563 ; Restoration settlement of, 595 ; Lauderdale’s in- fluence in, 602 ; Lauderdale’s manage- ment of, 619 : Covenanters in, ib. ; rising of the Covenanter- in, 620 ; under James II., 639 ; Presbyte ianism established in. 652 : tne crown offered to William and Mary in, ib. : pacifica- tion of the Hig'-'lan is of 651; the union with, 685 : enthusiastic support of the Darien expedition in 671 ; Mar’s rising in, 705 ; disruption of the Church of, 940 Scots, the ravages of, 23 : abode of, in Ireland, 23 : renewed ravages of, 26 ; settle in Argyle, and are defeated at Degsastan. 42 : their relations with Eadward the Elder. 63 : se^ Scotland Scott. Sir Walter, works of, 889 Scottish army, the, encamps on Dunse Law, 526 ; routs the English at New- INDEX 1042 burn, 529 ; invades England, 542 ; besieges York, ib. ; takes part in the battle of Marsion Moor, 543 ; receives Charles I. at Southwell, and conveys him to Newcastle, 551 ; negotiation for the abandonment of Charles I. by, 553 ; returns to Scotland, 553 ; is de- feated at Dunbar, 563 ; and at Wor- cester, 564 Scrope, Archbishop of York, executed, 296 Scrope, Lord, execution of, 301 Scutage, 141 ^ Scutari, hospital at, 947 Sebastopol, siege of, 945 ; reduction of, 947 ; destruction of the fortifications of, 948 Second Civil War, the, 556, 557 Secular clergy, the, 67 Sedan, battle of, 965 Sedgemoor, battle of, 637 Sedition Act, the, 830 Selby taken by the Fairfaxes, 542^ Selden, John, takes part in drawing up the Petition of Right, 508 Self-denying Ordinance, the, 545 Selsey, landing of the South Saxons near, 27 Seminary priests, the, 453 ; Act of Parlia- ment against, 456 Senegal ceded by France, 766 Senlac, battle ot, 96 Separatists, the, principles of, 470 ; settlement of, in Leyden and New England, 489 ; receive the name of Independents, 543 ; .•^ee Independents Sepoy mutiny, the 951-955 Septennial Act, the, 706 Serfs, see Villeins Seringapatam stormed, 838 Servia, becomes an indfependent king- dom, 969 Settlement, Irish Act of, 595 Settlement, Act of; see Act of Settlement Seven Bishops, the, petition presented by, 642 ; trial of, 643 Seven Years’ War, the, beginning of, 749 : end of, 766 ; results of, 767 Severn. West Saxon conquest of the Valley of, 35 Severus fails in conquering the Cale- donians, 19 Seymour, Jane, see Jane Seymour Seymour of Sudley, Lord, execution of, 415 Seymour. William, heir of the Suffolk line, 480 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of, early life of, 602 ; polii y of, 603 : suppnrts the Declaration of Indulgence, 605 ; becomes Earl of Shaftesbury and Chan< ellor, ib. ; his invective agai ist the Dutch 606 ; dis- missal of, 608 ; leads the opposition, ib. ; supports toleration for Dissenters only, 610 ; declares the presi-nt Par- liament to be dissolved, 612 ; en- courages belief in the Popish Plot, 616; his position similar to that of Pym, 618; supports the Exclusion Bill, ib. ; indicts the Duke of V ork as Jury throw out a Bill against, 622 ; Dryden’s .satire on, 623 ; pn ''oses to attack the king’s guards, 624; exile and death of, ib. Shakspere, William, teaching of, 474 ‘ Shannon,’ the, captures the ‘ Chesa- peake,’ 872 _ Sharp, Archbishop, murder of, 620 Shelburne, Earl of, takes office in Rockingham s second mini-stry, 795 ; becomes Prime Minister, 796 ; resig- nation of, 800 Shelley, opinions of, 888 Sherborne taken by Fairfax, 548 Sherfield, Henry, fined by the Star Chamber, 515 Sheridan, takes part in the impeach- ment of Hasting', 811 Sheriffmuir. battle of, 705 Sheriffs, their position in Eadgar’s reign, 73; weakened by Henry 1 1., 148 Ship-money, levy of, 523 ; resisted by Hampden, 524 Ships, comparison between English and Spanish, 459 Shires, origin of, 73 Shire moot, the 73 ; see County Courts Shore, Jane, penance of, 340 Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, drowned, 689 Shrewsbury, Duke of, becomes Lord Treasurer, 700 Shrewsbury, Earl of, Talbot, Lord Shrewsbury, Parliament of, 283 ; battle of, 294 Shrines, destruction of, 398 Sicily, I he Duke of Savoy becomes king of, 696 ; given to Austria, 710 ; ceded to the son of Philip V., 724 ; retained by Ferdinand I., 857 Sidmouth, Viscount, included in the Ministry of All the Talents, 855 ; is Home Secretary in Lord Liverpool’s ministry, 877 : holds that meetings in favou' of Radical reform are treason- able, 880 ; see Addington Sidn y, Algernon, execution of, 626 Sidney, Sir Philip, death of, 457 Sikhs, the, all.ed, under Runjeet Singh, with the British, 949 ; wars with, 951 Silchester, Roman church at, 23 Simnel, Lambert, insurrection in favour of. 347 Simon de Montfort, early career of, 193 ; takes the side of the naron-, 195 ; em- ployed in Gasrony, 196 ; executes the Provi'i tns of Oxford, 199; heads the baronial party, 200; wins the battle of Lewes, 201 ; constitution d seneme of, ib. ; killed at Eve-ham. 203 ; com- pared with Ar hbi'hop Thomas, 204 Sinclair, Oliver, killed at Solway Moss, 405 Sindhia, a Mahratta chief, 802 ; defeated INDEX 1043 siv and reduced to sign a subsidiary treaty, 859 Sivaji founds the Mahratta State. 759 Siward, Earl of North-humberland, 84, 87 Six Arts, the, 880 Skeffington, Lord Deputy, takes May- nooth, 402 Slave trade, the, carried on by Eliza- bethan sailors, 447 ; recognised in the Assiento Treaty, 696 ; denounced by Clarkson, 823 ; attacked by Wilber- force and Pitt, ib.\ abolished, 855. 857 Slavery, agitation for the abolition of, 910; abolition of, 911 Slaves preserved alive at the English conquest, 30 Sluys, battle of, 239 Smerwick, slaughter at, 453 Smith, Adam, his Wealth of Nations, 810 Smith, Sir Sidney, defends Acre, 838 Solemn league and covenant, the, 540 Solway Moss, defeat of the Scots at, 405 ; Charles I. urged by the Scots to take, 551 Somers, Lord, one of the Whig Junto, 659 : resignation of, 670 : dissuades the Whigs from impeaching Sache- verell, 691 Somerset, Welsh driven out of, 53 Somerset, Edmund Beaufort, secondDuke of, commands in Normandy, 320 ; sup- orted by Henry VI., 323 ; slain at t. Albans, 324 Somerset, Edmund Beaufort, fourth Duke of, executed, 334 Somerset, Edward Seymour, Duke of, invades Scotland as Earl of Hertford, 406 : becomes Duke of Somerset and Protector, 412 ; defeats the Scots at Pinkie Cleugh, 413 ; possession of Church property by, 415 ; expelled from the Protectorate, 416 ; execution of, 418 Somerset, Henry Beaufort, third Duke of executed, 331 Somerset, John Beaufort, first Duke of, commands in France, 317 ; kept from court by Suffolk, 318 ; dies, 320 Somerset, Robert Carr. Earl of. favourite of James I., 486 ; disgrace of, 488 Somerset House, building of, 425 Sophia, the Electress, favours the Whigs, 609 ; « eath of, 701 Sorbiodunum {, 01.1 Sarum), the strong- hold of Ambrosius, 34 South Airica, progress of, 968 South Austr 1 lia established as a separate colonv, 968 South Saxons, the, first conquests of, 27 ; destroy Anderida, 28 South Sea Bubble, the, 711 Sou'hwell, Charles I. surrenders to the Scots at, 551 Southwold bay, battle in, 605 Spain, union of the kingdoms of, 349 ; growth of the monarchy of, 354 : STA resources of, 426 ; maritime power of, 447 ; authority of, in the West Indies challenged by English sailors, ib. ; navy of, 459 ; English attacks on, 464 ; sends an expedition to Kin.sale, 478 : its alliance .sought by James L, 486 ; attack of Raleigh on the colonies of, 489 : sends troops to occupy the Palatinate, 490; protest of the Com- mons against an alliance with, 496 ; visit of Prince Charles to, 497 ; eagerness in England for war with, 500 ; money voted for war with, 501 ; expedition against Cadiz in, 503 ; Charles I. makes peace with, 514 ; Cromwell makes war on, 571 ; question of the succession to, 592 ; war of the Spani.sh succession in, 682 ; her conflict with England in the West Indies, 726 ; war with, 730; joins France against Eng- land at the end of the Seven Years' War, 766 : allies herself with France and America, 787 ; makes peace with Great Britain, 798 ; its fleet defeated off Cape St. Vincent, 835 ; Napoleon’s interference in, 862 : resists Napoleon, 863; Napoleon appears in, 864: Wel- lesley’s advance to Talavera in, 867 ; Wellington’s advance to Madrid and Burgos in, 869 ; the French d iven out of, 871 ; revolution against Ferdinand VII. in, 882 : death of Ferdinand VII. in, 92 j ; civil war in, 921 Spanish succession, the, claimants to, 667 : thrown open by the death of Charles II., 671 ; war of, 675 Spencer, Henry, Bishop of Norwich, leads an expedition to Flander.s, 278 Spenser, ^dm.\ind,h\s Faerie Queen, 473 Spinning, improvements in, 814 Spinola, Ambrogio, invades the Palati- nate, 490 Spithead, mutiny at, 836 Spurs, battle of the, 364 Stadholder, office of, 449 ; abolition of the office of, 565 Stafford, William Howard, Viscount, execution of, 621 Stainer, Admiral, captures a Spanish fleet, 572 Stair, tlie Master of, John Dalrymple, organises the massacre of Glencoe.. 654 Stamford Bridge, battle of, 95 Stamp Act, the, passed, 771 ; repealed, 772 Standard, battle of the, 133 Stanhope, Earl, death of, 712 ; see Stan- hope, General Stanhope, General, takes Minorca, 690 ; surrenders at Bri' uega, 632; takes the lead after the Whig schism, and becomes Viscount and the Earl Stan- hope, 709 : see Stanhope, Earl Stanley, Lord, joins Henry VII, , 343 Stanley, Mr., afterwards Lord, his policy as Chief secretary for Ireland, 910 : becomes Colonial Secretary, 1044 INDEX STA ib. ; carries a Bill for the abolition of slavery. 911 : resigns office, 912 ; a member of Peel’s cabinet, 926 ; resigns, and becomes a leader of the Protec- tionists, 931 ; succeeds to the Earldom of Derby, 938 ; see Derby, Earl of Stanley, Sir William, deserts Richard III., 343 : execution of, 351 Star Chamber, Court of, organisation of, 347 : its sentences in the reign of Charles I., 514, 519, 521 ; abolition of, 531 States-General, the French, meet during John’s captivity, 252 Statute of Wales, 210 Steam engine, the, improved by Watt, 816 ; introduction of the locomotive, 906 Steam- vessels, introduction of, 906 Stephen, accession of, 13 1 ; makes peg.ce with the Scots, 133 ; quarrels with the barons, ib. ; quarrels with the clergy, 134 ; death of, 135 Stephenson, George, introduces loco- motive engines, 906 ; appointed en- gineer to the Liverpool and Man- chester Railway, 907 ; adoption of his locomotive, 909 Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, 89 Stillingfleet aims at comprehension, 598 Stirling, Wallace’s victory at, 221 Stoke, battle of, 347 Stone implements, 1-4 Stop of the Exchequer, the, 604 Stow-on-the-Wold, surrender of the last Royalist army at, 550 Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of, as Sir Thomas Wentworth, his policy contrasted with that of Eliot, 508 ; brings in a bill to secure the liberty of the subject, ib. \ becomes Lord Went- wor h and President of the Council of the North, 514 ; becomes Lord Deputy of Ireland, 527 ; created Earl of ->traf- fo'd, and advises the summoning of the Short Parliament, 528 ; does not advise the prolongation of the second Bishops war, 529 ; collects an Irish army, ib. ; is impeached, 30 ; Bill of Attainder against, ib.\ execution of, 53^ Strathclyde, formation of the kingdom of, 43 ; is not dependent on Ecg- berht, 55 ; its relations with Eadmund, 64 Stratton, ba*tle of, 5^8 Strickland moves for an amendment of the Prayer Kook, 445 Strode, William, one of the five members, Strongbow in Ireland, 152 Stuart, family of, inherit the throne of Scotland, 295 ; last descendants of the H ou'e of, 743 Submission of the clergy, the, 386 Subsidiary treaties, 859 Succession, Act of, 392 Suetonius Paullinus, campaigns of, 14-16 TAL Suffolk, origin of the name of, 28 Suffolk, l harles Brandon, Duke of, marries Mary, sister of Henry VIII. , 364 Suffolk, Michael de la Pole, Earl of Chancellor of Richard II., 278 ; driven from power, 279 ; condemned to death, 280 Suffolk, Thomas Howard, Earl of, 486 Suffolk, William de la Pole, Earl of, arranges a truce with France, 317 ; presides over the government of Eng- land, 318 ; impeached and murdered, 322 SufLlk line, its title to the succession, 410 ; Elizabeth’s feeling towards, 435 ; William Seymour, the heir of, 480 Sunderland, Earl of, becomes Secretary of State, 687; takes the lead after the Whig schism, 709 ; resignation of, 712 Supremacy, Act of, 393 ; Elizabethan Act of, 429 Supreme head of the Church of Eng- land title of, conferred by Convocation on Henry VIII., 386; abandoned by Elizabeth, 429 Surrey, Earl of, governs Scotland in the name o< Edward I., 219 Su^ey, Henry Howard, Earl of, execu- tion of, 41 1 Surrey, Thomas Howard, Earl of, minister of Henry VIII., 363 > the commander at Flodden, see Norfolk, Duke of Sussex, conquest of, 27, 28 ; weakness of, 41 ; accepts Christianity, 49 Sussex, Thonias Ratcliffe, Earl of. Lord Deputy of Ireland, 452 Sutlej, the, batt'es on, 951 Svend attacks London, 79 ; returns to Denmark, 80 ; invades England, 81 ; death of, 83 Sweden takes part in the Triple Alliance, 599 Swegen, son of God wine, misconduct of, 87 ; death of, 88 Swift, career of, 693 ; political influence of, 694; writes The Drapiers Letters., 718 Swynford, Catherine, marries John of Gaunt, 282 Syria, acquired by Mehemet Ali, 921 ; restored to the Sultan, 922 Tacking, successful in the case of a bill on Irish forfeitures, 670 ; rejected by the Commons in the case of an Occasional Conformity Bill, 682 Talavera, battle of, 867 Talbot, Lord, deieats the Burgundians, 313 ; becomes Earl of Shrewsbury, 320 ; defeated and slain, 323 Tallages levied by Edward I., 221 i abolished by Edward III., 243 Tallard, Marshal, defeated at Blenheim, 68a INDEX 1045 TAN Tangier acquired by Charles II., 587 Tasmania becomes a separate colony, 968 Taunton, siege of, 548 Taxation, ste Uanegeld, Customs Taylor, Rowland, burnt, 424 Tel-el-Kebir, battle of, 971 Telford, improvement ot roads by, 905 Templars, the Knights, 157 Temple, Lord, canvasses the House of Lords against Foxs India Bill, 806 Temple, Sir William, negotiates the Triple Alliance, 599: advises the reform of the Privy Council, 617 ; failure of his scheme, 620 Tennyson, his In Memoriam, 943 Terouenne, 364 Test Act, the, passed, 607 ; a second, 616: violated by James IL, 638; Su' derland and Stanhope think of repealing, 710 ; Walpole resists the repeal of, 716 ; partial repeal of, 895 Tewkesbury, battle of, 334 Texel, the, Rupert defeated off, 608 Thackeray, his Vanity Fair^ 940 Thames, the, early ferry over, 20 Thanet, probable identification of Ictis with, 8 ; Jutes established in, 27 Thegns, how distinguished from Gesiths, 31 ; their devotion to their lord, 44 ; growing military importance of, 69 Theodore, Archbishop, his influence on the Church of England, 50 ; assembles the first Church Council, 52 Thetford, removal of the see rom, 107 Thiers supports Mehemet AH, and pre- pares for war with h.ngland, 922 Thirty Years’ War, the, beginning of, 490 : end of, 564 Thisilewood proposes to murder the cabinet 88i Thomas of Canterbury, St., destruction of the shrine of, 398 Thomas of London (Becket), Chancellor, 140 ; being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, resists Henry II. , 143; takes refuge in France, 145 ; returns to England, 149 ; is murdered, 150 Thrjgmorton’s conspiracy, 456 Thurlow, Lord, his saying about Fox’s India Bill, 806 Thurstan, Archbishop, leads the levies at the battle of the Standard, 132 Tiberias, battle of, 157 Ticonderaga, Abercrombie repulsed at, 7:3 : taken by Amherst, ib . ; taken by the Americans, 7 3 Tilsit, the treatv of, 858 Tin, Phoenician and Greek trade in, 8 Tinchebrai, battle of, 125 Tintern Abbey, 129 Tippermuir, brttle of, 547 Tipp o, succeeds Hyder AH, and makes peace, 805 : Hefeated by Cornwallis, 837 ; def at^d ' y Harris and s ain, 838 Tithes, proposal of the Barebone’s Par- liament to abolish, 567 Tithes, Irish, difficulty of collecting, 910 TKA Todleben commands the Russians at Sebastopol, 045 Togidumnus, death of, 13 Toleration, Cromwell’s advocacy of, 543 ; Charles II. proposes to adopt, 583 ; Charles II. is'ues a declaration in favour of, 587 ; tendency of sc ence to promote, 598 ; Lccke’s letters on, 652 Tokration Act, the, 651 Tone, Wolfe, founds the United Irish- men, 832 : sent to France, 834 Tonnage and Poundage, nature of, 509 ; claimed by Charles I. in .>-pite of the Petition of Right, 510 ; Act prevent- ing the king In m levying, 531 Torbay, arrival of William III. in, 644 Torrington, Earl of, Arthur Herbert, defeated at Beachv Head, 657 Tory party, the, origin of the name of, 620 ; reaction in favour of, 622 ; elects officers in the city, 623 ; gains a majority in the Common Council, 624 ; supports William III., 656 ; political ideas of, 672 ; its aims in the reign of A"ne, 691 ; foreign policy of, 692 ; twelve peers created from, 695 ; its position after the Treaty of Utrecht, 699: loses power at tne death of Anne, 702 ; principles of, at the accession of George III., 767 ; secures office under Lord North, 776 ; rises to power under i^itt, 808 ; co- alesces with the majority of theW higs, 828 To'tig, Earl of North-humberland, 89 ; driven from his earldom, 90 ; allied to Harold Hardrada, 94 ; killed at Stam- ford Bridge, 96 Toulo'i, attack by Eugene and Shovel on, 689 Toulou.se, battle of, 871 Touraine conquered by Philip II., 176 Tournai, 364 Tourville, Count of, defeats the English and Dutch off" Beachy Head, and makes himself master of the Channel, 657 Town, the, 693 Towns, growth of, 62, 72, 168 ; condition of the outskirts of, 191 Townshen 1, Cnarles, places duties on imports into the American colonies, 773 ; death of, 774 Townshend, Lord, becomes Secretary of State, 703 : dism'ssed by George L, 709; re-admitted to office, 71 1 ; im- proves the cultivation of turnips, 813 Townships, early political organisation of> 31 Towton, battle of, 329 Trade, see Commerce Trafalgir, battle of, 854 Trakir, battle of, 947 Transition from round-arched to Pointed architecture, 171 Transvaal Republic, the, foundation of, 969 ; annexation of, 970 ; acknow- 1046 INDEX TRA VIN ledgment of the independence of, 971 Travelling, modes of, 273 Treason Act, th-, carried, 830 Treasonable Correspondence Act, 828 Treasons, Act creating new, 392 Treasons, Statute of, 250 Trent, the Council of, 436 Trent, the Anglian occupation of the Valley of, 36 Tresilian, Chief Justice, hanged, 280 Triennial Act of Charles 1 ., the, 530 ; repealed, 588 Triennial Act, the second, 661 Triers, Commission of, 569 Trimmer, origin of the name of, 618 _ Trinobantes, the geographical position of, 8 ; side with Caesar, ii ; submit to Cimobelin, 12 Triple Alliance, the, 599 Tn ppau, Congre>s of, 882 Troye>, the 1 reaty of, 306 Tudor, Owen, marries the widow of Henry y. 335 Tulchan bishops, the, 524 Tumb.ers, 275 Tunis, Blake sent against, 571 Turin, Eugene raises the siege of, 684 Turkish dominions, the proposal of Nicholas to partition, 943 Turks, the. uprising of the Greeks against, 884 ; defeated by Ibrahim Pasha, 921 ; welcome aid from Russia, ib. ; Syria restored to, 922 ; at war with Russia, 944 ; are overpov\ ered by Russia, and submit to the Treaty of Berlin, 969 Turner, landscape-painting of, 943 Turnhani Green, the militia of the city resist Charles I. at, 537 Tuscany, Duke of, Blake sentagainst,57i Tyndale, William, translates the New Testament, 396 Tyrco' nel, Earl of, see O’Donnell Tyrconnel, Richard Talbot, Earl of, L' ird Deputy in Ireland, 640 Tyre in danger, 157 Tyrone, Earl of, see O’Neill, Hugh Ulm. capitula‘ion of, 854 Ulster, plantation of, 484 ; insurrec- tion and massacre in, 534 Undertakers, the, 487 Uniformity, Elizabethan Act of, 429 ; Restoration Act of, 585 Union with Scotland, 685 ; with Ireland, 842 United Irishmen, Society of, foundation o'", 832 ; prepares for an insurrection, 841 United States, the ; see America, the United States of Universities, growth of, 167 : consulted on the divorce of Henry VIII., 385 Unkiar Skelessi, treaty of, signed, 921 ; abandoned, 922 Urban II., Pope, supported by Lan- franc, u8 ; preaches a Crusade. i?o Uriconium, see Viriconium Utopia, 367^ Utrectit, union of, 450 ; treaty^ of, signed 696 ; its effect on international rela- tions, 697 Valence, William de, resists the Pro- visions of Oxford, 199 Valenune takes part in holding down the Speaker, 514 Val-es-dunes, battle of, 88 Valley Forge, destitute condition of the American army at, 787 Vandeve.de paints marine subjects, 631 Van Dyck, portraits by, 631 Vane, Sir Henry, the younger, produces evidence against Strafford, 530 ; negotiates the Solemn League and Covenant, 540 ; brings in a Reform bill, 566 Vaudois, the, Cromwell intervenes in favour of, 572 Venetian Republic, the suppression of, 837 Venice, League of Cambrai formed against, 363 Venner’s plot, 584 Vere, Sir Horace, defends the Palatinate, 490 Vemeuil, battle of, 308 Vernon, Admiral, takes Porto Bello, and fails to take Cartagena, 730 Verrio paints ceilings, 631 Verulamium, Roman city at, 19 ; martyrdom of St. Alban at, 23 Vestments, ecclesiastical. Hooper’s rejec- tion of, 417 : Puritan re>istance to the use of, 444 ; Whitgift’s opinion on the propriety of, 468 Vicar, meaning of the term, 129 Victor Emanuel II., King <.f Sardinia, afterwards King of Italy, maintains constitutional government, 936 ; joins the allies in the Crimean war, 947 ; supported by the French in the war for the liberation of Italy, 956 ; be- comes king of Italy, 957 Victoria, accession of, 914 ; refuses to dismiss Whig Ladies of the Bed- chamber, 918 : marriage of, 926 ; visits Louis Philippe, 927 Vienna, congress of, 873 Villa Viciosa, battle of, 692 Villages, arrangements of, 75 Villeins, the, uncertain origin of, 31 : in- crease of, 69 : position of, after the Norman conquest, 102 ; partial com- mutation of the services of, 168 ; effect of the ^ Black Death upon, 248 ; in- surrection of, 268 : take refi ige in towns, 275 ; land ceases to be cultivated by, 320, 321 Villiers, Charles, moves the repeal of the Corn Law, 924 ; moves a resolu- tion approving < f the Corn Law, 938 Vimeiro, battle of, 864 Vinegar Hill, defeat of the Irish insur- gents at, 841 INDEX 1047 VIR WES Virginia, colonisation of, 489 Vinconium, Koinaii colony at, 14 Viiiona, b utle of, 871 Volunteers, the Irish, 796 ; the English, 848, 957 Vortigern establishes Jutes in Thanet, 27 Vote of No Addresses, 556 Wagram, battle of, 865 Wakefield, battle of, 328 Wnlchcrcn, expedition to, 865 Wales reduced by Harold, 90 ; Flemish settlement in, 128 ; conquered by Ed*ard I., 210: marches of, ib.\ sup- ports Richard II., 285 Walker, Obadiah, ^ Roman Catholic Master of University college, 639 Wallace, William, rises against Ed- ward 1 , 221 ; execution of, 222 Waller, Sir William, defeated at Lans- down and Roundway Down, 538 : takes Arundel Castle and defeats Hopton at Cheriton, 542 ; fights at Cropredy Bridge, 54., ; resigns his command, 545 -Vallingford, Treaty of, 137 vValls, the Roman, 17 Walpole Sir Robert, resigns office, 709 ; opposes the repeal of the Test Act and the passing of Peerage Bill, 710 ; re- solves to rely on the Commons, not on the Lords, ib. ; re-admitted to office, 71 1 ; become- First Lord of the Trea- sury, 712 ; his method of managing the House of Commons, 714 ; his doc- trine of ‘ Quieta non movere,’ 716 ; his rivalry with Carteret, 718 ; con- tinues in power under George II., 720 ; his breach with Townshend, ib. ; brings in an Excise Bill, 722 ; with- draws the Excise Bill, 724 ; is unwilling to go t 'war with Spain, 728 ; charac- teristics of the sections of the opposi- tion against, ib. ; hopes to end the quarrel with Spain by negotiation, 729 ; end of the administration of, 730 ; made Earl of Orford, 731 Walsingham, Sir Francis, Secretary to Elizabeth, 457 Walter Map, 167 Waltheof, Earl of Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire, 90 ; is be- headed, no Wanborough, Ceawlin defeated at, 36 Wandewash, battle of, 764 War-band, the, composed of Gesiths, 30 Warbeck, Perkin, insurrection of, 350- 352 ; execution of, 354 Wardship, nature of the lord’s claim to, 1 16 ; results of the system, 330 Wars of the Roses, origin of the name of, 324 ; Slate of society during, 330 Warwick, Earl of, opposes Richard II , 279: banishment of, 28' Warwick, Earl of (son of the Duke of Clarence), imprisonment of, 343 ; exe- cution of, 354 C Warwick, Richard Beauchamp, Earl of, regent in France, 313 Warwick, Richard Nevill, Earl of (the King-maker), influence of, 324 : retires to Calais, and comes back and de eats the Lancastrians at Northampton, 326 ; estranged from Edward IV., 33 i ; is reconciled to Queen Margaret, 3 '3 : restores Henry Vi., and is de- feated and slain at liarnet, 334 Warwick, Earl of, see Northumberland, Duke of Washington, burning of the Capitol at, 873. Washington, George, appointed com- mander of I he Continental army, 783 ; his difficuliies, 784 ; driven by the British out of New jersey, ib. ; regains New Jersey, 786 ; defeateii on ihe Brandywine, ib. ; winters at Valley Forge, 787 Wat l yler, insurrection of, 268, 269 Waterloo, l3attle of, 874 Watt improves the steam-engine, 816 Wealth of Nations, The, publication of, 810 Wedderburn becomes Solicitor-General, 779 Wedmore, Peace of, (the so-called) 59 Wellesley, Marquis, his subsidiary sys- tem, 859 ; see Mornington, Lord Wellesley, Sir Arthur, his victories in India, 859 ; defeats Junot at Vimeiro, 864 : returns to Poriugal, and drives Soult out of Oporto, 866 ; defeats the French ai Talavera, 867 ; created a Viscount, ib. ; see Wellington, Vis- count Wellington, Viscount, afterwards Duke of, defends the lines of Torres Vedras, 867 : elements of the success of, 868 ; takes Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, 869 ; defea' s Marmont at Salamanca, and enters Madrid, ib. ; becomes Prime Minister, 893 ; supports the Catholic Emancipation Bill, 896 ; fights a duel, ib. ; resignation of,Qoo ; takes measures a;;ainst the Chartists, 935 : death of, 938 ; see Wellesle3% Sir Arthur Welsh, the, speak a language derived from that of the Britons, 7 ; origin of their name,3i ; adopt the name Kymry, 37 ; defeated by iLthelirith near Chester, 43 ; split up into three divi- sions, ih.\ driven out of Nomerset, 53 ; their relations with Ecgberht, 56 ; see Wales Wentworth, Sir Thomas, see Strafford, Earl of Wentworth, Thomas Wentworth, Lord, governor of C alais, 427 Weregild, system of, 32 Wesley, teaching of, 746 Wesley, Samuel, sermon by, 642 We-sex, gradual formation of, 28, 34, 35 ; is weakenei* by internal quarrels, ; accepts Christianity, 48 ; growing 3 V 1048 INDEX WES unity of, 53 ; causes of the supremacy of, 55 : an earldom under Godwine and Harold, 84, 89 West Indies, the, conflicts between English and Spanish sailors in, 447 ; smuggling in, 726 ; ill-treatment of Englishmen in, 728 : capture of islands in, 859 West Saxons, the, first conquests of, 28 ; defeated at Mount Badon, ib. ; occupy Salistiury Plain, 34 ; wage war with the men of Kent and with the Britons of the Severn Valley, 35 ; are defeated at Faddiley, ; see Wessex West Wales split off from other Welsh territory, 42 Westminster Abbey, consecration of, 91 ; coronation of William I. in, too Westmorland, Charles Neville, Earl of, takes part in the rising of the North, 441 Weston, Lord, see Portland, Earl of Westphalia, Peace of, 564 ; erection of the kingdom o', 858 Westward Ho ! 447 Wexford, slaughter at, 563 Wharton, Lord, as Th mas Wharton, is a member of the Whig Junto 660 Whig party, the, origin of the name of, 620 ; has a hold on the city of London, 622 ; misuses its power in the second Convention Parliament, 656 ; William choose his ministers from, 659 : supported by Marlborough and Godolphin. 684; obtains complete control over the ministry, 687 ; im- peaches Dr. Sacheverell, 691 ; dis- graced by Anne, ib. ; is strong in the Ho se of Lords, 695 ; position of, after the Treaty of Utrecht, 699 ; supported by George L, 703 ; secures a parlia- mentary majority, and prepares to impeach the leading Tories 704 ; sup- ports the Septennial Act, 706 ; change in the foreign policy of, 707 ; schism in, 709 : causes of its strength when led by Walpole, 713 ; divisions in, 722 ; hostility of George III. to, 765 ; divided into three fractions, 768 ; se- ceders from, coalesce with Pitt, 828 ; enters into relations with Canning, 892 ; chooses Lord Althorp as its leader, 898 ; coalesces with the Can- ningites, 891 ‘ Whip with six strings, the,’ 400 White Ship, the, wreck of, 129 Whitefield preaches at Kingswood, 746 Whitgift, John, Archbishop of Canter- bury, opinions of, 468 ; the High Commission Court under, 470 ; com- pared with Hooker, 472 Whitworth, Lord, violent language of Bonaparte towards, 848 Wilberforce denounces the slave-trade, 83 Wilfrid supports Papal authority, 50 Wilkes, John, arrested for an article in the North Briton, 769 ; condemned as WIL the author of an indecent poem, and expelled from the House of Commons, 770; escapes to France, ib.\ returns to England, and is elected for Middle- sex, ; expelled from the House, and declared incapable of sitting in it, ib. : supported by the mob, 775 ; takes part as an alderman in the im- prisonment of a messenger of the House of Commons, 779 Wilkins, Bishop, aims at comprehension, 59? William I. (the Conqueror) declared heir of Eadward the Confessor, 88 : his rule in Normandy, ib.-, claims the crown from Harold, 91 ; lands at Pevensey, and defeats Harold at Senlac, 96-98 ; crowned at Westminster, 100 ; progress of his conquest, 101-103 devastates the Vale of York, 103 ; subdues Here- ward, and receives Malcolm’s submis- sion, 104 ; his method of keeping English and Normans in subjection, 104 106 ; his relations with the Church, 106-110 ; suppresses the Rising of the Earls, no; lays waste the New Forest, ib, ; has Domesday Book pre- pared, III ; receives oaths at Salisbury, 113 : death of, 114 William I., Prince of Orange, Stad- holder of the Dutch republic, 449 ; Jaureguy’s attempt to murder, 454 ; murdered by Gerard, 456 William II. (Rufus) is crowned King of England, 114 ; is supported by the English against Robert, 115 ; charac- ter of, tb. ; his treatment of Anselm, 117: his quarrels with his brothers, 118; his relations with Scotland, 119 ; sup- presses Mowbray’s rebellion, 120 ; last years of, 121 ; is murdered, 122 William II., Prince of Orange, death of, 565 William III., Prince of Orange, defends the Dutch republic, 605 ; is offered the hand of Mary, daughter of the Duke of York, 608 : at the head of a conti- nental alliance, 609 ; marriage of, 613; invited to England, 644'; lands at Brixham and marches on London, 645 ; arrives at Whitehall, 646 ; the crown offered to, 647 ; chooses his ministers from both parties, 649 ; receives the crown in Holland, 652 permits the de- struction of the Highlanders of Glen- coe, 654 ; dissolves his first parliament, '656 ; defeats James II. at the battle of the Boyne, ib. ; deprives Marlborough of his offices, 658 ; defeated at Stein- kirk and Neerwinden, ib. ; places the Whig Junto in office, 659 ; his grief at his wife’s death, 661 ; takes Namur, 663 : trusts the Dutch more than the English. 664 ; plot for the assassina- tion of, 665 ; compelled to reduce the army, 667 ; signs the first Partition Treaty, 668 ; opposed by the House of Commons, 670 ; signs the second INDEX I 04 Q WIL Partition Treaty, 671 : appoints a To^ ministry, 672 ; forms the Grand Alliance, 675 ; death of, 676 William IV., accession of, 898 : ^ dis- misses the first Melbourne ministry, 912 William, son of Henry I., wrecked, 129 William Clito, son of Robert, 129 William Longbeard, 169, 170 William of Malmesbury, 129 William of Newburgh, 167 William the Lion, king of Scotland, acknowledges himself to be a vassal of Henry II., 154 ; frees himself from vassalage, 159 Williams, John, Archbishop of York, impeachment of, 535 Winceby, fight at, 542 Winchelsey, Archbishop, 221 Winchester, secular canons driven out of, 68 : burial of William II. at, 122 ; Stephen chosen king at, 13 1 ; taken by Cromwell, 549 Windham enters Pitt’s cabinet, 828 Winnington Bridge, Booth defeated at, Winwaed, the battle of, 48 Wishart, George, burnt, 413 Witenagemot, the, constitution of, 45 ; discussion on the acceptance of Chris- tianity in, 46 : constitutional powers of, 74 ; becomes the Great Council, 113 ; see Great Council, the Witt, John de. Pensionary of Holland, 589 ; negotiates the Triple Alliance, 599 ; murder of, 605 Wolfe. General, sent against Quebec, 753 ; death of, 756 Wolfe Tone ; see Tone, Wolfe Wolseley. Sir Garnet, defeats Arabi at Tel-el-Kebir, 971 WoLey, Thomas, Cardinal, rise of, 363 ; magnificence of, 364 ; supports a policy of peace, 365, 366 ; comes into the House of Commons, 371 ; becomes unpopular on account of the Amicable Loan, 372 ; secures his position by an alliance with France, 374 ; aspires to the papacy, 375 ; is named legate a latere, ib. ; hiis views on Church re- form, 376 ; founds two colleges, 377 ; fails to persuade Henry VIII. to abandon Anne Boleyn, 380 ; is ap- pointed legate to try Henry’s divorce, 382 : fall of, 383 ; death of, 384 Women, education of, in the Middle Ages, 6s Wonderful Parliament, the, 280 Wood’s halfpence, 718 Worcester, battle of, 564 ZWl Worcester, secular canons driven from, 68 Wordsworth, poetry of, 889 Wren, Sir Christopher, buildings by, 632 Wnothesley, Lord Chancellor, excluded from the Council, 412 Wroxeter, see Viriconium Wulfhere maintains the independence of Mercia, 48 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, rebellion and exe- cution of, 423 WyclifFe, John, his doctrines, 261 ; sum- moned before an ecclesiastical court at St. Paul’s, 262 : sends out ‘ poor priests,’ and renounces transubstantia- tion, 266 ; retires, and dies, 269 Wykeham, William of, deprived of the Chancellorship, 260 ; restored to the Council, and again dismissed, 262 Yarmouth supports Stephen, 134 York (see Eboracum) submits to Harold Hardrada, 95 ; taken by William I., 102 : devastation of the Vale of, 103 ; massacre of Jews at, 160 ; Charles I. at, 537 ; siege of, 542 ^ Y ork, Archbishop of, his right to crown a king questioned, 149 York, Archbishopric of, founded, 46 York, Duke of Edmund (son of Edward III.), joins Henry IV., 285 York, Duke of, second son of George III. , commands in the Netherlands, 826 York, James, Duke of, see James II. York, Richard, Duke of (father of Edward IV.), is regent in France, 313 ; governs Ireland, 319 ; first Protectorate of, 323 : second Protectorate of, 324 ; driven to Ireland, 326 ; claims the throne, 327 ; defeated and slain, 328 York, Richard, Duke of (son of Edward IV. ), lodged in the Tower, 341 ; murdered, 342 Yorke, Charles, suicide of, 776 Yorktown, Cornwallis capitulates at, 794 Zemindary of the district around Cal- cutta granted to the East India Com- pany, 764; Clive receives the quit- rent for, 80 r Zulu war, the, 970 Zurich, treaty of, 957 Zutphen, death of Sir Philip Sidney at, 4.57 Zwingli, teaching of, 390 Zwinglianism, spread of, in England, 399 ; Cranmer’s attitude towards, 416 INDEX 1050 SUPPLEMENTARY INDEX Afroplanes, 996 Algeciras Conference (1906), 985 Aliens Act (1905), 983 Angio-Fren h Asreement (1904), 985 Anglo-German A^ree ent (1900), 983 Anglo-Japanese Alliances of 1902 and 9 3. 984 . , Anglo-Riissian Convention (1907), 986 Arc ic discoviries, 997 Armenia, massacres in, 9-4; revolt of Cretan Ci>nsti ns, 974 ; Cretans obtain sel -governmen , 975 Army reform, 988 Asquit I, Mr., ministry o^ 988 Atlantic fisherie- dis *ute stttl d, 990 Australia, I’Opulation of, 968 ; Common- wealth of, 988 ; opening of first Commonwealt 1 Parliam nt, 989 Au tria- Hungary annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, 991 Bat.fot R, Mr. A. J., ministry of, 981, 988 Boer War, 9°o Bosnia, annexed by Austria-Hungary, 99 1 Bulgaria, pro laimed an independent ki'igdom, 991 Bu ler. General, relieves Ladysmith, 978 Campbem -Bavnerman, Sir H., minis- try of (1905-8), 988 Chamberlain, Mr . tariff reform policy of. 987 ; as colonial Secretary, 987, 989 China, war between Japan and, 976 ; defeat of, 976 ; nossible break-up of, 976 : massacre of Cninese Christians and mis ionaries in, 976 ; intervention of I he Powers, 976 ; order restored in, 976 Colonies, the, and the Mother Country, 989 Crete, declares union with Greece, 991 Crimes Act (1887), 973 Delcass^, M., French foreign minister, 985 Dogger Bank incident, 984 ‘ Dreadnought’ battleships, 989 Earthquakes in 1906-8, 997 Edward VII., King, acces-ion of, 979 ; coronation, 979 : labours of in interests of peace and international arbitration, 9^5, 086 ; death of, 996 Education Act (1902), 981 Electoral reform, 993 ; Plural Voting Bill, 993 ; redistribution, 993 ; pro- portional representation, 993; woman s sufirag , 993; the r ferendum, 993; proposed reform of House of Lords, 994 Elementary Education Act (1870), 973 Entente Cordiale, 985 Finance Bill 1909 and the dissolu- tion, 994 Foreign oolicy in the reign of Edward VII., 983986 France, agreement of with England, 98/ George V., King, access'on of, 996 Gladston-, Mr., third ministry of, 972; his Home Rule Bill, 972 ; fourth ministry' of, 974 ; resignation of, 974 Haldane, Mr., army scheme of (1907), 988 Herzegovina, annexed by Austria- Hungary, 991 Imperial Conference of 1909, 989 India, unrest and sedition in, 990 Irish Land .Act (1896), 974 Irish Land Purchase Act (1903), 982 Kitchener, Lord, reconquest of the Soudan by, 975 ; concluaes the war in So ith A'rica, 981 Kruger, President, refuses to grant political rights to British outlanders, 977 ; publishes declaration of war and invades Briti h colonies, 977 ; with- draws to Europe, 978 Labour Party, the, and Socialists, 991, 992 ; compuls ory levies to pay their members 01 parlia ment declared illegal, 992 Li sensing Act (1904), 983 Lloyd George, Mr., ucceeds as Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, 988 ; finance hill of, 994, 995 Militia, abolition of, 988 Morocco, war in Motors, 996 Navy reform, 988 New Zealand, government of, 968 Old-age Pensions Act (1908), 992 INDEX 1051 PAN Panama Canal, 986 Plan of Campaign, 973 Poor Law Commission (1905-9), 983, ^99^ 993 , . . „ Poriugal, revolution in, 987 Radium discovered. 997 Rol/rrts. Lord, re’ieves Kimberley, and occupies capitals of Free State and Transvaal, 977 ; is succeeded in South A'rica by Lord Kitchener, 981 Roo-evelt Mr., President of United States, 984, 986 Rosebery, L rd, succeeds Mr. Gladstone as Prime M ni'ter, 974 Roshdestvensiiy, Admiral. 984 Ku sia war wit ■ Japa ■, 984 ; convention with Enyland signed (1907), 986 ; re- volutionary movements in, 986 ; con- stitution giantvd and dumas elected, 986 RuS'O-Japanese War (1904-5), 984 Salishury. L^rd, first ministry of, 972 ; sec ond mini--iry of, 973 ; Irish policy oL 973 ; tt.ird mini- try of, 974 Servia anti-dynasiic plot in, 986 Social leform : Labour Party and SocialUt', 991, 992 ; socia'i-m adopted by the Labour Party and the trade uni«ms, 992 Sou'h Af ica, population of 969 ; war in, 976 ; peace proclaimed, 981 ; colonies of, decide in favour of Union, 990 ; firs' Un'on Parliament opened , 990 Soudan, reconquest of, 975 Sweden and Norway, union repealed, 98c. : Prince Carl of Denmark e ected King of Norway as Haakon VII., 987 YOU Tariff Reform versus Free Trade, 987 Tibet, expedition into (1903), 990 Togo, Admiral, 984 Trades Disputes Act (1906), 992 Transvaal, war in, 976, 980, 981 ; Jameson’s raid, 977 : British out- landers petition Queen, 977 ; war de- claied, 977; annexation of, 978: guerilla warfare, 980, 981 ; peace proclaimed, 981 Turk- y, revolution in, 990 ; counter- rcvolu ion unsuccessfully attempted, 991 Two-Power standard explained, 989 Unemploykd Workmen Act (1905), 983 United States, the, and the New- foundland fisheries. 990 Upper Burma, annexation of, 972 Venezuela, dispute as to boundary, 975 ; impression cone rning, in United States, 9/6 ; judgment ot court of arbitration, 976 Vereeniging, Peace of, 981 Victoria, Queen, death of, 978 Volunteers reorganised as a territorial force, 988 Wireless telegraphy, 996 Younghusband, General, expedition into Tibet (1903), 990 AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE AND CO. 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